Magic Duels

[Spiderman]

Anyone try the new program/game/app that's replacing the Duels for Planeswalkers game? I downloaded the PC version (Steam) over the weekend and gave it a go, seems okay for now. My Starter box sucks and/or I suck at making a deck out of the cards because I've lost twice so far to the AI... need more removal

 

[Oversoul]

I've played it a little. It's a bit buggy, but mostly enjoyable. Seems like it could be an improvement over the DotP series.

 

[Spiderman]

I haven't played DotP to compare. What's been buggy for you? I've just done the one storyline, created two decks and played three or four games against the AI and everything was fine for me.

 

[Oversoul]

Uh, I had the whole game crash on me in Gideon's campaign, and then I had Psychic Spiral autotarget myself when I tried to select my opponent with Jace. Beat Chandra's storyline with no issues, but it got stuck midway through Nissa's campaign on the same opponent, with the whole game crashing four or five times in a row before I gave up for the time being.

 

[Spiderman]

Huh. Is this PC or mobile? I'll keep a watch out when I do the other storylines.

 

[Oversoul]

It's on the PC. I was probably just getting unlucky with server instability or something. They were definitely having server issues shortly after launch.

 

[Spiderman]

Inspired by TomB's post in MTG: Puzzle Quest, I fired this back up again... Out of the four Storylines available, I had just touched the Origins one and had one battle to go to finish Gideon, which I did. I started Chandalar's at my son's suggestion (since he likes red) but failed in the first battle Maybe I'll try to play a duel a day now...

 

[Spiderman]

Just wanted to share a funny story from last night - I was doing the last duel with Liliana in Origins, where she fights four demons in a row... during the battle with the first, I got out two Soulless Ones which were 11/11 each at the time, so I brought it down... the next demon comes in with all of the land from the previous demon and I guess a new hand, but only had 10 life (as did the 3rd and 4th demon), so even though it cast a 6/6-ish demon creature, I just steamrolled it with my next attack... and actually got out another Soulless One, making it three total (so 14/14? from another Zombie(s) I put out). This continued with the 3rd and 4th demon; by the last one, my Soulless ones were up to 18/18 each because of all of the lesser Zombies I was putting out.

It probably wouldn't have gone so well if I didn't have the Soulless Ones, but it was just funny how the game worked out with them all at the beginning.

 

[Oversoul]

Heh. I guessed how the last Liliana fight was going to work and deliberately built up to be unstoppable. Having fun with the game, but it does have its issues. The one that's annoying me most is Eldrazi Displacer. In this game, when its ability is used on tokens, the tokens are permanently deleted. The AI seems to know this and uses the card to get rid of my tokens, even though that's not actually how the card is supposed to work.

 

[Spiderman]

I was just a little surprised that the last two demons didn't have more life.

I actually think that's a bit "intelligent" of the AI, using it as token creature removal.

 

[Oversoul]

Having fun with the game, but it does have its issues. The one that's annoying me most is Eldrazi Displacer. In this game, when its ability is used on tokens, the tokens are permanently deleted. The AI seems to know this and uses the card to get rid of my tokens, even though that's not actually how the card is supposed to work.

Well, I just stumbled on a ruling that notes I'm actually wrong about this...

If a creature token is exiled this way, it will cease to exist and will not return to the battlefield.

So I stand corrected on this point. However, I do want to emphasize that most of the issues I noticed had nothing to do with my own misunderstandings regarding the rules. There have been game crashes, hiccups where the game would appear to lag and sometimes affect gameplay. Even when the game is working properly, some of the timers pass by very quickly, so I am hovering my finger over the spacebar waiting for the AI to go to the end step so that I can pause play right away and use whatever instants I want to. However, I have been having fun with the game. I haven't played against people, but I do get to beat up random AI decks with Superfriends stuff. In this environment, planeswalkers are quite strong.

 

[Mooseman]

If tokens ever leave the battlefield, they cease to exist. Did you expect the token to return?

• 110.5f A token that’s phased out, or that’s in a zone other than the battlefield, ceases to exist. This is a state-based action; see rule 704. (Note that if a token changes zones, applicable triggered abilities will trigger before the token ceases to exist.)

BTW - What is the name of the game from steam, I just got on there and don't really know my way around, or I guess I could ask by younest boys (over 20, but young to me), they live on Steam.

 

[Oversoul]

If tokens ever leave the battlefield, they cease to exist. Did you expect the token to return?

Yes, that is exactly what I expected to happen. I was wrong, as noted. I had wanted to get better with the rules (still do, really), but I'm just too out-of-practice. I know the interaction must be obvious to judges, but I think most players are going to read the card and think, "It says the creature comes back, so it comes back." Unfortunately, the card doesn't have room for an extra bit saying, "...unless the creature is a token, in which case it ceases to exist as per Rule 110.5f, of course."

BTW - What is the name of the game from steam, I just got on there and don't really know my way around, or I guess I could ask by younest boys (over 20, but young to me), they live on Steam.

It's just "Magic Duels." Worth playing through the story mode stuff, at least. Beyond that, well, it's not the worst attempt at a Magic video game, but it's still not great.

 

[Mooseman]

I saw you said you got it wrong, I was just wondering what you expected to happen.
It's fairly common, since tokens act weird. I can't wait to see the problems with energy tokens and crew stuff
Magic Duels, I'll have to get mu kids to show the old man how it works
Thanks

 

[Spiderman]

I haven't been able t0 play in a while, but I agree about the timers. I've really only had to watch out for the timer during combat when I want to play a "trick", so to speak, so I have to be sure to hit Pause right when the appropriate step starts (usually Blockers).