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Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 |OT|
- Thread starter divisionbyzorro
- Start date
NameGenerated
Who paid you to grab Dr. Pavel?
Anyone? I still can't do anything. This is really annoying. I've tried restarting Steam twice but that doesn't work.NameGenerated said:
Shai-Tan
Banned
I've been able to enter some games but that is the exception. I was thinking it was a NAT problem (try to connect two people with nat and you often run into problems) as I had a similar issue with a few other p2p games until I set up some manual rules (upnp not working). Unfortunately I don't know what ports it requires.
Their quick match option in the matchmaking system is probably also badly designed for many people clicking simultaneously but I can't connect to people who are sitting in their lobbies for many minutes in the manual area.
Their quick match option in the matchmaking system is probably also badly designed for many people clicking simultaneously but I can't connect to people who are sitting in their lobbies for many minutes in the manual area.
NameGenerated
Who paid you to grab Dr. Pavel?
Clicking any multiplayer icon literally does nothing. It's not even a case like in a fighting game where multiple people try for 1 space and it doesn't work and you just try again. I can't even click to host a game. Then a "Connection Failed. Do you want to try again?" message appears and clicking yes just fails it again in an endless loop, while clicking no obviously gets me nowhere.
NameGenerated
Who paid you to grab Dr. Pavel?
Nope, didn't do anything, thanks though. Maybe it'll suddenly work tomorrow. I'll stop clogging up the thread about it.
I'm looking for a buddy for non-ranked 2HG on 360. Somebody who knows what's he doing, preferably 
I was playing with some guy rocking the green deck. He had a giant growth but he didn't know he could use it on my creatures. He had no mic so I took the risk of attacking, in hopes that he would boost my Primeval Titan, but nope, he left it to die like a pos.
I'm playing the U/G deck.
I was playing with some guy rocking the green deck. He had a giant growth but he didn't know he could use it on my creatures. He had no mic so I took the risk of attacking, in hopes that he would boost my Primeval Titan, but nope, he left it to die like a pos.
I'm playing the U/G deck.
Have I mentioned how much I despise the black deck? Shit seems way too good. All of the creatures are crazy cheap, most of them seem to have flying, and all have a ton of abilities and the commanders are just absurd. 5 tapping mind control guy, and black card in deck flying dude are so freakin annoying. Not to mention all of the decks insta death cards
I refuse to play it because Ive come to the conclusion that only perverted bastards who like to dip their wanker in peanut butter and say hello to the dog play black deck
I refuse to play it because Ive come to the conclusion that only perverted bastards who like to dip their wanker in peanut butter and say hello to the dog play black deck
Elf deck is too good. I played against a white deck dude who arrested one of those "creature power/defense = number of elves" and two "+1/+1 each green spell" and I still had more then enough to just run him over.
btw, I was having problems with multiplayer too, but now it's alright.
btw, I was having problems with multiplayer too, but now it's alright.
Shai-Tan
Banned
I play mostly with the white deck (Wielding Steel) and it depends on how many of arrest, gideon's lawkeeper, hookmaster that you get unless you let them get all flyers , then it's usually over before Angels are relevant. Basically you keep hookmaster to either prevent immanent damage or set up an attack, same with lawkeeper with its tap spell if you can keep them alive while they are in play.
A few of the creatures that seem weak are pretty good when a few equips are put into play although getting the good ones are hit and miss unless you luck out and get a Stoneforge Mystic that isn't blasted immediately by the other player. The good with equip is you can attack a bit recklessly and then put the equips on another creature after they die. One of the best creatures to put equips on is Kor Duelist. That double strike thing makes attacking less of a unit trade.
A few of the creatures that seem weak are pretty good when a few equips are put into play although getting the good ones are hit and miss unless you luck out and get a Stoneforge Mystic that isn't blasted immediately by the other player. The good with equip is you can attack a bit recklessly and then put the equips on another creature after they die. One of the best creatures to put equips on is Kor Duelist. That double strike thing makes attacking less of a unit trade.
