Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014

Yesterday at 7 pm local time Steam users coujld finally download Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014. It took about a minut to download the game but installation of it took ages for some unknown reason. 17 minutes past 7 pm I finally ran the game. The very first surprise was that the game was actually running at regular speed and it wasn't lagging^_^.

A Scavenging Ooze voucher showed up. Then I could enjoy Brad Rigney's Chandra model and choose the difficulty of the game (by stating that I play Magic 'A lot').

In DotP 2014 there are two single campaigns (normal and revenge), multiplayer (free-for-all and two headed giant) and Sealed Deck Campaign (two sealed deck slots are for free, then you have to buy a slot for 2 USD). First I decided to try the normal campaign. To make things more entertaining this time you get to see few videos and listen to Chandra telling you her story. You as a planeswalker start on a certain plane and after finding what you were looking for you move to another plane to search yet for another thing. On the planes there are encounters and decks to beat. The encounters are sometimes really special, especially those ones from Shandalar. The encounters stick to the storyline and the cards used are from the block having the same name as the plane. That's pretty nice actually.

As I pre-ordered the game I got Chandra's Firewave deck unlocked. I wasn't looking forward too much playing with it but in the end it wasn't that bad (last two games I primarily played with Mono White Weenie decks). In the first match I terribly died due to drawing cards that I couldn't even play so I went to the deck editor. Added in Grim Lavamancers, Sulfuric Vortexes, Inferno Titan, some more efficient burn spells and creatures and a completely different deck was born. With this it finally felt that you can actually win some games^^. Sulfurix Vortex seemed a bit overpowered. The majority of the games we won just because of playing this card and because of this card we couldn't fully enjoy the Jailbreak encounter^_^ (the game starts with a creature controlled by you enchanted with Prison Term and you have 9 turns to beat your opponent).

After few planes I decided to try out the Sealed Deck Campaign. I left tips and tutorial messages turned on so I turned them off after the game tried to explain me what sealed deck is actually about. I opened my booster packs and went through the cards in the deck manager. That actually looks pretty nice. It can sort your cards by color, rarity etc. You can add the amount of lands you want and it also shows you some kind of 'deck strength'. But who knows what the criteria are. My deck was supposedly 'Awesome'. I opened two Shivan Dragons and Earthquake so I was in red. I added green because other colors did not have enough creatures. So I had a deck with some Advocates of the Beast, some Beasts, haste and 'musle' slivers, some Giant Growths, Shocks and the Dragons. It was working quite nice. During the campaign after winning a game against some decks you are awarded with more booster packs (in total three). Those you can add to your pool and use them to enhance your deck even more. I opened one more Shock and Shivan Dragon^^. I got stuck against Liliana's deck that killed everything I had so I changed my deck to RG beatdown and that worked fine.

Next it was time for some challenges. There are ten Challenges in total. 5 are initial ones and the other 5 are advanced. But to be honest none of them are that much of a challenge. Most of them are about the knowledge of Magic: The Gathering rules (about how trample and lifelink works etc). This certainly is a good step to teach players how to play, but I would enjoy some more challenging challenges for a Magic player. (a following screenshot is not actually a spoiler)

After wondering what Protean Hulk can fetch in the final challenge for quite some time we got back to playing the normal campaign. We were just one plane from Ramaz. In the final match you play with Chandra against Ramaz's RUG ramp. We played some small creatures and attacked only to be hit by Earthquake. So more little creatures and attack. Burn spells did the rest...Not much of a challenge. It wasn't Cruel Control nor Darksteel Colossus on turn 1.

Anyway 10USD is the price for the game and that's not much. You get Scavening Ooze with it so that actually awesome. It was fun playing the game and I enjoyed it. It seems that the power level is lower compared with the previous games but nonetheless it was fun and I had to sideboard about three times during the whole game (a deck full of burn targeting only creatures against creatureless decks...does not work that much). As an introduction to Magic this game is much better suited than the previous ones. But the previous ones can be more challenging and can teach the player a bit more about deck styles and cards effects. The best thing about this game is probably the fact that you canplay with your deck you created from the m14 pool. That means that there can be some more intersting games.

