Yo nerds,

Just bought it for the iPad, and it's fantastic. The entire single player experience is there. It's already fantastic.

Major Pros

• Free with FIVE SOLID Decks, the 5 free decks are fantastic for new comers...but the paid decks are tempting for those who love magic.
• Controls Well, lots of flicking and shit.
• Cheap to Unlock All Decks
• 30 CARDS UNLOCKED FOR EACH DECK NOT 10-20

Major Cons

• ONLINE IS ONLY FREE-FOR-ALL AND PLANESWALKER MODE
• I repeat NO ONLINE Two Headed Giant
• Paid Decks DO NOT Unlock Until You Beat Boss (not really a fault, the older games did this too)
• NO Retina Support for iPad 3

Bottom Line, if you want Magic Anywhere, get it now.

Talk about a ninja release. Is it out on Steam yet?

@StarvingGamer: No idea, what's fucked up is I paid for the Steam Version too. -_-

Both are 10 bucks for the "full game", but the iOS version does give you the free version to try out. Only positive I see about the Steam version is the complete online mode. I'd rather play Magic on my bed or laying down than on the desktop...then again I could multi-task on AIM and shit on Steam.

Bah, both are good.

Thanks for the heads up. I might grab the free version on iPad to dip my toe in - I've never played Magic before. Shame about the lack of Retina display support.

I'll probably pick up both but it's not showing up on the app store for me. Hrm...

Did they remove Archenemy format? And replace it with Planechase instead.

Yeah. I haven't tried the new mode though.

I'm picking this up for PC and PSN, though PSN seems fucked at the moment (tons of DNS and other type errors and after having problems even just logging into my account it's finally coming up with a "psn is undergoing maintenance" error. hopefully a good sign >_>;;;; Also if you do anything with paper magic, there are promos for PSN, XBLA, and steam users (nothing for IOS currently, not sure why).

Arch enemy did get removed for planechase, I actually have played planechase with paper magic it's pretty fun. I'm also glad they've upped the number of cards you unlock for each of the decks. I understand why they don't let you just build your own decks (and am perfectly happy with that), so with 30 unlocks I feel like they can really make a few versions of the different deck themes and have enough cards to make it so you don't just put the 10 best unlock cards in and can have a more cohesive experience. Not sure if it still decides how much land you get, but if they added an option where you can let it select it for you automatically or you can choose that would be nice.

Speaking of manual land, one of the biggest thorns of the old game was lack of manual mana tapping which is finally here. It's dumb that it's a bullet point "on the box" so to speak, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth :D Now they just need to add the planeswalker card type to the game (I'm betting we won't see it until DotP 2014 but it could also come in DLC, they added the ability to be the archenemy as DLC for DotP 2012).

If anyone is playing this and wants to play multiplayer I'm demonknightinuyasha on steam and dkinuyasha on PSN.

*edit* my PSN woes seems to have worked themselves out. either it was short maintenance or my ps3 just needed to chill for a few minutes XD *end edit*

Whoa, speak of the devil, I'm sitting with an iPad in front of me as we speak, and I *just* checked the app store for this game but it wasn't there, at least not yet. But it's a japanese iPad so maybe that's why. Sonic 4 Episode 2 isn't on the app store either (wtf Japan) so I hope the same thing doesn't happen with Duels 2013. Sigh.

Search "magic 2013" to find it on the AppStore.

Picked up the steam version on Steam but it still has 10hours till it unlocks.

@StarvingGamer said:

@egg I did all sorts of crazy searches for the game typing in things like "duels," "plainswalkers," "magic the gathering," and got no results. Right now I randomly decided to type in "Wizards of the Coast" and the game finally showed up.

YOU ARE MY SAVIOR. Downloading now.

and Giefcookie is right, it's called Magic 2013. Trippy.

@StarvingGamer said:

@egg I did all sorts of crazy searches for the game typing in things like "duels," "plainswalkers," "magic the gathering," and got no results. Right now I randomly decided to type in "Wizards of the Coast" and the game finally showed up.

I was doing the same thing.

The CPU is broken. They get perfect hands every game, and every game they draw the same cards in the same order.

Magic 2012 wasn't this bad....holy crap.

The decks are stacked so bad.

@KaosAngel: Can you shake your iPad to flip the table, so to speak? That's how I won all of the MtG games I've ever played,

@KaosAngel said:

• I repeat NO ONLINE Two Headed Giant

thats too bad. ...what is it?

