Well, the rumors were true: Magic the Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 will include Sealed Deck mode, both for the single player campaign and multiplayer bouts.

Players will be able to rip open digital booster packs, make their card picks and, apparently, have their deck strength measured by an Awesome Meter. No, that’s not actually a joke (see screenshots below).

Since I managed to predict this (sealed play, not the Awesome Meter) in my DOTP 2014 wishlist, I feel pretty good about myself right now.

Here’s something I didn’t predict (in fact, I argued against it): there will be new slivers in Magic 2014 DOTP. These are previously non-existent card names, so we’re guessing they’ll also be showing up in the core set of paper Magic. Want to take a stab at what each of these slivers does?

Sliver Construct (similar to Metallic Sliver?)

Predatory Sliver

Groundshaker Sliver

Megantic Sliver

Blur Sliver

Striking Sliver

Thorncaster Sliver (remove counters to deal damage?)

Battle Sliver

Sentinel Sliver

Bonescythe Sliver

Hive Stirrings (confirmed: sorcery, creates sliver tokens)

UPDATE: Spoiler images of some of these slivers… Enjoy!

I’ve never really been a fan of slivers, but if the Magic 2014 core set is going to include all new versions of these creatures, hopefully they’ll be more balanced and interactive than in previous iterations of the species! An immediate, obvious point of differentiation: these leaked 2014 slivers only pump your creatures, not every sliver on the battlefield.

Also revealed are a few of the other cards in Duels 2014, including Jinxed Idol. We don’t know if anything shown in these screenshots is limited (ha-ha!) to sealed deck or not, but the card pool that’s been shown appears significantly more straightforward than some of the more complicated stuff in Duels 2013. Whether that’s good or not depends on your tastes, but the jury will remain out until the Duels is released or, more likely, its entire decklist is spoiled in another forum leak.

Also of note: the PC build of Magic 2014 Duels of the Planeswalkers appears to be touch optimized, with fewer, larger buttons and a simpler, less graphic intensive background. It seems Stainless is pushing hard for optimized performance on less powerful tablet devices, which is a welcome change for anyone who struggled to run DOTP on these devices in the past. Of course, we won’t really know if that holds true until the game is available.

Official Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 press release

Wizards of the Coast today announced two exciting new features coming to Magic 2014 – Duels of the Planeswalkers! Sealed Play and a new take on the popular Slivers creature type will both make their debut in the Duels of the Planeswalkers franchise with Magic 2014.

The addition of Sealed Play will allow players to open booster packs and build decks to play against the AI and other players. Each sealed pool is comprised of 84 cards, mimicking paper TCG booster packs. The PvE experience includes a six-deck ladder where players take on mono-colored Sealed decks each corresponding with a particular Planeswalker, and finally facing a ‘boss’ Sealed deck.

Another feature debuting in Magic 2014 is a new take on the popular Slivers creature type. A fan-favorite, new playable Slivers in Magic 2014 decks will include the following:

Sliver Construct (similar to Metallic Sliver?)

Predatory Sliver

Groundshaker Sliver

Megantic Sliver

Blur Sliver (haste? hexproof?)

Striking Sliver (first strike? double strike?)

Thorncaster Sliver (remove counters to deal damage?)

Battle Sliver (uh… bushido?)

Sentinel Sliver (vigilance?)

Bonescythe Sliver

In addition, Hive Stirrings, a sorcery that creates Sliver tokens, will also be included in Magic 2014.

The Magic 2014 – Duels of the Planeswalkers video game will be available for PC, Xbox Live Arcade, PSN, iPad, and Android tablet for the first time when it launches this summer. The Magic 2014 product line-up also includes the Magic 2014 – Core Set for the paper trading card game (TCG) and Magic Online.