XBLA - Magic: The Gathering - 800pts

Played the demo last night and enjoyed it. I think this will be enough to scrastch the itch I get for Magic. I have the old Microprose game as well, but its nice to play with new cards :)
 
The same version as the current rules oddly enough, and not the (terrible) updated rules coming out mid-July with the new core set. I imagine they aren't going to patch in an update either, as a couple of the challenges require damage to go on the stack from what I remember.
 
[quote name='Genocidal']The same version as the current rules oddly enough, and not the (terrible) updated rules coming out mid-July with the new core set. I imagine they aren't going to patch in an update either, as a couple of the challenges require damage to go on the stack from what I remember.[/QUOTE]

Actually, not sure this is accurate. I think it is using the new rules, though maybe it's hard to tell. If you turn off "Auto-assign damage" and you get multi-blocked you have to setup the order in which to assign damage, just like the new rules. Not only that, I've found that once combat damage has been assigned I'm unable to use abilities like "Regeneration", which also follows the new rules. So, I do believe that the new M10 rules are in place for this game.
 
[quote name='crystalklear64']haha what deck building system?

Pick deck. Beat people. Cards get added to your deck that you have no control over.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, this is disappointing.. You can control the cards that you win, but seemingly nothing else. Since the cards you win are typically more powerful than what you have it's usually stupid to take them out.

That being said, obviously that isn't the angle they were going for in this game.
 
[quote name='leshrac55'] Not only that, I've found that once combat damage has been assigned I'm unable to use abilities like "Regeneration", which also follows the new rules. So, I do believe that the new M10 rules are in place for this game.[/QUOTE]
Yea that confused the hell out of me. I lost the first campaign round because of that with the troll rare card. Yes I will block your 6/4 wurm, I've got regen bitch! *combat occurs* Now to activate my Regen ability and.. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKK

Troll died, drew shit. End game :(

Having to use regen before its even dead seems stupid.
 
[quote name='leshrac55']Actually, not sure this is accurate. I think it is using the new rules, though maybe it's hard to tell. If you turn off "Auto-assign damage" and you get multi-blocked you have to setup the order in which to assign damage, just like the new rules. Not only that, I've found that once combat damage has been assigned I'm unable to use abilities like "Regeneration", which also follows the new rules. So, I do believe that the new M10 rules are in place for this game.[/QUOTE]That'd make more sense and is rather unfortunate. It's quite possible I didn't notice since it was extremely late at night when I was playing.
 
[quote name='crystalklear64']Yea that confused the hell out of me. I lost the first campaign round because of that with the troll rare card. Yes I will block your 6/4 wurm, I've got regen bitch! *combat occurs* Now to activate my Regen ability and.. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKK

Troll died, drew shit. End game :(

Having to use regen before its even dead seems stupid.[/QUOTE]

Yeah... I think this is the one point in the new rules that is actually more confusing for new/casual players than the old rules. Technically speaking, the old rules you'd have to use Regeneration before combat damage has resolved as well, but you could at least wait until the damage had been ASSIGNED. It's really not a huge deal once you understand it, though I feel like if they wanted Regeneration to be a bit more intuitive they'd word the skill as "If creature would be destroyed, you may pay [regeneration costs] to prevent its death. If you do, tap creature." That way the skill would active only once the regenerating creature is destroyed. This seems far more intuitive to me... after all, why would you regenerate a creature before it's dead? =)
 
Also, what is with the terrible 3 blue counter spell in the blue deck? Why not just use plain ole' counter spell?

I assume its to use the new card, but Cancel doesn't seem to offer any benefit over Counter Spell to make it be worth the extra blue.


Wow, so many things I never knew.

Apparently you can't counter a counter spell? When I played with my friends we almost all loved using blue decks and would have counter spell "fights." Apparently that is not legal.
 
[quote name='crystalklear64']Yea that confused the hell out of me. I lost the first campaign round because of that with the troll rare card. Yes I will block your 6/4 wurm, I've got regen bitch! *combat occurs* Now to activate my Regen ability and.. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKK

Troll died, drew shit. End game :(

Having to use regen before its even dead seems stupid.[/QUOTE]

So when do you use Regen now? after blocking asignment?
 
[quote name='OnyxPrimal']So when do you use Regen now? after blocking asignment?[/QUOTE]
You can use it any time during your turn, but yea. After the blocking is your last chance if you want to save the thing.
 
[quote name='crystalklear64']Also, what is with the terrible 3 blue counter spell in the blue deck? Why not just use plain ole' counter spell?

