Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 Review

When I was in school, my friends and I would walk down to our local book store everyday after class. While none of my friends were book worms, it didn’t really matter because we were there for our addiction…

Magic: The Gathering.

Around my highschool years I was a magic player and always had my favorite deck with me to pass the time and challenge all comers. If you were ever addicted to Magic then this review will make you very happy in multiple places. If you’ve never played Magic a day in your life then this review will hopefully be your gateway drug into the most strategic of games.

Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 is built from the ground up to be not just a great way to get your Magic fix, but also a great way to test out a new deck idea you might have, or even learn how to play Magic if you’ve never played before. In this review I’m going to be talking about both the PC version of the game as well as the iPad version of the game. The Magic masters over at Wizards of the Coast were kind enough to give us a copy of the PC game and the iPad version has a free “limited” version of the game so why not just talk about both.

Features that matter
First off, what is a Magic game without multiplayer? Crap, that’s what. You don’t need to worry here because Duels (I’ll shorten it for reading purposes) has several modes of mutliplayer across Steam and iOS’ Gamecenter as well as PSN and Xbox Live.

Next is the UI of the game. While the PC version of the game does a great job of making Duels easy to play, flicking cards into play is much more satisfying on the iPad.

The deck manager that allows you to build your deck and, in the process, your strategy is very intuitive and easy to navigate.

Features that could be better
The only gripe I have about this digital version of Magic is the same gripe I’ve always had about digital versions of Magic; there just aren’t enough cards to build the decks I want. Don’t get me worng, I understand that putting all of the Magic cards ever made in a digital form would take emense amounts of storage but I wish I could create more decks. That being said I don’t really think that this will be a problem for anyone playing Magic in digital form; if you want to have more cards go out and buy the real thing too.

In closing
As far as Magic the Gathering fun goes this game gets a 9 out of 10. The UI is genius, the tutorial is easy to pickup, and being able to pickup and play Magic against real people anytime I want is fantastic. I can’t wait to see one of these games come out every year. If you like Magic or want to learn how to play, you couldn’t spend $10 any better.  Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 is available now for PC, iOS, Xbox, and PS3.

PC/iOS Screenshots:

About Jesse (The Pen of Doom)

A small time blogger with big time dreams and a love for everything geek.
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