MomoPufflet
Member
The balance in 2012 seems improved in some ways, and overcompensated in others. In the previous iteration (let's call it "2010") there were several decks that were too powerful, or had the potential to be too powerful. In 2012 the balance seems to have been dialed back too much and as a result there are several decks that lack focus and a semblance of core strategy, perhaps out of fear that they would become unbalanced. For example, Ancient Depths has real purpose and is fun to play: this is an example of a good deck. Machinations on the other hand is just painfully dull. It's nowhere near as interesting as the Glaze Fiend deck in 2010-- it's just a bunch of small artifact creatures haphazardly thrown into a stack of cards. 4x Etherium Sculptors doesn't automatically make a deck a good artifact deck.
Another issue in 2012 is land balance. I find myself constantly gasping for mana with Dragon's Roar no matter how many non-land cards I remove, and there are not enough creative means to get dragons onto the field. When I have to cycle through hands three and four times to get more than 1-3 land cards there is a problem. The amount of black spells in the deck and the lack of black lands (6!) is astonishing. Yes, it's true that most or all of them only require one black mana to cast, but in reality it's still meager (especially if you don't edit the deck heavily, which is impossible to do while in the process of unlocking cards due to the 60 card minimum). There are also no means to search your deck for black lands to mitigate this. For these and other reasons, this is another example of a poorly conceived deck, and it really becomes apparent when you play against a deck like Ancient Depths which has fluid, well-considered method for getting big creatures onto the field.
I haven't played through with all the decks yet, but what I've seen has been, sadly, pretty bland. Here are my personal analyses of the decks I've experienced:
Will I buy 2013? Yep. Will I buy every expansion in between? Yerp. But I think they can do better. Oh, and fix the "thinking" time in console single-player, please. Coupled with the constant loading screens it dominates the experience. It's a bit better in the PC version obviously, but there is no reason it should be loading so much and for so long.
Another issue in 2012 is land balance. I find myself constantly gasping for mana with Dragon's Roar no matter how many non-land cards I remove, and there are not enough creative means to get dragons onto the field. When I have to cycle through hands three and four times to get more than 1-3 land cards there is a problem. The amount of black spells in the deck and the lack of black lands (6!) is astonishing. Yes, it's true that most or all of them only require one black mana to cast, but in reality it's still meager (especially if you don't edit the deck heavily, which is impossible to do while in the process of unlocking cards due to the 60 card minimum). There are also no means to search your deck for black lands to mitigate this. For these and other reasons, this is another example of a poorly conceived deck, and it really becomes apparent when you play against a deck like Ancient Depths which has fluid, well-considered method for getting big creatures onto the field.
I haven't played through with all the decks yet, but what I've seen has been, sadly, pretty bland. Here are my personal analyses of the decks I've experienced:
- Ancient Depths (Kiora Atua) - Great deck, has a purpose. Fluid. Dynamic. Fun. I don't like playing against it though because of the constant casts. Teeters on the edge of imbalance without falling off (in my opinion).
- Guardians of the Wood (Nissa Revane) - Pretty good deck, has a purpose. Could be better with more thoughtful card choices. Oscillates between good and great depending on whether or not you get key cards (I suppose this could be said about many decks in MTG, though)
- Machinations (Tezzeret) - Haphazardly assembled, boring, lacks any potential for dynamic strategy. I hated playing with it.
- Dragon's Roar (Sarkhan Vol) - Has a purpose but insufficient means to realize it. Serious land-balance issues. Relies too heavily on getting a very specific series of cards to really work, and even if you get those cards there's a high chance they're going to get canned on the battlefield before you're able to utilize them. And before you say "that's why you wait to cast them" it's already going to be too late in that case, too.
- Wielding Steel (Gideon Jura) - Not memorable, but decent enough. I enjoyed the process of unlocking it.
