Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 Review

Of the many popular trading card games out there, the first and one of the biggest of the bunch is Magic: The Gathering. Introduced back in 1993, MTG has stuck around for a very long time and, even today, has a devoted fanbase that still collect the cards and play official matches. As with anything that has such popularity, it’s only natural that video games were developed based around the property. Now, after two previous entries in the Duels of the Planeswalkers series of Magic games, the 2013 version has come around for players, both old and new, to sink their teeth into. Does the third entry hold up to the generally positive response of the first two? Read on and I will explain.

Before getting into the thick of this, I want to make it perfectly clear that, prior to playing this game, I had never touched Magic: The Gathering before. Of course, due to its popularity, I had heard of it many times, but I never knew anything about how it worked or what the game was really about. Due to that fact, I think the best way I can review the game would be to take you on my experience playing through the various ins and outs this game has to offer. So, let’s begin.

As someone who entered this game knowing nothing about it, I naturally went straight to the tutorial offered to learn everything I would need to actually start playing. So, after going through those instructions, did I have a good understanding of the game? To put it simply, yes. The tutorial was quite extensive on the whole, covering basic controls, gameplay mechanics, the land system, and various other intricacies fully, to the point where I felt like I knew what I was doing before I even started my first game. Granted, there were some details I was still a bit fuzzy with, but those were relatively small issues in the grand scheme of things, and I quickly ironed out those holes through actual play. Unlike many other games of this nature, the developers made sure that a new player would have a fair understand of the system. This is a welcome change from the norm and, regardless of anything else, having a tutorial like this is a big plus.

One of these things is not like the other. One of these things … is an owl.

After I felt confident in my understanding, I continued to the campaign mode to see if I was as comfortable with the system as I thought I was. The campaign is split into the more straightforward duels against other characters and special encounters that required finding a solution to a set strategy the opponent used. Beating an actual opponent was rewarded with the ability to use the deck the opponent was using, as only two of the ten possible decks are available from the beginning. All the different decks and situations provided a diverse campaign to play through as the constantly shifting conditions ensured that no opponent used the exact same strategy. There were even extra challenges and tougher battles when the main story was finished. Unfortunately, this variety was lost to me due to my quickly developing feelings about the actual gameplay itself as I played through the campaign.

Assuming that this game follows the same rules as the actual Magic card game, I have to say that I do not like the basic system for Magic very much, if at all. It’s a simple enough concept to understand, but there are problems is the basic gameplay for me that all come down to one large issue. This card game relies too heavily on luck. Before anyone says it, yes, I do realize that more or less every card game under the sun has a fair amount of luck to it, mostly through drawing cards. However, the amount to which luck factored in here seemed to be far higher than any other game I have ever tried.

Considering how the land cards are used and distributed, it’s rare to have a diverse hand for very long, unless your deck is designed around drawing cards. As such, the initial hand is absolutely vital. If you get a bad hand at the start and you can’t mulligan a better hand, by which I mean drawing a new hand at the cost of one card each time, then it becomes nearly impossible to win. I had more matches than I would like to count where I didn’t make a single mistake, but my draw wasn’t good enough to win, even against the easiest AI. On a return challenge however, I could mop the floor with the enemy without even trying, all depending on that draw. By no means am I saying that the card game itself is inherently bad, but I can clearly say that I don’t enjoy the form present here.