Support NeoGAF

[ultron87]

Release Date and Platforms:
iOS/Android Tablets: June 25 (No online play on Android)
PSN: (NA) June 25, (EUR) June 26, (Japan/Asia) June 27th
PC/Steam: June 26
XBLA: June 26

Price: $10

What's this all about?
It is the annual digital version of the venerable collectible card game Magic: The Gathering! You can choose one of 10 prebuilt decks to battle it out online or off. As you win duels you’ll unlock more cards to customize each deck to your liking. It also has a bunch of Magic board state puzzles, which are by far the best part. If you’re a Magic veteran this can be a wonderful cheap way to get some games in on the go. If you used to play this will bring back some great memories (and possibly cause a relapse, like 2012 did for me). And if you’re a newcomer this is probably the single best way to learn the rules and get acquainted with a truly fantastic game.

Sealed Play!
The big new feature this year is the sealed deck more where you get 6 boosters to build a 40 card deck entirely from scratch (including manually adding lands). You can win two more boosters through a quick campaign and then take your deck online to battle others. There is an unfortunate/shitty/gross caveat to all this. You start with slots for two sealed pools and once you use those slots you are stuck with those pools forever. The only way to get more slots (and therefore more rolls at the awesome deck lottery) is through microtransactions. Here's a community put together list of cards currently known to be in the pool: http://www.community.wizards.com/go...7/DotP_2014_Sealed_cardpool_discussion_thread

Promo Cards!
As in past years your purchase of the game will get you a code that can be used to get a promo physical card at your local card store, while supplies last (which isn’t very long, usually). The promos are platform specific: Steam/iPad/Android - Scavenging Ooze, PSN - Ogre Battledriver, Xbox - Bonescythe Sliver.

Decks!

Here are the ten decks that come with the base game. We can safely expect approximately ten more to be released over time as DLC. Includes my extremely quick reaction to reading each list and exactly zero experience actually playing them. You can click each deck's name to see the full decklist + unlocks.

Avacyn’s Glory

White deck containing quite a few angels and humans, many of the which are taken from the Innistrad block. It looks like you could pretty easily edit this into either a White Weenie deck taking advantage of all the human synergies for a lot of aggressive starts or try and play for the long game hoping win with impressive angels like Baneslayer Angel and Avacyn herself.

Masks of the Dimir

Blue and Black deck featuring lots of Dimir cards from the two Ravnica blocks. Contains a lot of discard spells, evasive creatures and tempo effects. Not really sure the best way to build this deck after looking at the unlocks, but maybe this can be the time to finally get value from cards with Cipher.

Chant of Mul Daya

Do you like big creatures? This Green deck is where you want to go. Contains lots of ramp effects that top out into such impressive creatures as Primeval Titan, Pelakka Wurm, and several of the lesser Eldrazi(!). Looks like a big choice to make in building this deck is whether to focus on almost exclusively colorless creatures at the top end or to go with big green stuff.

Enter the Dracomancer

A Jund (Black/Red/Green) deck that looks to clog up the ground with some small frys while using Dragonspeaker Shaman to rush out one or more members of an impressive suite of large dragons, many of which can then use the Devour ability to eat up those small fries to be even more powerful. This one will definitely get better with unlocks where it gains access to some great removal spells like Maelstrom Pulse.

Sliver Hive

Slivers are back in this Naya (White/Red/Green) deck. All the Slivers here are from new breed of slivers that, somewhat controversially, only buff their allies and look like Predator. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t have a great time putting together the ultimate hive of ally buffing insect thingies. And if all else fails you can just Armageddon!

Firewave

In a shocking plot twist Chandra is angry and wants to burn things. You can help by playing this Red deck full of burn spells and recurring phoenixes. You can either go for the long game win with finishers like Hostility and Inferno Titan or you can slam down a Sulfuric Vortex or two and put them on a short fuse.

Guardians of Light

Aura deck! Aura deck! Through down some little white guys and make them way bigger with auras like Spirit Mantle and Daybreak Coronet. Includes lots of creatures and effects that somewhat defray the inherent card advantage risks of auras as well. Also has a mild life gain theme if that is your jam. At least it doesn’t have anything hexproof this year.

Hunter’s Strength

Spiders and Beasts and Trample, oh my! This is more of a middle of the road green deck where it actually has some action besides ramping early on. It still can play impressive creatures like Craterhoof Behemoth and Regal Force, but you’re probably more likely to win off some smaller guys pumped with Rancors or a timely casting of Overrun.

