Magic: The Gathering Tactics, a review

[Shadowcran]

Magic: The Gathering Tactics has received a lot of negative press, but this is by people who don't love MTG as we do. Anyways, here's an opinion from a player.

First of all, is it enjoyable? Yes, very, for those of you who like Turn based strategy. You are a planeswalker, an actual piece on the game grid. You can move and use all spells that the game engine has so far. The creature animations are great. You don't have to worry about land as it's provided incremently by 1 per turn.

Besides the planewalker on the board, how does the game differ from MTG strategies? You have to learn terrain, movement, and obstacles. If you can't "see" your creature, i.e. out of sight, you can't enhance the creature, nor can you use spells on opponent creatures if you're out of sight. It's good for control deckers, like myself, to often take cover behind a wall from aggro users.

Creature damage also differs. Creatures have the same power/toughness as they do in magic, but in multiples of 10. For example, a 1/1 creature is now 10/10. Once you drop below your max Toughness by combat damage, you can only be healed of it via spells or unsummon, resummon and like spells. If your creature chooses to "block" it gets 30 bonus toughness but can't counterattack.

The terrain aspects remind me strongly of fantasy Turn based games I've played such as Battle for Wesnoth, The old Shining Force 1 and 2, etc. For someone like me, it's heaven, but for most regular MTG users, it might not appeal.

you're given a starter deck based on the color you choose to start with. I chose plains and got a mixed Plains/forest deck, which can get you through their training mission. To obtain more "cards" you first need to buy at least one booster pack, and trade at the auction house for "GP". At first, settle on getting low level stuff except for some that are pretty good but low priced due to being over available. Some cards sell for a lot more, like Obliterate or Death Baron. One of these cards, and you can sell it and make a pretty decent deck or two. However, you cannot trade starter deck cards.

The missions are pretty good. I can't say enough about the graphics. Once you see Nightmare fly with a kind of dark cloudy dust coming from his hoofprints, you'll be impressed. Of course, players tend to dislike you using the cheap spell, Plummet, on one of their high coin flyers to kill it instantly.

Playing 1 on 1 is also extremely 'stratisfying". If you play well enough, a person with a medium or low deck CAN overcome the high dollar decks.

Now here come the drawbacks:
1- Price- I have more time than others so I can regularly shop at the auction house and find deals. However, others might have to resort to buying draft packs and boosters. A draft pack contains 3 boosters and 10 gold. A booster costs in Station Cash 399sc(3.99 in real money). the draft pack is the deal with 3 boosters for 1000sc, or $10. Those of you who are impatient will be forced to have to buy these.

Also, you'll have to buy further campaigns for 500sc or $5 each. With this you get 5 missions in 1 chapter each. You are also given "daily missions" which number according to how many of the campaigns you finished. For example, I've finished 5 campaigns and get 5 daily missions.

This can turn into a money sink for some. Be forewarned.

2- Open Tourneys favor the aggro. There is no penalty for losing so speed is the solution. Win as many as you can as quickly as you can. This too causes problems for control decks who take a lot longer to win a match. Aggro users will auto concede if it looks like the match will take a while so they can play someone else for a quicker game. You do get prizes for 2nd and others for finishing in the top 8, plus a card if you win at least 2. The problem is the market is glutted with these cards and thus become the low end of the totem pole on the market. Other tourneys favor the winners but cost more GP to play. Each game of open costs 1 GP to play. I won all of my matches except 2 one time and still finished only in 7th place due to fast aggro decks racking up wins.

3- The game is still in it's infancy so bugs abound as well as disconnects. People who have ever played a new game know these things and tolerate. Others not used to these gripe endlessly and badmouth the game.

4- chatting with other players is difficult as there isn't an official forum except to get out of the game and go to it on the SOE forums site. However, except for some malcontents, the game is mostly good natured people who just love MTG. When they ask how someone new to the game of tactics like me is so knowledgeable, I steer them here to HQ. I hope this breathes new life somehow.

I hope this answers some of your questions about playing the game or not. If not, feel free to ask me questions here in this thread. I guess I'm your Better Business Bureau guy.

[Kl3p_co.]

TLDR: Play modo, it's a better paid MtG game