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Magic: The Gathering has been on my radar ever since it was released but I passed it by for many reasons including cost, time, and the overwhelming complexity. Besides, with the exception of a very few people, no one was playing it in my city. Who would I play with? Now Wizard of the Coast brings Magic 2013 over to the iPad so I jumped on the bandwagon.
The thing is, I wasn’t planning on reviewing Magic 2013 mainly because my knowledge of Magic: The Gathering is practically non-existent but then I had such a blast that I decided to share my impressions.
Magic 2013 includes an overall intuitive and interactive tutorial that’ll show you the basic ropes. Once you get the hang of it and start playing card battles, Magic 2013 also includes a Hint system that is a fantastic crutch for steering you in the right direction. Say goodbye to getting frustrated and overwhelmed.
Don’t know anyone to play with? Well that’s okay because first off the AI brings a respectable challenge. The AI is represented through different characters, throughout varied card decks in a campaign setting. The Ai is great and all, but half of the fun at any level is playing against a real person and you can either set up a game with a friend online (thru GameCenter) or you can play against an anonymous player and generally get a game started within seconds–really–seconds. Now the great thing about playing online is that if you’re playing against a stranger and you’re winning (trust me I’m not that great so I’m not beating them into the ground), occasionally they’ll sign off so they don’t actually loose. But the thing is if this happens the dropout person is at least filled in by AI which allows you to finish your game! Quick rant–if you are the person that does this in any game…why do you do this! This is so childish…
Throughout my Magic 2013 experience (which is continuing-heck I might even get into Magic: The Gathering now), almost everything about it is astounding. There’s plenty of decks to choose from and you can even customize them. Additionally, an intuitive UI that rarely had me struggling with it and you’ve got a great Magic experience. Of course there are issues, albeit minor. First off is that the deck is not fully customizable which leaves me wondering why? Then when you play against a random opponent online you can’t see their Elo ranking which can cause unbalanced levels. While nothing major, hopefully we will see a bit of improvement in a future update.
The Bottom Line: 10/10 (Super!)
Hands down the best card experience on the iPad today.
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[...] Magic The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013, led me to the light of Trading Card Games and I am completely addicted. Over the past year I’ve explored numerous other iOS TCGs but all fell short of my expectations. That is until now. [...]