I assume its to use the new card, but Cancel doesn't seem to offer any benefit over Counter Spell to make it be worth the extra blue.


Wow, so many things I never knew.

Apparently you can't counter a counter spell? When I played with my friends we almost all loved using blue decks and would have counter spell "fights." Apparently that is not legal.[/QUOTE]

I hadn't seen anything about not being able to counter a counterspell... That seems weird, and I don't see why that would be the case considering the game engine... but anything's possible.

As for the cancel, it is annoying... but basically your vanilla "Counterspell" is just no longer available in "Standard". I guess at some point a 2-mana Counter-all was considered too powerful, so it was replaced with a 3-mana Counter-all, and there are now several other more specific counters.
 
Yea I lost because of that regen bs too lol. I think the trick with the first planeswalker in the campagin is to wait it out, like others said, and then trample em, played it like 5 times before beating that one lol.

We used to counter counters all the time, ah good times. Fireball! nope, counter, ah crap ok I counter that well I counter that! SHIT! LOL
 
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Just saw this-
[quote name='Xknight2009//Gamefaqs']I sent Patrick Buckland an email asking why the deck building/modification was not put into this game

his answer:

"Yes, you hit the nail on the head when you suggest that the lack of card removal was for reasons of deck balance. To be honest, I also felt the same way as you originally (being also a jaded old Magic player!), and fought against the decision during the design phase with Wizards. However they were adamant that the Live arena must not be dominated by players with the sort of mindsets that dominate the Pro tour. They wanted all players to have the fun of adding unlocked cards to their decks, without the ability to create killer decks that upset the balance online.

As Wizards of the Coast do seem to know a thing or two about Magic, let’s face it, they’re probably right!"
[/QUOTE]

Really? That's fine if they want to keep the standard mode balanced with precon decks, but why not a veteran mode with true deck building?
 
[quote name='crystalklear64']You can use it any time during your turn, but yea. After the blocking is your last chance if you want to save the thing.[/QUOTE]

That totally fucked me over one round as well.
 
What they really need to create is a Live "Draft" game, where you draft cards to use for 1 use only (ie, you don't keep any cards). This would mostly even the playing field (other than first picks from packs) while allowing people to gain skill at the game both in terms of deckbuilding and playing. Not only that, it would inject a lot more variety into the game and thus make it far more interesting than simply pitting people against pre-constructed decks, which makes it mostly a game of straight luck.
 
[quote name='Spybreak8']Sooo, theres online co-op but I haven't tired it yet.[/QUOTE]

Unless I'm missing something, the only available co-op online is if you sign in another person on your Xbox and you can take on another 2 people from another Xbox.

I can't find a way to do Two-Headed Giant (co-op story mode) online. I only see the option for local.
 
My problem so far is that, and maybe its just the earlier decks, these preconstructed decks have no depth. They are very straightforward. Even the blue deck, which is what I always play, is fairly predictable.
I hope some of the later decks have many more options to choose from.

And hopefully more variations of cards that people recognize from when they played. Being able to pick an era or block of cards to play with would be fantastic. Invasion :drool:
 
[quote name='crystalclear 64']My problem so far is that, and maybe its just the earlier decks, these preconstructed decks have no depth. They are very straightforward. Even the blue deck, which is what I always play, is fairly predictable.
I hope some of the later decks have many more options to choose from.

And hopefully more variations of cards that people recognize from when they played. Being able to pick an era or block of cards to play with would be fantastic. Invasion :drool:[/QUOTE]

I'm also hoping they can put some older cards into play considering everything has a controller expansion symbol and it wouldn't effect "reprinting cards" especially since they are going for a different type of environment on live. I like see old favs like City of Brass or Vampiric Tutor (Yeah right!) from new sets I'd love to see Invasion, Apocalypse, and Torment for sure (I love playing black). I'm planning on buying the full version with the points my wife is getting me for father's day that I'm not suppose to know about. :)

edit: Thanks for explaing the new rule on regen to me by the way. :)
 
The demo brought back memories and I had a lot a fun with it. I think I will pick it up despite the lack of real deck making and the weird time in which you can use an instant. But hey its 10 bucks, totally worth it to play even a slightly gimped version with some old middle school chums over live.
 
WTF? The game doesn't allow you to take out the crap cards from the decks, even when you acquire new ones.

This basically forces you to play essentially with more than 60 cards, which is not good.
 
