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Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 |OT|

Castor Krieg said:
It's not out yet in Europe so I played US demo. Was awesome, for someone that played a bit of Magic in the past, but dropped out because of time and money requirements it's a perfect substitute. Only managed to beat first opponent, who was surprisingly good given my difficulty level (Mage). Finished with only 1 Life, thanks to Serra Angel with two Equipment cards.

A lot of rules changed since I played it years ago e.g. Equipment cards have different cost for putting in the game and for putting on the card. After a creature with the card dies, I'm free to put it on someone else?

Great game, will have more time to play over the weekend.
Yes, they go back to the field and you have to pay equip cost to equip it on another creature.

Already over 15,000 people on campaign leader board (360) ....

I like it and big improvement over 09 version. My only gripe is the fonts are kinda small especially extra card info (neat new feature for newbie or those getting back in) and numbers of life and cards on your avatar.

All the options are in the setting including hold priority option. As for auto tap land I remember asking at pax and they said it was so the game would go smoother and easier for new players. I think of all the time I play 09 version may be twice it was a problem so this doesn't bother me. People already love to stall on multiplayer match. Oh game is faster and smooth (so far).
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Really glad to see Sorin showing up here, and I hope they use him a lot in the future. I think there's a really interesting character there: he's supposed to be over 4000 years old, so its likely that he was a planeswalker before the events of Time Spiral.
 

NameGenerated

Who paid you to grab Dr. Pavel?
WanderingWind said:
Worse than the black/green elf deck?
I don't have enough online experience with the first game to say that since I mainly just did the campaign to grind for card unlocks and don't remember much of those decks, but he brought out many big creatures (2 Simic Sky Swallowers in the first, some 12/12 Annihilator 4 and 8/8 that tapped a lot of shit the second) and had tons of mana fetching cards. I'm not familiar with these new cards, haven't really followed Magic since Scourge, except for a few sealed drafts every now and then. I was using the mono-red deck and I couldn't really do much, although if I had 1 more mana in the first game I could have won. I dunno, it just caught me off guard how ridiculous some of his cards were.
 

Zerokku

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
Fucking Hell. 3 attempts at the first god damn mission and every single time I'm getting Mana Flooded. This is pissing me off.
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
This might be a more general Magic question, but oh well. Did this core set change the Deathtouch rules? It's possible I'm totally wrong but I believe before that battle would resolve and any monster that got touched would die. In this game deathtouch just ends battle and kills the other monsters. Like if you have a deathtouch monster with 1 power and first strike and get blocked by a stronger monster, the blocker will die and attacker is unharmed. Is this a change or am I wrong about the old rules?
 
Emerson said:
This might be a more general Magic question, but oh well. Did this core set change the Deathtouch rules? It's possible I'm totally wrong but I believe before that battle would resolve and any monster that got touched would die. In this game deathtouch just ends battle and kills the other monsters. Like if you have a deathtouch monster with 1 power and first strike and get blocked by a stronger monster, the blocker will die and attacker is unharmed. Is this a change or am I wrong about the old rules?
No, I believe that's how it's always been, regardless of deathtouch. If the first strike is capable of killing the other creature first, then the first stiker survives no matter what the other creature's power was.
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
Yeah I'm saying if the first striker with deathtouch is not strong enough to kill the blocker.
 

jon bones

hot hot hanuman-on-man action
Emerson said:
Yeah I'm saying if the first striker with deathtouch is not strong enough to kill the blocker.

a first strike with deathtouch is always strong enough to kill the blocker
 

sonicmj1

Member
Emerson said:
This might be a more general Magic question, but oh well. Did this core set change the Deathtouch rules? It's possible I'm totally wrong but I believe before that battle would resolve and any monster that got touched would die. In this game deathtouch just ends battle and kills the other monsters. Like if you have a deathtouch monster with 1 power and first strike and get blocked by a stronger monster, the blocker will die and attacker is unharmed. Is this a change or am I wrong about the old rules?

Any creature that takes damage from a creature with deathtouch dies.

Normally, damage would be dealt and received simultaneously, so your (wrong) interpretation of the rules would work. The weak deathtouch creature would deal damage, and receive lethal damage from the creature it blocks, and they'd both die. With first-strikers, the deathtouch creature deals damage before they receive it, so they kill the monster before it damages them.

There were old basilisk creatures that would kill creatures that blocked them after combat, but that has nothing to do with deathtouch.
 

Wallach

Member
Emerson said:
Yeah, but not without getting killed itself if the other monster is stronger.