Mind Maze

Did you play Duels 2012? Remember the Illusion deck? It's back! Your fragile illusions will suddenly become very well protected when a Lord of the Unreal hits the field. Also contains a good number of counterspells to keep your early team fighting. Tip: You probably don't want to play that Omniscience.

Deadwalkers

Ahh Zombies! Here is the black deck for all your flavorful recurring from the grave fun. Be aggressive with Gravecrawler after Gravecrawler and Geralf’s Messenger or just wait till your opponent dies to the relentless Endless Ranks of the Dead. Similar to a lot of the other decks this probably has a beat down variation with all the cheap zombies and a more controlling variation with Mutilate and Grave Titan.

Other Resources!

Magic: The GAFering |OT2| - Our little Off-Topic Community home for discussing all aspects of the card game and just what precise thing is killing Magic this week.
The Official Wizard's DOTP Forum - Find decklists, complaints and bug reports all brought to you in a glorious 10 posts per page!

 

[IllumiNate]

Day one, iOS

Will hold me over until Hex in September.

 

[daemissary]

Hey, this thread reminds me that I bought the 2013 version day 1 last year and totally forgot to redeem my promo card....whoops.

 

[Doomshine]

Man, is that what slivers look like these days? :/

 

[TheSeks]

I really wish the promo cards had an option to redeem on MtG:O.

 

[Goldmund]

I don't like playing pre-built decks, so the "sealed deck" has got me interested. I haven't played Magic since high school, -- how does this play? Is it super flashy with cards flying around (which I wouldn't like), or very plain and elegant?

 

[bigkrev]

Man, is that what slivers look like these days? :/

The entire MTG community has been bitching about this change since the reveal a few months ago.

I'm kinda bummed that none of the decks look like anything I would ever want to play. Why can't they give us a decent control deck in these games just once?

 

[ultron87]

I don't like playing pre-built decks, so the "sealed deck" has got me interested. I haven't played Magic since high school, -- how does this play? Is it super flashy with cards flying around (which I wouldn't like), or very plain and elegant?

It isn't that flashy. The cards do fly around a bit, but it is really just the same motions they'd make in the paper game (ie it'll go from your hand, to floating above the table while waiting to resolve, and then be put down). There are some spells effect like little fire special effects for burn spells as well, but I think you can turn those off. There isn't anything crazy like creatures coming out of the cards to fight or anything like that. The focus remains on the cards themselves like it should be.

Here's a gameplay video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYCZuQxfJWI

 

[RedBoot]

So on the Sealed Deck pools, I assume we can just delete the decks and play Sealed again? I don't care much about saving the decks, I just wanna play Sealed over and over.

 

[Carpe Libertatem]

So on the Sealed Deck pools, I assume we can just delete the decks and play Sealed again? I don't care much about saving the decks, I just wanna play Sealed over and over.

Nope. $2 for each extra deck past the first two.

 

[BlackJace]

They release these faster than I can get through them. I'm still in the middle of 2013

 

[RedBoot]

Nope. $2 for each extra deck past the first two.

Even if I delete my save file on PS3 (or the equivalent on Steam)? I can't see them being able to prevent someone from deleting the save file...

I've been waiting since Shandalar for a new Sealed Deck mode...

 

[Card Boy]

Already pre-ordered like every other year. Its only $10 and cheaper than physical cards, plus i get thousands of people to play against.

 

[duxstar]

Explain the Microtransaction part, you build a deck with 6 cards, and lands, then have 2 slots for 2 "other cards" and in order to get more slots to complete the decks you have to microtransaction/hope you hit the lottery and get a card you dont have?

I was afraid they'd microtransaction this shit but ..... not like this, I liked unlocking all the cards in a deck

 

[ultron87]

Explain the Microtransaction part, you build a deck with 6 cards, and lands, then have 2 slots for 2 "other cards" and in order to get more slots to complete the decks you have to microtransaction/hope you hit the lottery and get a card you dont have?

I was afraid they'd microtransaction this shit but ..... not like this, I liked unlocking all the cards in a deck

Check this video out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEQVZf8qxYo

You open six boosters and build a deck out of just those cards (plus lands). Each purchasable slot is a new set of boosters to build from.

Even if I delete my save file on PS3 (or the equivalent on Steam)? I can't see them being able to prevent someone from deleting the save file...

I've been waiting since Shandalar for a new Sealed Deck mode...

I would not be shocked if someone figured out a way to reset it.

Their stated reason for doing this is so that people can't just constantly reroll their sealed for online play, which does make some sense, but there should be some way to do it offline, hopefully. One would assume it is tied to accounts or something, but on Xbox at least you can make infinite new profiles and I can't imagine them locking out sealed for all but the main profile or anything crazy like that.

