Tap your device to add a +1/+1 counter to this thread. (General digital CCG thread.) - The Bear and Badger

Blue Swirl

Magic the Gathering: Arena, currently in beta. The user-friendliness of the Planeswalker video games, combined with the actual collection of "cards" and deck building of Online. Yes, it's basically Hearthstone: MtG Edition, but that's really all I ever wanted from an MtG video game.

"Comedy" beta launch trailer:

Gameplay trailer:

If you're wondering what the weird cards are with the flower on the back, they're basically jokers of a certain rarity. You can swap them for any card currently available of the same rarity. Should go some way towards mitigating 'the chase' when there's no way of popping down to your local store to buy singles.

Upsides:
It does have a tutorial, complete with a fairy who could give Navi a run for her money on the annoying scale.
It looks really nice.
It plays really well.
The built-in decks aren't complete garbage (but expect this to change as new cards come out, natch).

Downsides:
The UI needs some work.
The tutorial isn't perfect, you'll get the most out of it if you already know a bit about MtG (which, yes, renders the tutorial moot).
Yes, there are micro-transactions. But the amount of time it takes to earn a booster in-game isn't that bad. How much this game turns into pay-to-win over free-to-play remains to be seen, essentially.

All told, for a beta, it's solid. I've enjoyed the games I've played. If you're not a fan of MtG, this won't change your mind, though. Because it is MtG, just without any bits of paper or dice. Or human interaction. I don't know if it has a friends list yet, but if it does and you grab this, I'm BlueSwirl, obvs.

FranticPea

Ooh.

*realises it's PC only*

Boooo.

Blue Swirl

Oh, shit. Yeah, Windows only at the moment, folks.

AJ

Seriously? How the hell is mobile not the lead platform? Oh, wait, nerds.

I quite enjoyed MTG when I was young because I found somebody's old collection in a charity shop for fuck all and it had a load of kick arse cards in it. Fuck it now, though; I've got better things to continually spend far too much money on.

If this version is less pay to win than the real life one, I might give it a go.

Blue Swirl

AJ wrote:

If this version is less pay to win than the real life one, I might give it a go.

So far I've earned two boosters from six games. Won four, and that's with the starting decks. At least one of my losses was down to getting mana screwed, but that's MtG for you. I reckon you could play it and have fun without spending a penny, especially now. If it takes off and people starting dropping cash on virtual bits of paper, then who knows.

Oh, and yeah, it is a bit weird that there's no Android or iOS version. I reckon that'll come if it moves out of beta.

Frosty

Blue Swirl

Pretty much, yes.

AJ

Does the game key you keep multiple decks from your collection with overlapping cards? That'd be a big plus in my eyes.

Brooks

I'd never play MTG but the history of it is weirdly interesting.

Blue Swirl

AJ wrote:

Does the game key you keep multiple decks from your collection with overlapping cards? That'd be a big plus in my eyes.

Yeah, last night I created a new deck by duplicating an existing one.

AJ

Nice. That means you can try variations without scrapping things, too.

Blue Swirl

Indeed, and it means I can keep all the core/unlockable decks as they are, which satisfies a certain OCD itch.

Blue Swirl

The deck building tools in this are top. Easy to put a deck together, check mana curves, search for specific cards or a range of cards that meet certain requirements, etc. Two thumbs up from me.

I also ranked up tonight, hit Bronze 3 (you start at Bronze 1), and I think I've come to the end of my good win/loss ratio. Got thoroughly spanked by awesome decks with great synergy. On the upside, there's always quests that don't require you to win to get gold, so I still got enough to buy a new pack.

SpaceGazelle

Isn't Valve doing some card based game?

AJ

Artifact. Based on DOTA. Comes out at the end of the month.

Doesn't interest me, I'm afraid. MTG only does because I played it as a kid, TBH.

SpaceGazelle

That's the one. Yeah, I've never played any of this stuff but if Valve are involved my ears prick up.

Tempy

They also got the designer of MTG involved, so i’ll be giving it a spin for sure

Blue Swirl

Artifact sounds crazy complicated.

https://www.pcgamer.com/artifact-guide/

Blue Swirl

Couple more wins tonight, as well as a thorough spanking by a Merman deck*. I even considered buying gems so I could enter some events. Pricing isn't too bad, 750 gems runs at $4.99US, and it was 100 or 150 depending on the tournament. The only problem so far - the only currencies you can use in the store to buy gems are US$ and Euros, no GBP. And the conversion rate seems off, switching between the two literally just swaps the symbol in front of the numbers. I don't think the exchange rate between Trump Tokens and Brexit Bucks is 1:1, Wizards.

*I'm noticing two themes in the meta so far - white lifelink decks and blue/green Merman decks.

Blue Swirl

Artifact up for pre-order on Steam, folks.

Blue Swirl

A couple of new features in the latest update. You can now challenge a specific person by name, but there's still no actual friends list. There's also a minor change to the main menu UI to make it easier to switch between quick matches and events.

Got a couple of wins tonight, and I couple of frustrating losses. I actually got milled to death for the first time ever, which was doubly annoying as all my land ended up in the grave yard, but I had all the creatures in the world in my hand. C'est la magic.

Tempy

Blue Swirl wrote:

Artifact up for pre-order on Steam, folks.

The NDA dropped for this. I am on a discord with Chris Thursten who is an Ex-PC Gamer writer who still freelances for them, as well as being a bit of an X-Wing/Netrunner/GW/D&D fiend. He says it is the best card game he has ever played in any format.

Blue Swirl

Cool.

Blue Swirl

I'm not sure if this is how Lifelink works, or if Lifelink is just borked in Arena, but either way: fuck Lifelink. The meta has shifted right into white/black Vampire decks where every smegging creature has Lifelink. Pretty much every game I played tonight has been against that deck or variation thereof. Losing is fine, but losing when your opponent has more than double the starting life total, it starts to grate. Basically, Lifelink says damage dealt by the creature in question is gained by the creature's controller. I thought if, for example, a 3/3 with Lifelink was blocked by a 1/1, my opponent would gain 1 life. Nope. They gain the full 3 points, regardless of blocking. The only way to stop your opponent generating a jillion life per turn is to kill all their creatures. Which isn't easy when they start dropping shit that gives all Vampires +1/+1, or +1/+1 each time you gain life(!), etc.

Lifelink is OP, nerf next patch plox.

Blue Swirl

This is basically why White has always been my least favourite colour in MtG, because every game goes like this: "I hit you for eight damage." "I heal ten." "FUCK OFF." *table flip*

People hate Blue because of counter-spells, but White life gain combos are infinitely more annoying (imho, ymmv). Blue stops you playing the game, White makes playing the game redundant.

tigersgogrrr

My friend was bugging me to play this so I've downloaded it.

How do I play?

Blue Swirl

Are you asking how Arena works, or how to play Magic: The Gathering?

What's your username, btw? We can do some private matches if you want to learn.

Blue Swirl

While Tiger ponders, who picked up Artifact then?

SpaceGazelle

I will, but not yet.

Blue Swirl

I'll cave if a few badgers get involved, otherwise I'll just stick to MtGA.

SpaceGazelle

Tempy surely will too.

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