I havent seriously played Magic in more than a decade...im not familiar with the new decks at all. Last i played it was around the Weatherlight Saga (1997+). I was still a kid back then but a lot of people started at playing Magic at that age. Any tips for deck building for a returning newbie?

@GaspoweR said:

I havent seriously played Magic in more than a decade...im not familiar with the new decks at all. Last i played it was around the Weatherlight Saga (1997+). I was still a kid back then but a lot of people started at playing Magic at that age. Any tips for deck building for a returning newbie?

Do you mean for Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013, or in general? Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 limits your deckbuilding. If you mean in general, I dunno, run 24 lands at least, build on a curve (mana slots 2, 3, and 4 are particularly important), and use newer cards. And don't think of using life gaining cards. If you have a deck already you could post the list here since that would make it easier to see where you need help with.

@egg i still have to get the game though i was just wondering if the starting decks in DOTS 2013 can still be built upon. No decks alteady built in mind. Its been too long since ive actually thought of the kind of deck i want to make.

@GaspoweR said:

@egg i still have to get the game though i was just wondering if the starting decks in DOTS 2013 can still be built upon. No decks alteady built in mind. Its been too long since ive actually thought of the kind of deck i want to make.

In Duels of the Planeswalkers you're not allowed to make your own decks from scratch. But they can be built upon to a degree. As you play a deck you unlock more cards for it, one card a time. In 2013 each deck has a total of 30 cards you can unlock.

In online play, can opponents still drop with impunity? Or do they at least get a loss now?

That was the one biggest thing that bugged me about original DOTP, and I heard it wasn't changed in 2012. Hoping they fixed it this time!

@PlatypusPlatoon said:

In online play, can opponents still drop with impunity? Or do they at least get a loss now?

That was the one biggest thing that bugged me about original DOTP, and I heard it wasn't changed in 2012. Hoping they fixed it this time!

Looks like on iOS it doesn't count as loss...dunno about Steam.

so what's the full list of DLC for this game

The app store page saysS:

Top In-App Purchases

1. Magic 2013 Premium Content Pack$9.99
2. “Exalted Darkness” Deck Key$0.99
3. “Born of Flame” Deck Key$0.99
4. “Obedient Dead” Deck Key$0.99
5. “Peacekeepers” Deck Key$0.99
6. “Pack Instinct” Deck Key$0.99
7. “Goblin Gangland” Deck Key$0.99
8. “Dream Puppets” Deck Key$0.99
9. “Celestial Light” Deck Key$0.99
10. “Ancient Wilds” Deck Key$0.99

so I guess the full version, and after that its a bunch of decks. Is there a point to buying the decks. I suppose I might buy the full version when I hit the end of the demo, but when should I buy the decks?

Wait, or do the deck keys simply unlock all 30 cards for me, without having to unlock them myself?

I couldn't find it either. Thanks @Giefcookie.

Never tried Magic before. I look forward to playing it when I wake up;)

@egg: DO NOT BUY THE DECKS!

The Deck Unlocks just unlock the paid decks, you get them for free if you buy it anyway. It just unlocks them so you don't have to play the bosses to unlock them. If you are new to Magic is it strongly recommended you don't unlock the decks the easy way. It's better you grind your way out and learn how to play with each deck first.

free butt warning

@KaosAngel said:

The CPU is broken. They get perfect hands every game, and every game they draw the same cards in the same order.

Magic 2012 wasn't this bad....holy crap.

The decks are stacked so bad.

You just don't have the heart of the cards

The videos and animations may not be retina but the cards sure seem to be. Crisp as anything on my iPad 3.

The thing to keep in mind with the Duels games vs the paper or MTGO is that while Duels doesn't let you make a deck from scratch, it also doesn't cost you a few thousand dollars to make a competitive deck. The limitations of the deckbuilding ensure that everyone else is playing with the same middle of the row deck/cards that you are, and they aren't going to get any more out of the game than you are if they buy 40 copies of it.

Is it perfect? No, but it's more balanced than the paper game and $10 get's you a fun experience on here you can play over and over. You get access to 10 decks and a bit of customization for them. In paper $10 barely get's you one deck and if you take that to a place where Magic players gather to play, your just going to lose all night long against other people that have invested WAY more money in the game then you have.

Duels gives you that magic feel without that "mugged" feeling afterwards.

@Fracture: I hear you. It's batshit crazy that in real life 10 dollars could only get you 3 boosters or one premade deck.