[quote name='heimdal']WTF? The game doesn't allow you to take out the crap cards from the decks, even when you acquire new ones.

This basically forces you to play essentially with more than 60 cards, which is not good.[/QUOTE]

Apparently after trolling lol no, patrolling, through the xbox forums I've discovered why they did this. They focused on the xbox live matches and didn't want the pros to dominate people just like what happens with the paper tournaments apparently. I don't know why they'd limit the single player focusing on a multiplayer aspect but hey Im not on a development team, yet.:D

So yea short answer game balancing...
 
You can choose not to add the new cards to your deck and that will keep as close to 60 cards as you want, although you'll probably want some of the cards in there. You will get multiple copies of some so just don't add all of them in there.

I am not having a problem with these rules, but I never played Magic before and have been raised with the VS System (with a little bit of Yugioh and Yu Yu Hakusho) so that may be why I'm having an easier time adjusting.
 
The other sort-of-strange thing is you can't adjust your basic lands either. They don't even appear in the deck edit section.
 
The more I play this game (so far only single player campaign) the more I dislike it. The further you get the more underpowered your deck becomes; I wouldn't have as big of an issue with this if I could actually edit my deck, but since I can't it removes almost all of the skill and comes down to your ability to get lucky draws. The last game I just played against Garruk he got a fucking Loxodon Warhammer in play on his Troll Ascetic that finally ended up on his Molimo and ending the game with him at 48 life. I wouldn't be as annoyed by this but the fact that none of my cards are even nearly as good as Warhammer, coupled with the fact that I have no cards to deal with it really pisses me off.

It seems the past three or four matches I've gotten completely destroyed the first time, and then the second time I attempt them it's a walk in the park (Elspeth played a few Holy Days before dropping a Purity and Mass Calcify to completely wreck me in game one, game two she got mana screwed and could only stall with a pair of Holy Days). After reading that the AI purposely shuffles 'annoying' cards to the bottom against players who choose lower difficulties it's extremely disappointing knowing that the the only reason I'm probably winning is because the game is cheating on my behalf to give my opponent terrible draws and me good draws.

Maybe the multiplayer is better, but I've just about given up on this game. At least I should be able to sell the Garruk when it gets here in a month or two to recoup my cost.
 
[quote name='lordwow']Nothing is more annoying than Holy Day.[/QUOTE]

Especially when you think you have the game won by casting Overrun. :D
 
So far i'm liking the game. Obviously playing against human players will be more fun. The sad thing is they could really expand this game over the coming months with a couple of updates (to allow more deck customization) and some expansions/DLC.
 
[quote name='heimdal']Especially when you think you have the game won by casting Overrun. :D[/QUOTE]
I beat someone online using Evacuation after he had tapped out and cast overrun. With all my flying creatures he couldn't do shit with my 1 turn advantage.

I was feeling pretty :cool: as he had me down to 2 life and he would have won for sure if I didn't have that card.
 
I got the 20+ damage achievement against the white deck. After they used all their Holy Days, I had 3 creatures out with the +1/+1 for each forest, I think I got them for about 35 damage with 3 creatures. Killed them despite their 24-5 advantage.
 
[quote name='Genocidal']The more I play this game (so far only single player campaign) the more I dislike it. The further you get the more underpowered your deck becomes; I wouldn't have as big of an issue with this if I could actually edit my deck, but since I can't it removes almost all of the skill and comes down to your ability to get lucky draws. The last game I just played against Garruk he got a fucking Loxodon Warhammer in play on his Troll Ascetic that finally ended up on his Molimo and ending the game with him at 48 life. I wouldn't be as annoyed by this but the fact that none of my cards are even nearly as good as Warhammer, coupled with the fact that I have no cards to deal with it really pisses me off.

It seems the past three or four matches I've gotten completely destroyed the first time, and then the second time I attempt them it's a walk in the park (Elspeth played a few Holy Days before dropping a Purity and Mass Calcify to completely wreck me in game one, game two she got mana screwed and could only stall with a pair of Holy Days). After reading that the AI purposely shuffles 'annoying' cards to the bottom against players who choose lower difficulties it's extremely disappointing knowing that the the only reason I'm probably winning is because the game is cheating on my behalf to give my opponent terrible draws and me good draws.

Maybe the multiplayer is better, but I've just about given up on this game. At least I should be able to sell the Garruk when it gets here in a month or two to recoup my cost.[/QUOTE]

Studying game design this is often how many games are programmed. You always face a harder opponent and then once you do defeat them, often more tries than one, you gain their specifics that made it challenging to take them down, (ie Metroid, Puzzle Quest). Don't get your hopes up on the Garruk card since everyone will have it more likely than not it will be a few dollars worth.