 

[Carpe Libertatem]

Even if I delete my save file on PS3 (or the equivalent on Steam)? I can't see them being able to prevent someone from deleting the save file...

I've been waiting since Shandalar for a new Sealed Deck mode...

I don't think anyone knows. Can't imagine Wizards would allow for such a blatant oversight, though. Or maybe they would. Who knows. Would be nice if that were possible, though.

 

[ElyrionX]

Played the first two or three DOTPs but skipped the last two. Will be back for this one.

Are cards still unlocked only by winning? With ten decks, it's going to take an insane amount of time to unlock everything.

Still can't decide iPad or PC.

 

[Card Boy]

You actually get 9 booster packs. 6 straight up, and another 3 from the Sealed campaign. OP only mentions 8.

 

[Carpe Libertatem]

Played the first two or three DOTPs but skipped the last two. Will be back for this one.

Are cards still unlocked only by winning? With ten decks, it's going to take an insane amount of time to unlock everything.

Still can't decide iPad or PC.

You could always get a save file with the decks unlocked. Although that may sort of take the fun out of the game for some.

You actually get 9 booster packs. 6 straight up, and another 3 from the Sealed campaign.

This is actually pretty cool. Slightly more interested now

 

[duxstar]

Ummmmmm ...... stupid question since all I've played are the 2 versions on the PS3, but isn't the ideal deck supposedly "60" cards, but in Sealed campaign you only have 40? Am I missing something here, or isn't the "optimum" number 60?

 

[rCIZZLE]

Their stated reason for doing this is so that people can't just constantly reroll their sealed for online play.

So surely they're putting a limit to the amount of times someone can spend $2? For fairness, of course.

 

[zulux21]

I don't think anyone knows. Can't imagine Wizards would allow for such a blatant oversight, though. Or maybe they would. Who knows. Would be nice if that were possible, though.

we will see, I am fully planning to delete my save after the first sealed deck I play to find out. I will be there playing day 1 though there is no way I am preordering, as I don't like being punished for preordering :/ (stupid full deck unlocks as bonuses) Given the past I feel it is highly likely you will be able to delete your save and unlock your sealed slots that way. The only way it wouldn't work like that is if they have dedicated servers hosting the sealed decks which given their past history with these releases seems highly unlikely. I assume with in a week people will have fully broken sealed play and are just playing with massively over powered decks that are just hacked in, as hacked decks have been a thing in all of the magic games. It's why I just play with people I know and not random people.

either way I am excited for sealed play, if they some how actually did manage to make it so you can't remove your save and start a new on sealed decks then maybe if they put the slots on sale for 75% off (so 50 cents a slot) I would buy some more.

I'm curious to see how the story turns out. I am looking forward to the idea of a more overall story to the game to make the campaign a bit more than just battling until I unlock my decks and then facing the decks I like to face.

So surely they're putting a limit to the amount of times someone can spend $2? For fairness, of course.

yup 18 times. They figure after you have dumped $36 extra into sealed play you will be ready to just move onto magic online lol.
I think they figure correctly.

 

[Card Boy]

I might chuck $2 down. I'm making free cash from selling TF2 and Steam cards anyway.

 

[ultron87]

They should've just made like 30 or 40 pre built sealed pools that are somewhat balanced and don't have any possibility of the nuts triple bomb + all the removal pool. And then just let you reroll.

Ummmmmm ...... stupid question since all I've played are the 2 versions on the PS3, but isn't the ideal deck supposedly "60" cards, but in Sealed campaign you only have 40? Am I missing something here, or isn't the "optimum" number 60?

The minimum deck size for Sealed is 40 because getting enough playable cards in the same colors for a 60 card deck (which is the size of constructed decks where you bring your own cards) would be pretty tough from only opening six boosters. You can make the deck bigger, but that just means you're less likely to draw your best cards.

 

[RedBoot]

I would not be shocked if someone figured out a way to reset it.

Their stated reason for doing this is so that people can't just constantly reroll their sealed for online play, which does make some sense, but there should be some way to do it offline, hopefully. One would assume it is tied to accounts or something, but on Xbox at least you can make infinite new profiles and I can't imagine them locking out sealed for all but the main profile or anything crazy like that.