10 bucks here and you get 10 very good decks with 30 cards unlocked for each. It's basically Block type but for the price of one deck.

@KaosAngel said:

• I repeat NO ONLINE Two Headed Giant

I just wanted to throw this out there, but on the XBLA version, you CAN play Two-Headed Giant online. Maybe online THG mode is a paid unlock on iOS?

I picked it up on XBLA so i could play with my friend. It's more magic and that isnt a bad thing. One of the biggest areas of improvement in my mind is the sound design. The music is great and the whole overall display just seems smoother. I dl'd the ipad version last night and was really suprised with how well it worked. I probably wont purchase the full version on my Ipad but what they give you in the free version isn't bad.

Crashes every now and then on my iPad 1 (usually when I do something involving the Deck Manager) Also, a little too much "dragging" involved. Dragging to block works poorly as the attacking cards are pretty small (and you must draw a line connecting to them) Otherwise great to finally have this on the iPad. (And the green power creature deck seems much worse than last year - too few small creatures to bide time until you can cast the big guys)

I have never touched Magic the gathering, as its free I may just see what its all about, Its probably no Yu-Gi-Oh..

@TinyGallon said:

Crashes every now and then on my iPad 1 (usually when I do something involving the Deck Manager) Also, a little too much "dragging" involved. Dragging to block works poorly as the attacking cards are pretty small (and you must draw a line connecting to them) Otherwise great to finally have this on the iPad. (And the green power creature deck seems much worse than last year - too few small creatures to bide time until you can cast the big guys)

I don't know why but I dig the green deck. I think the lack of early drops makes me feel tech-ish for keeping in Brindle Boars. (2G 2/2 sac: gain 4 life)

Then again it's one of the early decks with it so I invested more time in it. (I'm playing the decks in the order I unlock them) I will probably like the black deck and soldier deck once I get more unlocks.

Although the art is not retina, the card text benefits hugely from the retina screen so i dont find the "non retina" point to be a huge let down.

ok I wasn't sure what was a good a process for leveling up decks, and I kinda didn't like how it doesn't keep track if your wins/losses against each duel in campaign using each particular deck. It actually would be nice if each deck was treated as a separate save file in the campaign. (aside from encounters obviously) I wished the game was like that. But at least there's nothing stopping me from playing it that way.

What I started doing is doing 2 wins against each duel (not encounters) in campaign with each deck, ending with Jace. (simply because Jace is the last level I beat. I might end up doing the same for the opponents after Jace.)

Thing is I have a long way to go, you get only 1 card per game so it's about a hundred games just to do what I'm doing. (well more like 60 since I have only 6 decks unlocked at the moment) And it is 300 games total to unlock every card. (not counting games you lost) Pretty crazy. It makes me think I should seriously level up one deck all the way instead of working on all decks at the same time. This way I at least have one deck to tear it up online with instead of everyone being ahead of me with their favorite deck.

On that note some decks seem like they need to be leveled up to be any good at all, and will always be weaker even with 30/30 unlocks. The blue deck seems pretty subpar so far and I worry the unlocks will stop giving me things like Sleight of Hand, Mana Leak, Spiketail Hatchlings, Cancel, and Favorable Winds, and instead give me more gimmicky high-mana stuff like Panoptic Mirror, Time Reversal, Cast Through Time, Recurring Insight, and Sphinx-Bone Wand. And I know I could check in-game what all the unlocks are but I don't want to since it would run the surprise. o.o

Also, Skywinder Drake should have been Wind Drake.

@egg: I find 3-drops generally pointless in the Garruk deck since you have up to 6 ways to ramp to 4 mana and skip 3 completely on your curve. Of course Baloths are still sick as fuck.

As far as unlocks go, I've been sticking with a single deck and playing my way through from the beginning of the game until I've hit 30 wins, then rinse and repeat. I tend to skip Nicol Bolas because he's a fucker with a deck full of Power 9 cards.

By the way. That 2WW 3/4 first strike guy in the soldier deck, the one that lets you choose how opponents block. Is it just me or is it really hard to make your opponents block? You keep touching and dragging the opponent's card but most of the time nothing happens.

Also when choosing a permanent to exile with Oblivion Ring, if you try to exile an equipment equipped to a creature, it's totally intense trying to select the equipment and not accidentally choosing the creature it's equipped to. Last time, I tapped, and got the equipment, but dang I was lucky. How did the game know I meant to pick the equipment?

