Magic 2013: I'd Tap That

It's the new, new

I was first introduced to Magic: The Gathering in Middle School. At the time I was reading a bit of the high fantasy fiction and loved my family's yearly trip to the Renaissance Festival in PA. So anything involving magic and fantastical creatures was awesome in my book. MtG is not for everyone. There are many rules that structure not only what can be done, but when it can be done. You always have think ahead about what your next move is and how your opponent could react. Magic: The Gathering is full of strategy, math, resource management, timing and plain old luck




Let's just go over the basics for those who have no idea. In standard games each player starts with 20 life, the first to have 0 life or less loses. Your deck consists of cards that either do direct damage to the player or creature cards you control who attack for you. The resource you use to pay for all your creatures or spells is Mana. These cards are mixed in your deck and you can play 1 Mana or Land each turn. As time goes on the complexity increases as more and more creatures come out, some with game altering abilities of their own.

Just a bit of the old indestructable

I played both the original Duel of the Planeswalkers and last year's MtG 2012. Again, Magic 2013 is another step in the right direction. There are more decks than ever to choose from, with 30 cards to unlock in each deck. The ability to customize your deck returns allowing advanced players to sculpt their deck to how they want to play. I love the new campaign play, the additional challenges and the new Planeschaser mode. The main attraction for me is the online play. You can play co-op and try your luck against the AI, or you can test your might in a 1v1, 2v2, or even a 3-4 player free-for-all.

Planeschaser Mode is new and awesome

The other neat thing is that you get to see some of the new 2013 cards and mechanics before they are released for sale. Not all cards actually make it into the real card game, some are removed or banned for balance reasons. For instance I found an infinite loop when using the blue Dream Puppets deck against the other blue Crosswinds that if gone unchecked you can continuously copy a powerful creature card 100 times. Now the video game has a 100 copy limit, but the card game has no such limit, so you could say create 1,000 or a 100,000 or a 1,000,000,000 copies. Again, an infinite loop. Here is a video showing how this works.

If you enjoyed the last 2 entries from developer Stainless Games then picking up their newest version at $9.99 on PSN, Xbox Live, Steam, and even iPad is a no brainer. If you never played before check out the demo on each of these platforms as well. Here's a taste of what kinda of crazyiness awaits you.