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The latest iteration of Stainless Games’ Duels of the Planeswalkers series – welcoming to newcomers or only for the Magic die-hards? Our resident Magic enthusiast takes a look. Cardboard crack – an accurate description of Wizards of the Coast’s long running collectible trading card game. And I love it. I am an addict. I play ..

Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 – Review (PC)

The latest iteration of Stainless Games’ Duels of the Planeswalkers series – welcoming to newcomers or only for the Magic die-hards? Our resident Magic enthusiast takes a look.

Cardboard crack – an accurate description of Wizards of the Coast’s long running collectible trading card game. And I love it. I am an addict. I play at least once a week, and spend a considerable chunk of my disposable income on the game. Duels of the Planeswalkers give players, new and seasoned alike, a chance to be able to play when other players aren’t around.

The idea behind Duels, and Magic as a whole, is that you the player are a Planeswalker, an immensely powerful being capable of summoning legions of creatures to your side with the aim of defeating an opposing Planeswalker in a magical duel.

The game features many of the popular characters found in the paper game. Above, we see myself about to smash Jace Beleren’s face in.

The game features a comprehensive tutorial complete with cheesy voiceover to aid new players getting into the game, or alternatively veterans can turn the hints & tips off, dodge the tutorial and dive straight into it. Attempts have been made to add depth to the relatively shallow singleplayer campaign this year with the addition of a clearer narrative; you are a Planeswalkers aiding Chandra Nalaar in finding another walker for her own ends. Unfortunately the initial CGI is cheap looking and the voice overs between matches are nothing short of cringe-worthy. As a fan of the real game, I enjoyed the little blurbs of text that contextualise each battle, but they add nothing more than a dash of flavour to what is essentially a series of disconnected battles.

DotP 2014 is the fourth outing for the series, and it brings with it some nice improvements to the already successful formula of its predecessors. Deck customisation is once again improved, with the option to be able to edit the number of lands in your deck a nice touch. Each of the decks available to unlock are far more solid than previous games in the series, with more interesting and varied themes, from tribal zombies and slivers, through to ramp based decks designed to pump out lands in order to play some of the larger creature from Magic’s history, most notably in this instance, Eldrazi. After every successful battle you will not only progress within the games campaign, but also unlock new cards to customise your decks. Unlike previous iterations of Duels, the customisation options appear to allow you to change how a deck is fundamentally played; in the example of the tribal humans deck, you can eventually switch out a lot of the synergy based around human creatures in favour of larger flying angels. It is great to see this added layer of complexity and strategy, as deck construction is a fundamental part of playing Magic.

Bats, grave diggers and merfolk; variety is the spice of life.

Some aspects of the game remain unchanged this year; the interface is clear and functional, and the controls work perfectly, whether that be with a controller plugged in or through mouse and keyboard. The visuals are improved this year, with particle effects floating across the battlefield, and some more powerful cards having their wonderful artwork pseudo-animated. I got genuinely excited the first time I saw the art of the Grave Titan moving. I only wish that this nice touch had been added for more than a handful of cards, as it would have really allowed the game to come alive on screen.

At times the game’s rules system may appear awkward to already established players. I missed the opportunity to cast a spell during the combat phase in one match, because the game moved through the phases too quickly without giving me chance to ‘freeze’ time to cast it. Another instance of this awkwardness is that with simplified rules turned on group blocking an attacking creature will always result in damage being assigned in a way that benefits the computer, rather than yourself. Although these issues are rather minor and remote, they annoyed me, and could cause problems for new players wanting to learn and understand the rules comprehensively.

The new variant format replacing last year’s Planechase is ‘Sealed’ mode, something that players like myself were very excited for. Unfortunately, it is a massive disappointment. Traditionally, ‘Limited’ formats like sealed are played between players who have opened packs together in a room, built decks there and then, and then compete against each other to see who has built the most effective deck. While Duels at its very core is meant to serve as a means to play without other players immediately available, Duels 2014 fails at emulating how a sealed event would work at a real table, with real cards. After opening six packs of fifteen cards each, you make your deck ready to take on the Sealed campaign. You then fight what appears to be the exact same Planeswalker decks from the singleplayer campaign, instead of other decks built under similar circumstances to your own.

Deck customisation, and in the case of Sealed Play, have been vastly improved compared to its predecessors.

Furthermore, the pool of cards from which the ones you open are drawn from appears to be incredibly small. Across two sealed campaigns I managed to see duplicate rares (the card you only have one of per pack) 4 times. I even managed to open four copies of Indestructability over fifteen packs; making just less than one third of my total opened rares the exact same card.

The also commits on of modern gaming’s cardinal sins; it asks for more money to unlock feature that are already there. Sealed play have two ‘save’ slots available, with any subsequent slots available for those of us who want to pay an additional £1.50. This practice is quite frankly, disgusting, and I am incredibly disappointed to see it here.

The multiplayer still works just as before, complete with slow match-making system. The added bonus being the option to take your freshly built Sealed deck online with you. However, the limited cardpool mentioned previously may well lead to the majority of decks looking and feeling very similar.

Overall the game delivers more of the same, with the biggest improvement being the thought put into the quality and flavourful decks available in the singleplayer campaign. I can’t help but feel that if Wizards of the Coast had supplied one of their talented R&D team to aid and advise Stainless games, and then the Sealed mode could have been something truly special. Instead it is merely a shadow of the experience and strategic depth available in paper Magic.

Pros:

Its Magic the Gathering

Interface is clean and accessible

Fantastic starting point if you are curious about the game as a whole

Minor improvements over previous games in the series

Can easily provide that pick-up and play approach that real Magic can’t provide.

Cons:

Sealed play is a wasted opportunity to add depth and replayability

Multiplayer Matchmaking is as slow and cumbersome as ever

Asking the consumer for money to unlock parts of the game I just bought is an insulting business practice

Final Score: 7/10

Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 provides that quick fix that we expect from the series. Accessible for new comers, and challenging for seasoned veterans, it is a shame that Sealed play wasn’t up to the standards we wanted.

Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 is available now on Steam for £6.99. Also available on Playstation Newtwork, Xbox Live and the Apple Store.

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