Don't get me wrong though, I am having a totally great time with this game.

Sweet, just dl it. Hopefully my iPad 1 won't be too cranky with it.

@egg: I haven't used the white deck, but I know that if you want to select one of multiple stacked cards, you can double-tap to zoom in on the entire stack so you can more easily select the card you want. All I've been able to do so far is completely unlock the Chandra deck and I'm almost done unlocking the Garruk deck now.

On a side note, the computer is full of fucking cheaters when you play Planechase. It's supposed to be FFA but during the five games I've played, every single time all three computer players have targeted me first whenever they had more than one logical option. Sometimes they even targeted me when I was the most illogical option. Jerks.

I can't beat the white deck, too many creatures and my red deck can't burn them fast enough.

He's drawing perfect hands every game.

@KaosAngel: Red deck kinda blows but I think the matchup against the Goblin deck is worse personally. I'd just make sure you have as much table-clearing power as possible and hope for a good draw. Board in as much removal as possible and just survive until you can get out some of your larger creatures and just fly over the top. It's unfortunate but Red deck, as always, is the shittiest deck. Without synergy it just kinda stagnates and never gets better no matter how many cards you unlock.

All this Magic talk has me looking on e-bay for bulk cards. Haven't played in like 10 years! Magic suddenly seems really affordable now that I'm not paying for it with lunch money.

The 2012 version of this game didn't cut it for me, I needed real cards yo. Gotta tap.

Although an iPad version that's free is also really mad tempting.

@MikkaQ said:

All this Magic talk has me looking on e-bay for bulk cards. Haven't played in like 10 years! Magic suddenly seems really affordable now that I'm not paying for it with lunch money.

The 2012 version of this game didn't cut it for me, I needed real cards yo. Gotta tap.

Although an iPad version that's free is also really mad tempting.

Don't waste money on real cards. 2013 gets you 10 decks with 30 card unlocks for each...so a grand total of 900 cards.

For a fucking Jackson! One Jackson will get you 900 cards and then EXP Packs that come out later. It's worth it. Just get the 2013 game on the iPad if you want.

@KaosAngel said:

@MikkaQ said:

All this Magic talk has me looking on e-bay for bulk cards. Haven't played in like 10 years! Magic suddenly seems really affordable now that I'm not paying for it with lunch money.

The 2012 version of this game didn't cut it for me, I needed real cards yo. Gotta tap.

Although an iPad version that's free is also really mad tempting.

Don't waste money on real cards. 2013 gets you 10 decks with 30 card unlocks for each...so a grand total of 900 cards.

For a fucking Jackson! One Jackson will get you 900 cards and then EXP Packs that come out later. It's worth it. Just get the 2013 game on the iPad if you want.

Nothing beats the feel of real cards. I went off the deep-end around the time that 2012 came out and ended up expanding my collection of 2000 to something approaching 16000. I've spent hours combing through my collection just to build a single deck. It's so much fun.

@KaosAngel said:

@MikkaQ said:

All this Magic talk has me looking on e-bay for bulk cards. Haven't played in like 10 years! Magic suddenly seems really affordable now that I'm not paying for it with lunch money.

The 2012 version of this game didn't cut it for me, I needed real cards yo. Gotta tap.

Although an iPad version that's free is also really mad tempting.

Don't waste money on real cards. 2013 gets you 10 decks with 30 card unlocks for each...so a grand total of 900 cards.

For a fucking Jackson! One Jackson will get you 900 cards and then EXP Packs that come out later. It's worth it. Just get the 2013 game on the iPad if you want.

Yeah and then I play it with myself and random dudes on the internet? Nah. All the games make me want to do is play the real deal. I have the advantage of knowing way too many regular Magic players, I can just hook up with them.

Plus I've found similar prices for actual cards. But yeah as something to play on a plane or whatever, it's a good deal.

@StarvingGamer: @MikkaQ:

I can't do it man, each block season costs be about 500 bucks...I can't man. I don't play Type 2 because it's too much work to keep track of all the cards so yeah...I only got into Block but got damn it costs too much to do that. -_-

@KaosAngel: Oh, I don't get that serious. I've been picking up a playset of all the commons and uncommons from each expansion and a handful of the cheaper rares here and there. I did go a little overboard and pick up some rares to build out shitty versions of Red Deck Wins and W/G Human.

It's not too bad, maybe $150-200 a year. There are certainly more expensive habits to have.