MTG Duel of the Planeswalkers 2013

[Pinky]

So, I haven't played MTG since Urza's Legacy in the late 90's. But now that the internet makes things cheap and easy, I played a demo and thought it was worth $10 to get the full game on PS3.

It's just MTG in videogame format, not some wonky combat game. There are ten thematic decks, mostly mono types based on a Planeswalker. For instance, Chandra's red deck is full of creatures that gain Power from tapping mountains, pheonixes and elementals, plus offensive fire spells. Jace's blue deck mostly causes excess card draws and discard-from-library effects, with unsummoning and counter spells. They all start with 35-36 spells, 24-25 lands, and you unlock 30 additional cards for each deck by winning matches. Depending on how many exrta spells you add, the game will automatically insert lands at a 2:1 ratio.

MTG lore has always been the bigger draw for me over the game itself. The campaign mode uses an ancient Planeswalker, a 20k year old golden dragon, as the final boss. It's likely that this is the mysterious being that originally created Phyrexia, as that person is only known to prefer taking the form of a dragon. It was fun to learn about the new characters as I played through the campaign.

The game also has a good online multiplayer mode, with 2-4 head to head, 2 vs 2 team, and 4-player Planechase. I don't like Planechase. What I understand is that they're trying to spice up a really old game, but the complete chaos it inflicts significantly harms deck strategy.