This is because of First Strike. Any damage from creatures with First Strike is resolved before any other damage is actually dealt.
 
Really don't like this game, new buyers beware.

The campaign is absolutley rigged AI the AI is not drawing random, they are never left wanting for mana or creatures., as a matter of fact the correct creature for every situation.
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
sonicmj1 said:
Any creature that takes damage from a creature with deathtouch dies.

Normally, damage would be dealt and received simultaneously, so your (wrong) interpretation of the rules would work. The weak deathtouch creature would deal damage, and receive lethal damage from the creature it blocks, and they'd both die. With first-strikers, the deathtouch creature deals damage before they receive it, so they kill the monster before it damages them.

There were old basilisk creatures that would kill creatures that blocked them after combat, but that has nothing to do with deathtouch.
Thanks for actually providing an explanation of the rules rather than being shitty about it. I understand my confusion now.
 
Emerson said:
Yeah I'm saying if the first striker with deathtouch is not strong enough to kill the blocker.
Okay, I see what you're saying. To more appropiatley answer your question: a creature with first strike and deathtouch only needs to assign at least 1 point of damage to kill the blocking creature.

On a side note, if you have a 6/6 creature with trample and deathtouch get blocked by a 4/4, you only have to assign a single point to the blocker and still have 5 go through.

EDIT: Beaten, and I apologize if I came across as condescending, I misunderstood your question. :(
 
Anerythristic said:
Really don't like this game, new buyers beware.

The campaign is absolutley rigged AI the AI is not drawing random, they are never left wanting for mana or creatures., as a matter of fact the correct creature for every situation.

This is no different from the first game then and one of the things I despised. I would literally draw like 8 or 9 lands in a row with the blue deck. Absolutely ridiculous.
 

JesseZao

Member
divisionbyzorro said:
Some people on the WotC forums are saying that the deck unlock keys can actually break the decks. Not sure how common it is, but it's worth pointing out. You might not want to buy any deck unlocks at the moment.

I realize it takes a bit of time to unlock the cards, but paying a dollar to unlock a deck is akin to buying money in EA games. I don't see a reason to encourage/reward exploitation of laziness.
 
NameGenerated said:
God damn at the blue and green deck. I just played 2 matches against a guy using it and that thing is scary.
I just beat that part in the campaign and when I saw the computer begin to shit lands like there was no tomorrow, for a second I cringed and reeeeaaaaaaaally hoped this wasn't a landfall deck. It's crazy.

Also, smh at the number of Terror variants.

I've played 4-5 single player games with the white deck (which I didn't care for in 2009) and I'm really digging it so far.


edit: totally unrelated note but I double dipped between XBLA and Steam and I just noticed the Steam version has 8 more achievements, if anyone cares about that stuff.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Anerythristic said:
Really don't like this game, new buyers beware.

The campaign is absolutley rigged AI the AI is not drawing random, they are never left wanting for mana or creatures., as a matter of fact the correct creature for every situation.
I dunno, I just beat Garruk when he got completely mana screwed. He must have kept a terrible hand, because he didn't play anything even with three forests.
 

Sober

Member
Anerythristic said:
Really don't like this game, new buyers beware.

The campaign is absolutley rigged AI the AI is not drawing random, they are never left wanting for mana or creatures., as a matter of fact the correct creature for every situation.
Really? I'm playing on "Planeswalker" aka Hardest difficulty and besides being rolled by the U/G deck because it seems to be built to frustrate me, I've had no problems with the campaign AI. Half the time I overrun them or they get mana screwed/flooded. I heard Karn (the final boss) probably cheats off his ass but that's probably it.
 
Anerythristic said:
Really don't like this game, new buyers beware.

The campaign is absolutley rigged AI the AI is not drawing random, they are never left wanting for mana or creatures., as a matter of fact the correct creature for every situation.

Not used to playing games with elements of chance, huh? :)

To offer counter-anecdotal evidence, I beat Sarkham handily just now because he only drew two mana in the entire game.
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
divisionbyzorro said:
Not used to playing games with elements of chance, huh? :)

To offer counter-anecdotal evidence, I beat Sarkham handily just now because he only drew two mana in the entire game.
I don't think it's purely chance when people start grabbing nothing but land because the numbers get pretty astronomical.
 
SapientWolf said:
I don't think it's purely chance when people start grabbing nothing but land because the numbers get pretty astronomical.

In a perfectly randomized 60 card deck with 25 lands, you should expect to see at least one clump of 4 lands in a row, 4 clumps of 3 lands in a row, and between 7 to 13 clumps of 2 lands in a row.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=4004

The truth is that the numbers are stacked against you with regards to mana clumps. If your strategy is predicated on never running into mini-manafloods, you need to adjust your strategies.

