Duels of the Planeswalkers

As the digital compliment to the largest trading card game on the planet, Magic – Duels of the Planeswalkers has arguably been the most accessible entry point in the intricate, often intimidating world of Magic: The Gathering.  Since its quick dominance of Xbox Live Arcade in 2009, the franchise has returned year after year, always touting new features, storylines and game modes as the annualized gateway into the scene. This year’s entry, Magic 2015 – Duels of the Planeswalkers, is finally delivering on something fans have been after since the beginning, the chance to battle with your personally customized deck across the planes.

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Magic 2014: Duels of the Planeswalkers Deck Pack 3 was recently released January 8, 2014 on Xbox Live Arcade for $2.99, and Joystiq posted details of the pack, which …
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Wizards of the Coast’s latest entry in the annualized Duels of the Planeswalkers series is expanding the multiverse with downloadable content. The aptly titled Expansion follows the now formulaic strategy carved …
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Starting September 1 through 15, last year’s Magic 2013: Duels of the Planeswalkers will be available as a free download for Gold subscribers. Not to be confused with the 2014 edition …
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Magic 2014: Duels of the Planeswalkers was developed by Stainless Games and Wizards of the Coast and published by Microsoft Studios. It retails for 800 MSP and was released on June 26, 2013. XBLA Fans awarded Magic 2014 a coveted Buy It! award in our recent review.

Magic 2014 features a smaller, more focussed challenge mode than previous years, although it is still fun and can get tricky later on! Our guide provides step by step details for completing each of the challenges by name.

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Magic 2014: Duels of the Planeswalkers was developed by Stainless Games and Wizards of the Coast and published by Microsoft Studios. It retails for 800 MSP and was released on …
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Magic 2014: Duels of the Planeswalkers was developed by Stainless Games and Wizards of the Coast and published by Microsoft Studios. It retails for 800 MSP and was released on June 26, 2013. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Magic 2014: Duels of the Planeswalkers (Magic 2014) is the fourth edition of the popular series to grace the Xbox 360 and unsurprisingly, it delivers new cards, new features (including a sealed play mode) and an all new campaign mode. Like any annual release such as FIFA or Madden, your decision to buy (or not to buy) Magic 2014 will largely depend upon factors related to whether or not you actually enjoy the core experience and what value the new features provide over previous iterations.

The Duels of the Planeswalkers series (DOTPW) is designed to provide a fun and cost effective gateway for new players to enter the Magic The Gathering (MTG) arena, and Magic 2014 carries on that tradition admirably. MTG is a complicated card game which features a basic set of rules for placing cards (spells) onto an imaginary battlefield. Each spell costs a set amount of mana, which is in turn generated from the placement of land cards. The real skill of MTG is found in building a deck of cards which complement each other well enough to overcome the opposing deck and reduce your enemy’s health from twenty to zero. Magic 2014 explains these complex mechanics through a series of simple tutorials positioned before the main campaign, and then with helpful text boxes from then on.

For veterans of the DOTPW series or those who have strong knowledge of MTG in general, Magic 2014 provides the most feature rich installment to date and we are pleased to report that all of the new features enhance the overall experience without detracting in any way from the core gameplay.

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Welcome to our Challenges & Encounters guide, two of the key returning features in Magic 2013! This page is for the Challenges, Encounters can be found here. As they were in the past, these puzzles require you to solve intricate victory solutions from abysmal situations. Most of these puzzles require you to win during that one turn, making this a very small, difficult piece of Magic strategy. Since these are puzzles, however, we can solve them the exact same way every time! As such, each solution will be in step by step format, so you can’t possibly miss a beat.

Important: We strongly advise you either view every step before trying these, or you stop the timer after each move, as some steps are between individual card plays rather than entire turn phases.

Again, there are 10 Encounters to go along with the 10 challenges, so if you want solutions or help with those, head on over to the Encounters guide page. Read More

The Encounters are back in Magic 2013 and that means single-minded AIs following patterns until you win or lose. These patterns will be the same every time, but keep in mind that they will still block and attack logically regardless of the pattern. Since this is a card game and you still have to draw cards normally in Encounters, it’s important to remember that sometimes you can’t win without the right cards. That’s perfectly fine, these may take a couple tries no matter how sound the strategy is. The first three are pretty simple Encounters so their solutions are pretty straightforward, but as you progress you’ll find these Encounters get more and more difficult (and more and more unfair), so we hope you’ll find this guide useful.

Also back are the puzzle challenges. These challenges dare you to solve intricate Magic puzzles with a very specific setup and solution set. You can find our solution set to those challenges here. Read More

Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 was developed by Stainless Games and Wizards of the Coast and published by Microsoft Studios. It retails for 800 MSP and was released on June 20, 2012. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Stainless Games and Wizards of the Coast have brought us our third iteration of the ridiculously named “Magic: the Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers 201X” series. That means new cards, more missions, new modes, a redesigned interface, and yet the game’s name is still far too long. As such, while discussing the aforementioned inclusions, we will be referring to Magic: the Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 as Magic 2013 for the remainder of this review.

For the uninitiated, Magic 2013 pits you against several AI duelists throughout its multiple campaigns. Use cards to generate resources which you spend to summon creatures and cast spells. Learn about the different decks throughout the campaign and unlock them for your own use. Red, white, blue, black and green cards populate each deck and all have different signatures; for instance, green features powerful creatures, where-as black specializes in manipulating the dead. Handy tips and a thorough tutorial do a comprehensive job of teaching newcomers to the franchise, so don’t be afraid to jump right in.

As an up-front for interested veterans, no you still cannot freely create decks or mix and match cards, unfortunately, however Magic 2013 has the most cards in the series to date. If you want the card game in video game form, this is it, but if you want all of the Magic: the Gathering culture, you’d best go down to your local game store and participate there. Since this is the third iteration and many of you are simply curious about what’s new here, Magic 2013’s cards are all from the upcoming Magic 2013 core set. On top of that there are four campaigns including two different sorts of puzzles and the all new game mode Planechase.

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