Outside of storing people's sealed deck pools on a server (which would make the game require an online connection, yay!), I can't see any way of preventing people from deleting their save files. I mean, I can just scroll over to the save file on the PS3's UMB and delete it. You can't prevent a user from deleting a save file (unless you're Capcom on the 3DS). Of course, the downside to this would be that you'd have to constantly start over in the main campaign, as well as lose any sealed decks you would want to keep for online play.

I can somewhat understand their reasoning (and I know how deathly afraid Wizards has always been of making a digital version of Magic that could completely replace the paper version) but shit, I just want to play sealed deck over and over again against the AI. I've been doing that in Shandalar forever, and I'm tired of using super-old cards.

 

[Lasdrub]

Does it have a co-op two-headed-giant campaign? That was in the first game and in none since. That made that game so much cooler. The other games had co-op modes, but they kinda sucked.

 

[Sinatar]

Multiple 3 colour decks and no dual lands of any kind still. This game needs to leave amateur hour already, it's the 4th one.

 

[Zocano]

I'll be buying this just like I have bought the other 3 games (and their respective DLCs). I just love playing through the campaigns with prebuilt decks. Yah, sure, I still can't make my own 60 card deck but I still enjoy the act of playing magic as much as I do creating decks.

They really should have just added a draft format into the game. That would have been very fun and little risk of 'dominating decks' that they seem to fear with how they approached sealed since you would just lose the cards after the draft. Though that just makes me wonder why they didn't just go with that. I understand that a full sealed or draft event lasts like 3-4 hours but I'd rather just have something like that rather than the set up they have now.

Multiple 3 colour decks and no dual lands of any kind still. This game needs to leave amateur hour already, it's the 4th one.

And yah, this has always bugged me. It's not like they can take the cards out and go win in MTGO or anything. They really should just make really balanced and "top tier" decks with crazy cards and crazy combos. Just go all out with the decks. And have goofy decks, too. I dunno.

 

[KuroNeeko]

Does MtGO have a stable community? It's hard to believe that people still play that game. Should be interesting to see what DotP becomes next year in the wake of HEX.

Check this video out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEQVZf8qxYo

You open six boosters and build a deck out of just those cards (plus lands). Each purchasable slot is a new set of boosters to build from.

but on Xbox at least you can make infinite new profiles and I can't imagine them locking out sealed for all but the main profile or anything crazy like that.

Wouldn't you then need Gold to play online? :/

So once you have all of your "pools" filled (2 standard / 6? w microtransactions), you're stuck with that forever? In other words, you can only initiate the Sealed Deck experience 6 (or whatever the maximum is with microtransactions) times?

 

[Dami3N]

why oh why is this not on vita!

 

[Tak3n]

Never heard of this game, is it a posh top trumps?

 

[Nikodemos]

Does MtGO have a stable community? It's hard to believe that people still play that game.

It's surprisingly healthy, though, sadly, New Extended is as dead as it has always been. Wizards have started supporting more non-competitive formats, like Commander (the old Elder Dragon Highlander) and Standard Pauper.

Never heard of this game, is it a posh top trumps?

*Wikis Top Trumps*

Err, no. It's basically a strategy game, where you construct a resource base and use those resources to summon creatures and lob effects at your opponent(s).

 

[zerokoolpsx]

Kind of burned from pre-ordering last time too. Multiple expansion packs and other dlc too all included in the base game for a cheaper price months down the line.

 

[Card Boy]

Kind of burned from pre-ordering last time too. Multiple expansion packs and other dlc too all included in the base game for a cheaper price months down the line.

But you literally denying yourself out of enjoyment just to save 5-10 bucks...

The only DLC that is worth it is just the Deck Packs that add new cards, you don't need foils and deck unlocks.

 

[Tizoc]

Tch due to microtransaction, I'll just wait for a 'GotY'-like release....unless EU PSN decides to give to Plus as one of the July freebies oh my gaaaaaaaaaaah

Spoiler

I'd still wait for the GotY edition...when it's on sale

At any rate, will stick with playing 2013 until 2014 is on sale or such.

 

[Hasney]

Waiting on a Steam sale. Want to do Sealed play, but not at those prices. They usually drop the DLC prices too, so I'll grab it then.

 

[Markoff_Chaney]

Regarding Steam, does anyone know if you don't pre-purchase if you then can't get Chandra's Firewave deck? Steam seems to explicitly state this, but I remember there being some issues with pre-purchasing these in the past, so I've held off thus far.

Looking forward to playing this again. I've held off purchasing physical cards for about 18 years (while still having a couple decks cobbled together before I yanked the needle out) but I do so enjoy the game. Oh how I enjoy it...

-EDIT- I would love this on the Vita as well. The Uncharted CCG didn't quite do it for me and this would be a perfect match for the Vita.