I'm by no means a Magic expert, but this is a game with a huge random component, and after my years of studying mathematics in college, nothing in this game has really struck me as being out of whack with regards to randomness.
 
I think I'm gonna buy this just to scratch the Magic itch I've been inexplicably having recently. This way I get it out of my system and don't end up wasting my money and buying fucktons of cards.
 

Jonsoncao

Banned
Hey guys, can't find the thread of the first game so I ll just ask my q here

Does the XBLA version of the first game 2vs2 mode still suffer the freezing problem?
 

Grecco

Member
NameGenerated said:
God damn at the blue and green deck. I just played 2 matches against a guy using it and that thing is scary.


yep i cant beat it in campaign, im stuck there but its ridiculously strong. Great land spells, rdiculous fatties, and that boomerang saproling thing which is fantastic.



It reminds me back in the day when i played magic my best showing in a tournament was with a blue green deck that had those spells that would give your creatures abilities if they were in the graveyard.
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
divisionbyzorro said:
In a perfectly randomized 60 card deck with 25 lands, you should expect to see at least one clump of 4 lands in a row, 4 clumps of 3 lands in a row, and between 7 to 13 clumps of 2 lands in a row.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=4004

The truth is that the numbers are stacked against you with regards to mana clumps. If your strategy is predicated on never running into mini-manafloods, you need to adjust your strategies.

I'm by no means a Magic expert, but this is a game with a huge random component, and after my years of studying mathematics in college, nothing in this game has really struck me as being out of whack with regards to randomness.
Yeah, but when the clumps start getting in the 10+ range on a deck with land already on the board the chances creep closer to 1 in 10,000. I've seen complaints of those before and they look like a bug.
 

Sober

Member
Grecco said:
yep i cant beat it in campaign, im stuck there but its ridiculously strong. Great land spells, rdiculous fatties, and that boomerang saproling thing which is fantastic.



It reminds me back in the day when i played magic my best showing in a tournament was with a blue green deck that had those spells that would give your creatures abilities if they were in the graveyard.
The soldier deck is probably the best counter for it, or something fast, maybe the burn deck.

The vampire deck however is kinda making me pull hairs out no matter what I play (though I suck at red and green in general if those are the better counters).
 

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
It's a small visual design thing but the main menu background really baffles me. When you're going for a motion comic and Magic card art aesthetic, why the heck would you decide to go with low resolution 3D environments? Terrible choice. Hope they go with a more cohesive style next time.
 

thefil

Member
Just finished a 30-minute-turned-90-minute study break of this. Super impressed, this is how a sequel should be done! The only thing I wish for (like others) is manual land tapping capability. I missed out on a counterspell because of it. I won anyway, but still, prefer to be able to execute my plans...

Well, that and the PC menus are atrocious.

Anyways, absolutely worth your $10 for anyone on the fence.
 

red13th

Member
I'm so buying this game when I have the time to play it, $10 is dirty cheap and I loved the first one.
Everything I've read about it so far made me want it even more. There's even a blue/green deck, my favourite colour combination. :)
btw I <3 how Garruk bulked up for this game.
 

Grecco

Member
I still cant beat the GBlue deck, i know people say its random. But seing that deck cast a polymorph on his 1/1 and somehow top deck a 12/12 legendary artifact creature makes me doubt this.

Playing this game on the hardest difficulty is ridiculous.
 
divisionbyzorro said:
Not used to playing games with elements of chance, huh? :)

To offer counter-anecdotal evidence, I beat Sarkham handily just now because he only drew two mana in the entire game.

Brother, I play poker, Magic, Yu Gi Oh, Vs. System and years ago I played the Warhammer Fantasy Card game.

I've played CCGs against real people since the 90s, more often than not this isn't random.

I have right now the Vs. System card game as well as mutiple Yu Gi Oh Championship games for my handheld, they all draw more random than this game. I'm sure of it.
 
Anerythristic said:
Really don't like this game, new buyers beware.

The campaign is absolutley rigged AI the AI is not drawing random, they are never left wanting for mana or creatures., as a matter of fact the correct creature for every situation.

This is wrong - game is fantastic and I actually won the last two matches (including the OP last boss) because they were mana starved.
 