- Blood Hunger (Sorin Markov) - It's OK. Not nearly as fun as the non-vampire black deck in 2010 (I forget the woman's name). Obviously it's been severely neutered from the 2010 version, and rightly so. I think they may have dialed it back a hair too much, however.
Will I buy 2013? Yep. Will I buy every expansion in between? Yerp. But I think they can do better. Oh, and fix the "thinking" time in console single-player, please. Coupled with the constant loading screens it dominates the experience. It's a bit better in the PC version obviously, but there is no reason it should be loading so much and for so long.
White deck is incredible too, I think. Against an expensive deck like the red rock one and the blue/green one it can get pretty frustrating as white can get some pretty damaging combinations of cheap creatures/equipments. It has problems against the elf deck (which is the green/black one) because you're basically competing on the same turf: cheap creatures, and if white don't shut the game down, it gets overwhelmed.
As for lack of mana, I haven't unlocked the blue/green deck entirely yet, but, while I think it is very good, it depends too much on hitting a sweet spot between land and good useful cards; it's kinda like you either awesome or dead, you can't really balance the board until a key card arrives.
And so, I will disagree on the Nissa deck requiring key cards. If you don't have any powerful card, you are probably filling the board with 1/1s, 1/2s and 2/3s even and they can keep you alive through a lot until a good card comes up.
As for lack of mana, I haven't unlocked the blue/green deck entirely yet, but, while I think it is very good, it depends too much on hitting a sweet spot between land and good useful cards; it's kinda like you either awesome or dead, you can't really balance the board until a key card arrives.
And so, I will disagree on the Nissa deck requiring key cards. If you don't have any powerful card, you are probably filling the board with 1/1s, 1/2s and 2/3s even and they can keep you alive through a lot until a good card comes up.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
So, I ran a couple of tests over the past 2 days. The AI appears to ramp up in difficulty the longer you play. I noticed this after launch and thought I was just crazy. Now, I'm not so sure.
Play Session 1
Game 1 - W
Game 2 - L (bad draws)
Game 3 - W
Game 4 - L
Game 5-10 L
Now, game 4-10 is where I really noticed the way the AI suddenly had an answer for everything that I had in my hand...even when it only had one more card. Other little things popped up too, like the card that allows you to draw 3, and place all creatures into your hand and all others into the graveyard, suddenly always worked for my opponent, but never for me. Not once. Bad luck? Possibly. Possibly not.
Play Session 2
Game 1 - W
Game 2 - W
Game 3 - W
Game 4-10 L
Again, same situation. I started being able to win games again after restarting the game. Before that, I would hit stupidly large mana pools, never pull any power creatures, and all the cards with chance involved never went my way.
Now, I know it sounds like I'm just whining, but it honestly just seems like too much of a coincidence that I noticed it and then the next 2 times I actually took notes, it went exactly as I thought it would. Here are the options as I see them
1) I just suck at Magic - COME AT ME BRO.
2) The game's difficulty ramps up to extend game length
3) I had the confirmation bias - I don't think so, but further testing will bear this out
4) No, seriously, I just suck at Magic - I'm not a newb or anything. I wouldn't even post this if it was the absolute case. I'm not great, but I'm not terrible, either.
Play Session 1
Game 1 - W
Game 2 - L (bad draws)
Game 3 - W
Game 4 - L
Game 5-10 L
Now, game 4-10 is where I really noticed the way the AI suddenly had an answer for everything that I had in my hand...even when it only had one more card. Other little things popped up too, like the card that allows you to draw 3, and place all creatures into your hand and all others into the graveyard, suddenly always worked for my opponent, but never for me. Not once. Bad luck? Possibly. Possibly not.
Play Session 2
Game 1 - W
Game 2 - W
Game 3 - W
Game 4-10 L
Again, same situation. I started being able to win games again after restarting the game. Before that, I would hit stupidly large mana pools, never pull any power creatures, and all the cards with chance involved never went my way.