 

[archnemesis]

They're selling a separate Firewave unlock key for €0.99 so I guess you have to pay extra for it if you don't pre-order.

 

[Deadman]

Sounds good, i like the look of some of the new decks.

I hope they add a deck similar to talrand/crosswind, that was my favourite deck in 2013.

 

[zulux21]

Regarding Steam, does anyone know if you don't pre-purchase if you then can't get Chandra's Firewave deck? Steam seems to explicitly state this, but I remember there being some issues with pre-purchasing these in the past, so I've held off thus far.

They're selling a separate Firewave unlock key for €0.99 so I guess you have to pay extra for it if you don't pre-order.

it should work the same as always where that is just the full deck unlock. You should still be able to play the campaign, unlock the deck, and then play games to unlock more cards for the deck.

It's why I consider it a punishment to preorder though, as I play the game to kill time late at night when I can't sleep to unlock cards and I rarely play the decks I have the cards unlocked for. Which sucked in 2013 because the white life gain deck was one of my favorite decks to play, but it was fully unlocked due to either preordering or owning 2012... can't remember which one.

 

[ultron87]

Regarding Steam, does anyone know if you don't pre-purchase if you then can't get Chandra's Firewave deck? Steam seems to explicitly state this, but I remember there being some issues with pre-purchasing these in the past, so I've held off thus far.

They're selling a separate Firewave unlock key for €0.99 so I guess you have to pay extra for it if you don't pre-order.

You definitely get access to all ten decks if you buy the game pre-order or not. The unlock key they are selling just unlocks all 30 extra cards in the deck without you having to win 30 games. The wording on the Steam preorder seems to suggest otherwise but if it works like every other year it just means that the Chandra deck would come fully unlocked (which I'd actually say is a negative).

 

[marrec]

Yep, I'm stoked. Even at 2 dollars a sealed deck, if the card pool is big enough then I'm happy.

 

[JetBlackPanda]

Argggg! Sealed sounds so awesome and they go and micro transaction it.

 

[kodt]

Argggg! Sealed sounds so awesome and they go and micro transaction it.

Of course if they didn't, everyone would just keep doing free sealed decks until they unlocked the full set, and then play with an unbalanced deck.

 

[Hasney]

Of course if they didn't, everyone would just keep doing free sealed decks until they unlocked the full set, and then play with an unbalanced deck.

Considering they've limited how much you can buy anyway, they could have let you earn drops through gameplay.

 

[coopolon]

I really hope the save system is exploitable. Just use gamesavemanager to back up your save before starting a sealed deck, play and have fun, then revert to your previous save so you don't lose main campaign progress/unlocks. It's annoying to have to do that, but it shouldn't take much more than a minute.

$2 an unlock...pfft. The whole point of DoTP is it's a set amount of money for me - the main game then the few expansion packs. It's too bad they're making the biggest improvement yet - deck building - but at the same time putting it behind microtransactions to make it unappealing.

Is shandalar still workable on modern windows? I have it somewhere in my parents house, I've always assumed it would be broken as hell but maybe it's worth digging out.

 

[Ken]

Can you play online multiplayer between iOS and Windows version?

 

[Fragamemnon]

Multiple 3 colour decks and no dual lands of any kind still. This game needs to leave amateur hour already, it's the 4th one.

Yeah I hate this so much. The decks are always half-assed in some form shape or another. Like, I remember one release where I could stuff stoneforge mystics and sword of war and peace into the deck, but then had like terrible creatures and was mono-white.

I get that this is My First Magic, but it's always a bummer. Then again anything new in MTG is generally a bummer, outside of the four cards in a block that are undercosted creatures or overpowered engine cards.

 

[Sinatar]

I really hope the save system is exploitable. Just use gamesavemanager to back up your save before starting a sealed deck, play and have fun, then revert to your previous save so you don't lose main campaign progress/unlocks. It's annoying to have to do that, but it shouldn't take much more than a minute.

$2 an unlock...pfft. The whole point of DoTP is it's a set amount of money for me - the main game then the few expansion packs. It's too bad they're making the biggest improvement yet - deck building - but at the same time putting it behind microtransactions to make it unappealing.

Is shandalar still workable on modern windows? I have it somewhere in my parents house, I've always assumed it would be broken as hell but maybe it's worth digging out.

Yea I imagine it'll take all of 5 minutes for someone to find a way to reset it on PC.

 

[Tizoc]

Say does Chandra look like a generic bald dudebro to anyone else in some of her nwe artwork?