Sober

Member
Well, if anyone is wondering, yes, the last boss does in fact cheat. Or something. Other than using a Mox Sapphire and then playing Quicksilver Amulet to drag stuff like Wyrmcoil Engine out ... sure, he cheats.

edit: wow, went full retard with Karn. One creature left, he was all tapped out, all I had to do was equip one creature with some cheap equipment and swing. Nope, waste all your mana casting Argentum Armour.

edit 2: lol beat karn in 3 attempts while I spent a good hour and half (at least) on the vampires ...
 

An-Det

Member
I've played about 2 hours of it so far and am loving it. This is after getting home from my LGS after winning a Legacy tournament and playing a side draft. It's not perfect, but damn this is fun.
 

samoset

Member
Beat the normal campaign. The game seemed really easy though, I played through on planeswalker difficulty but I can't imagine the game being any less difficult in still being fun as it was.

(My strategy for the last boss of the regular campaign if anyone cares)
The only campaign level that really gave me trouble was Karn, but when I switched over to the green blue deck I knew it was only a matter of trial and error to win that battle with that match up. Basically all I had to do was wait for him to summon one of his power cards with his tinker card allowing me to aether mutation in return and if it was early enough in the game he'd be overrun. That deck has other methods of beating him but it had the best percentage of happening based on how often I'd pick up aether mutation.

The green/blue deck isn't really overpowered but I think it has better odds of winning compared to other slow decks in the game, but a faster deck could certainly have an advantage on it. The deck I enjoyed the most was the machinations deck (white/blue/black) as it provided power along with control so it wasn't as straightforward as a lot of the decks, but wasn't so control heavy that have to rely on that.

I'll start on the revenge campaign tomorrow and hopefully it'll be more challenging as I did have a lot of fun hopping around the regular one. Overall this game has sparked my magic bug again and I'm thinking of either picking up the physical card game again or maybe MTGO, but I'll wait on that to see if I temper my excitement before sinking money into magic again.
 

bunbun777

Member
SapientWolf said:
I was referring to the Vamps. I imagine it got over-nerfed, if anything.

There's this great artifact in the vamp deck that gives +2 +2 for every dead creature -- mix in that spreading sickness and the counters proliferate.

It seems the blue deck in my early estimation is the most powerful. Hex Lord be messing with me.
 

Eggo

GameFan Alumnus
Grecco said:
yep i cant beat it in campaign, im stuck there but its ridiculously strong. Great land spells, rdiculous fatties, and that boomerang saproling thing which is fantastic.



It reminds me back in the day when i played magic my best showing in a tournament was with a blue green deck that had those spells that would give your creatures abilities if they were in the graveyard.

I think you guys are doing it wrong if you're having problems with U/G. It seems to be one of the worst decks. I choose to play against it exclusively to unlock cards in the campaign because it has so many flaws. No creature removal, can't block fliers, poor early game.

Granted, I haven't played multi-player yet, but I think there's far nastier stuff in the other decks than U/G.

Also, crying about mana in a game of chance seems silly to me. I've seen the computer get hosed with not enough or too much mana, the same as anyone else. You guys probably think poker games cheat too.
 

Oreoleo

Member
Daigoro said:

Crashes the game pretty easily.

Also hit a bug playing Archenemy online. Something got stuck waiting for a player or the AI to make a move, ended up having to quit the match because of it. Otherwise the game seems like a marked improvement over the last one.
 

Sober

Member
Eggo said:
I think you guys are doing it wrong if you're having problems with U/G. It seems to be one of the worst decks. I choose to play against it exclusively to unlock cards in the campaign because it has so many flaws. No creature removal, can't block fliers, poor early game.

Granted, I haven't played multi-player yet, but I think there's far nastier stuff in the other decks than U/G.
Actually, now that you mention it, the U/G deck isn't so stellar but everytime I lost to it, it's because they had a way better hand or I get mana screwed. But it is fun to win with it, seeing as you can be 5 or more lands ahead real quick. The only reason I want to keep playing it is to unlock the Eldrazi to play around with, seeing as I never got to play that set. The fatties are the only real reason to play the U/G deck if you can ramp up fast and catch them with their pants down.

IMO the white weenie deck is pretty amazing, though not god tier, even though every real trouble I had with another planeswalker was usually rectified by going WW. Karn goes down pretty quick because if you can get a good hand, you can do swings of 4-6 damage by turn 3 or so while he's still setting up while having Arrest helps when he decides to drop a DSC or something big in your way. Pretty sure the Mirrodin cat soldier with firststrike and lifelink on equip pretty much makes the set really good.

God, I hope they patch Archenemy to let us be it rather than facing off against him.

Diagoro said:
They crash the game I think. Also it's probably depressing to see people with outrageous scores already.
 
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