Now, I know it sounds like I'm just whining, but it honestly just seems like too much of a coincidence that I noticed it and then the next 2 times I actually took notes, it went exactly as I thought it would. Here are the options as I see them
1) I just suck at Magic - COME AT ME BRO.
2) The game's difficulty ramps up to extend game length
3) I had the confirmation bias - I don't think so, but further testing will bear this out
4) No, seriously, I just suck at Magic - I'm not a newb or anything. I wouldn't even post this if it was the absolute case. I'm not great, but I'm not terrible, either.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I maintain that Vampire Nighthawk was a misstep for Wizards. Sure its a good card. Its almost too good. Black should not get a 2/3 flying deathtouch lifelink for three mana with no drawback. Black isn't supposed to have that kind of creature efficiency.red_13th said:I really hate when Sorin drops the unblockable dude because then there's no way I can prevent him from getting the Bloodthirst bonus with his stupid vampires.
MomoPufflet
Member
Sblargh said:
I don't think the Nissa deck requires key cards, per say. But when you get one of the elf multiplier creatures at the right time it really flows in the way that I think Ancient Depths flows. When I said it could use more thoughtful card choices, I meant it could use another Imperious Perfect and another Lys Alana Huntmaster. Also, several cards get in the way of the core strategy of the deck, in my opinion: Viridian Shaman, Essence Drains (when I have them in there I have issues with black mana, again), Elven Riders seem pointless here compared to in 2010, Wildheart Invokers, etc. Thankfully you can remove those.
Really my biggest want for the next iteration is land-editing. I kind of doubt they will ever allow full editing (i.e. assembling custom decks from a pool of every card in the game) as I'm sure they're afraid it will give people "too much;" i.e. less reason to buy the next version. Wizards of the Coast is notoriously protective of their assets in that way. You can disagree with the thinking (I certainly do), but I'm pretty sure that's their rationale.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
The_Technomancer said:
It's a black staple now, even if you don't run a Vamp deck. If you don't have at least 2 of those in every black deck you build...then why even bother playing the color, really.
MomoPufflet
Member
Yeah, it sucks. The worst deck by far in my opinion.
Neodiablo22
Member
Random Question: Does the steam version of the game make it easy to start games with people on your friends list?
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
It made it a piece of cake for SgtPepper and I to play the other dayNeodiablo22 said:
SapientWolf said:
Gaining life for its own sake is ineffective, but a deck built around cards that exploit life gain to defeat an opponent can be effective: cards like Ajani Pridemate, Felidar Sovereign, and Serra Ascendant. But to date there hasn't been a Planeswalker deck built around cards like that, so there hasn't been a deck that including life gain cards in makes sense.
I would agree with it being long and boring. I also would agree with the no threat part too, until I reached Nicol Bolas. I may be a newbie to Magic in general but god damn that mother f'er. If I ever see him walking down the road I will go out of my way to run him the hell over. Arggh!mjc said:
Blu10 said:
I liked the artifact deck better than Garruk's and I'm a Garruk fan.
The Blue Green deck outclasses Garruk so bad it's not even funny. Grr.
I enjoyed the artifact deck though, I wish it had more ways to draw cards (like Divination or Tidings). I can often cast like 5 artifacts in the same turn but then I'm left with no cards in hand.
divisionbyzorro
Member
I'm in love with this new Elf deck. It feels so much more versatile than the previous version, where you were always hunting for the Commander just for a little bit of muscle or the Coat of Arms to finish the fight. Now you have so many more game finishers in the deck; Wildheart Invoker x2, Ezuri, Might of the Masses x3, Heedless One x4. And these things all just get that much crazier with the vast amounts of token generation.
Big fan. Vulnerable to burn and mass removal, as you would expect (in this format, nothing hurts worse than pyroclasm), but I'm still a big fan.