Random Photo of the Day (almost Night)

Torn Asunder Draft

On Wednesday night we finally met to draft Torn Asunder. We were six in total and decided to draft from more booster packs than advised. Unfortunately we decided to play with more cards and that ruined my whole draft as I counted with 20/20 for some reason.

My first pick was some completely random personality. The rare in the pack was completely useless in limited and the uncommons were unplayable as well as it required a ring to play them or something similar. Later on I started picking Dragon Kensai and some strategies that I could use with them. It seemed to me that there were two cards that should be picked right away - Defensive Stance and Frozen in Place. Frozen in Place is a card that can immediately win a game against certain military decks and in Shugenja deck with Suck the Marrow can be pretty awesome as well. It seemed that one player next to me was drafting Shugenjas and one was drafting Dragon Kensai. I did not want to switch so I continued in my theme. My deck was Phoenix/Dragon military but was doomed to fail... I picked early Sturdy Armor and Uji's Saboteurs as those cards seemed really good.

In the end I ended up with military deck. My fate deck consisted of cards that usually were giving force penalties or force bonuses. A Cleansing Breath seemed as a card that can give tempo and can be deadly for military opponent. Frozen in Place was simply awesome. Uji's Saboteurs, Sturdy Armor along with Chiyurei's Axe (which was hardly awesome), Destriers and Goju Kaxt. I thought that this card would be really great but with lack of kill actions ... and Saboteurs being uncommon. My dynasty deck consisted of all Phoenix and Dragon personalities that had power of at least 3. Not really good military personalities though. I was trying to pick personalities with Elite and Stalwart keyword but in the end I did not need those keywords at all. The advantage was more or less ... none.

I did not like the fact that there are many cards that give force penalties and bonuses (and I don't even talk about the stronghold's ability). Almost no bowing nor kill actions (melee/ranged attacks) in the set in common or uncommon slot. This makes Imperial Favor a HUGE advantage. What seemed rather sad .. that if you wanted to be picking certain keyword you had to be picking the very same card. Thus having a card with same cost and that was something I did not really want. I needed more box personalities for my scheme but it was in vain. It was much better to wait for a big ONI personality and pick that one. If you can't buy 2 personalities of good force/gold ratio it's better to buy one that almost no one can do about (except Imperial Favor). There were two movements in the pool we had and I supposed that's all (considering commons and uncommons). One was Zerk uncommon and the other one.. I don't even remember. A must for a military deck fighting Honor deck.

A player did not need to care about honor loss so adding cards with honor loss wasn't an issue - if it meant a personality with 6-7 force in the end...

Honestly I thought that this set would be better designed. I haven't drafted Legend of the Five Rings much...several times actually. But I would expect something more fun and more ... interactive .... than FORCE vs FORCE and the biggest problem being 'sending home from Imperial Favor'.

Next time I need to give it more thought before I start to draft. I usually pick cards that seem good. But in the case of L5R I should start picking Honor cards right away. I just don't like military and in the first game I simply did not want to attack and that is the reason I terribly died. Ok, the other reason was Bofana Exp. ^_^.

Random Photo of the Day - Jace, the Mind Sculptor Better than All

I preordered 2 sets of Jace TMS. Some time later I won another set of Jaces. A year later I was forced to sell some of them because I did not have any money due to certain circumstances that I don't want to recall. Now I have 2 sets. One set is for sale if anyone interested....because once again I'm not in the best financial situation and I don't even see a good financial situation coming any time soon. But I'm trying to survive. In the worst case scenario, there are still shops that can give me cash for the cards immediately. But to be honest I'd rather sell the cards to someone who'll play with the cards.

Foil Tarmogoyf? Yes, it exists...

Proof that FOIL Tarmogoyf actually exists. Opened by Adam Holub.