You might like changing the AI difficulty in the options before you set aside the game forever.
 
[quote name='Spybreak8']Studying game design this is often how many games are programmed. You always face a harder opponent and then once you do defeat them, often more tries than one, you gain their specifics that made it challenging to take them down, (ie Metroid, Puzzle Quest).[/QUOTE]Even though you've been commenting on this thread, I'm wondering if you've actually played the game or Magic in the past. The cards you're winning are well below the power level of the cards your opponents have up to this point, and since I'm already unlocking doubles and even triples of cards I can't imagine there will be a sudden spike in power, and even if I do unlock one powerful card, it doesn't make up for the handful of bombs that my opponents get, plus I can't remove the crap cards to make room for more of the 'good' ones.

Don't get your hopes up on the Garruk card since everyone will have it more likely than not it will be a few dollars worth.
Click to expand...
Considering the card goes for $10-20 now and is most likely to continue to be a staple since it's being reprinted in the new core set at the Mythic rarity, I'm pretty confident I'll be able to get at least the $5 I'm hoping for out of it. The subset of Magic players who pick up this game is also going to be smaller than the subset of Magic players who play T2 and would be interested in an alt art/cheaper Garruk.

You might like changing the AI difficulty in the options before you set aside the game forever.
Click to expand...
I've played off and on for going on 15 years now with a handful of those being at tournament level... there's no reason I should have to turn the difficulty on the game down from 'Normal' to 'Easy', due to what is almost assuredly cheating on the part of the AI if the interview with the programmer holds any truth. The fact that on my second attempt on each game I would completely demolish the deck that had just demolished me leads me to believe this is the case (Yes, I know, there is luck in drawing the right cards, etc, but these results have so far been staggering and consistent).

At this point, even a small patch that lets you edit the core decks would be a good start in placating me.
 
Yes I have played Magic, 7 years ago in fact and I was really into it as well. I'm not that far in the campaign, doing challenges and duels, so I haven't been unlocking the cards you're talking about so sorry if I don't know that "the cards you're winning are well below the power level of the cards your opponents have up to this point". I didn't say I agree with the deck customization I just feel I understand why they did it. It would be very easy if they added in a setting in the options to enable or disable custom decks however and not hindering the offline play plus this is a casual version of the game. I don't care how good you are, AI always cheat, its like you've never played a video game sir. I think its 10 bucks worth of a purchase easily considering the price of one starter deck nowadays.
 
I can't wait to give the demo a shot. I've always wanted to play TCGs but don't have any friends that would be interested. I know this isn't the same as playing with others but I hope this would be a sufficient substitute.
 
FYI the demo is just the tutorial for the game, it stops after that.

How has online play been for folks? My only online game has been against Spybreaker but his satellite connection my have been what was causing the issues we experience. (I feel your pain my because my parents are stuck on satellite also.)
 
Online is fun, but it can be annoying when:
People pause the game after every single card you play and take forever reading it.

People quit before the match has resolved.
 
[quote name='MSUHitman']FYI the demo is just the tutorial for the game, it stops after that. [/QUOTE]

Nope, you can play the tutorial and the first 2 campaign missions.
 
[quote name='crystalklear64']Online is fun, but it can be annoying when:
People pause the game after every single card you play and take forever reading it.

People quit before the match has resolved.[/QUOTE]

Yea over at xbox's forums people are all talking about the online is broken since people just quite when they're about to lose.

Yea thanks MSUHitman, those two games, since one went out of sync prob due to me lol, were fun.:)
 
[quote name='MSUHitman']FYI the demo is just the tutorial for the game, it stops after that.

How has online play been for folks? My only online game has been against Spybreaker but his satellite connection my have been what was causing the issues we experience. (I feel your pain my because my parents are stuck on satellite also.)[/QUOTE]

Ugh.. I was on satalite until recently myself and never even tried to play game over live on it. I feel bad for ya Spybreaker. Also does anyone know how long this promo card offer is going to last? I want to pick it up, but It will have to wait till next week or so.
 
[quote name='will52']Nope, you can play the tutorial and the first 2 campaign missions.[/QUOTE]

Well my demo only let me do the tutorial, everything else was locked. Maybe mine was faulty because I downloaded it on Wednesday when everything was in a state of flux and it's been changed?
 
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