It's immense fun, and a unique experience among current online collectible card games. In it, you're teamed up with another player and pitted against another couplet, each side sharing a pool of life points. As an extra delight there's also a multi-player mode called Two Headed Giant. That could have been a train wreck waiting to happen, but smart card selection algorithms have made it a smooth, fun ride.Īnd you can get a match against another human with equal ease. Each offers an opponent with a randomly generated deck to ensure a different challenge every time. They still have to complete the initial solo campaign before they're allowed online.įor solo play there's a choice of difficulty levels. The interface remains a bit clunky, especially for experienced Magic players.
Gone are the upfront fees, in favour of a fair free to play model where you buy boosters with real money or in-game gold to add to your collection. The publisher promises regular expansions to this initial set too. Gone are the insipid cards, overwhelmed by a selection that represents about 80% of the current line. They flattered Hearthstone by imitating it. So Wizards went back to the drawing board and took the most obvious route to success. In terms of touchscreen play, it just couldn't match up to its most obvious competitor. However, it also had a regrettable free to play model that made it feel like a demo game with a weak selection of cards. Last year's Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015 had all the brilliant mechanics that power the game. Wizards of the Coast hasn't helped itself with the models they've chosen for their online games. If you're accustomed to the fast and furious action of Hearthstone, they seem positively prehistoric. To make all those instants and interrupts work, the game needs short wait timers through the turn. Shifting it online just makes this screamingly obvious. Partly that's because the designers of Magic made it for face-to-face tabletop play. Those reasons why the card game became a juggernaut in its own right. But none have managed to capture that Magic magic. There have been recent annual releases of Duels of the Planeswalkers which gave fans the chance to play online. It's unpredictable, because you can interrupt another player's turn or play instant cards to boost your attacks.
The players summon minions and artifacts onto the board, vying to be first to gain an edge in power. An ebb and flow of beatdown from one side to the other. Now that collectible card gaming has become a big fixture of the App Store, it feels bizarre that the grandfather of the genre, Magic, hasn't made the leap in full.Īt its best Magic is an absorbing dance.