Big fan. Vulnerable to burn and mass removal, as you would expect (in this format, nothing hurts worse than pyroclasm), but I'm still a big fan.
red_13th said:I liked the artifact deck better than Garruk's and I'm a Garruk fan.
The Blue Green deck outclasses Garruk so bad it's not even funny. Grr.
.
Am I the only one that pulled all the white out of the artifact deck. Seemed pointless to have 5 mana for 4 cards
divisionbyzorro said:
I agree this elf deck is leaps and bounds above the old one. I had trouble trimming it down after I unlocked the cards.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Blu10 said:
I still have a couple more to unlock, but it's been hard already. Some stuff was easy; I dropped the Essence Drains (too expensive for too small of an effect) and the Elvish Eulogists (getting an elf for 1 mana is okay, but there are plenty of cheap elves already and the ability isn't any good - if I have enough elves in my graveyard to justify sacrificing another one, I've probably already lost). I also decided to give up the Elven Riders; it's a good card, but doesn't play to the synergy of the rest of the deck, as well as one each of Nissa's Chosen (such a useless ability in this deck), Norwood Ranger, and Viridian Emissary (land fetch is nice, but tying it to death in a deck that wants a large army is hard to swallow).
Still playing around with what I want to keep and drop. I think there's going to be a lot of experimentation.
It really annoys me that in mulitplayer when the opponent casts something you have to hit the Stop Timer button almost instantly to ensure that you actually get a chance to look at whatever card they just played before it finishes.
Half the time if you hit it and the bar is below halfway it just ignores you (due to lag or something I guess, which really shouldn't be an issue in a turn based game.)
Half the time if you hit it and the bar is below halfway it just ignores you (due to lag or something I guess, which really shouldn't be an issue in a turn based game.)
I finally beat Archenemy on the hardest mode and it was a bitch. Can't tell you how often I restarted every match near the end planeswalkers. I fell asleep a few times waiting for the computer to "think" between turns lol. My own teammate AI were still making dumb decisions so I said fuck it and controlled all 3 players with 3 of the illusion planeswalker. 3 characters with counter spells and creature control made the final boss way manageable.
Nope, that was the first thing I did.Blu10 said:
Very little point in a tri-color deck to me. You have options, but the mana pull/card pull can really hurt you if you have too much. It was my problem with the Dragon deck (Red/Black/Blue) in the last game. It hurt The Red/White/Green one too. :[
Dr. Kitty Muffins
Member
When does the DLC come out? Any word? I've seen the leaked stuff in screens but never got a release date with it.
I would mind some non-angel flyers in white like Pegasus or maybe some more Knights. I'm not big on angels thematically ( I'm atheist ..........although they dont offend me in any way). I just can't get into them just like I can't get into vampires in Magic.
I would mind some non-angel flyers in white like Pegasus or maybe some more Knights. I'm not big on angels thematically ( I'm atheist ..........although they dont offend me in any way). I just can't get into them just like I can't get into vampires in Magic.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
They've got to be damn happy with how the game is doing.Gez said:
NameGenerated
Who paid you to grab Dr. Pavel?
I'm up to Karn in the revenge campaign and on my first try he got a Darksteel Colossus on turn 4. He used tinker on his mox sapphire. So unfair lol.
DasRaven said:
I buy all my multiplats on PC. Also everything on the Australian PSN is a rip off. Magic is like $15 (despite the AU dollar being worth more than the US one), i got it for alittle over $9 on Steam due to our exchange rate.
Also i have the option of an Xbox controller, text chat (when they fix it) and there is more people playing online. Also organzing matches over the Steam community is a plus. For me It's better to play with a mouse, scrolling in with the mouse is so handy when looking at cards instead of pressing R2.
That aside i will only buy the DLC if it's on sale. I'm also kinda disapointed Steam users didn't get rewarded for having the first game, when they hinted they would be.