Magic 2014: Title mysteriously different and shorter

I haven't followed the Magic on Steam games too closely, so this is my second one that I picked up. I picked this one up almost entirely on the back of selling steam cards in the beta. I'm not quite sure why people pay as much as they do for steam cards, but it net me about $30 to blow on games, and the free scavenging ooze is something I want for my cube anyway. If that sentence makes your head hurt, welcome to Magic, mid-tier nerdery and gateway drug to worse things.

Magic 2014, released in 2013, stars Chandra, daughter of Chandler, a cast member of Friends who also showed up in the Magic set Homelands back in 95 or some other year I can't be arsed to look up for the purposes of this joke. Chandra is a smoking hot fire mage with quantum freckles that she does, or doesn't have. She's woefully generic and archetypical, just like the rest of the cast - Garruk, who like to lift bears. Liliana, a goth with an infinitely boring troubled past. Ajani, a furry and lastly Jace, every under 17 nerd's repulsive super dork id. Would wear a fedora if he wasn't a magician, I'm sure. The storyline is essentially Chandra wants you to help her catch some mage that really boils her blood. I mean, more than usual. Like higher than a low simmer.

Magic 2014 features a sealed deck mode, which bizarrely people refer to as deck building as some sort of odd victory towards the eventual build your own decks mode that will never happen and a new title. Seriously, wasn't it called Duels of the Planeswalkers or something before? What happened? It also features lots of art of Chandra, who remains so astutely hot that she is actually either on fire or smoking in most of her imagery. I am never going to get tired of those puns.

fuel for the pun fire

Never, ever, ever. Now you're cooking with puns.

This isn't a full review in the general sense I like to do reviews. I like to either feel like I've finished the totality of a game and then show my played time, or at least feel like I absolutely hate the game and don't want to suffer anymore. In this case, this is a review of the product 'as is' just after release. I'll probably do a smaller totality review in six or eight months or however long it takes to release the mini-expansion and the new deck packs, and then put them on sale.

Jokes aside M14 is a huge step up from M12, which I bought back in 2011 but didn't finish playing until 2012 so you can fiddle back through my archives to look at that if you're so inclined. Summarily put, Magic is a card game about resources and timing, leading to some at times very rewarding and other times extremely frustrating game play. I don't use this version of the game to play multiplayer or online modes, as there is a "real" Magic client for that.

Then again, Magic The Gathering Online is kinda one of the most endearingly pathetic and cash-grab development projects ever, so I don't actually play that either. Still have fifty or seventy dollars worth on my account and haven't put money in since 2005 yet ... Just ugh. Way too much cult of hubris going on in that wing of the company. So M14 is the only electronic Magic project I'm really into playing, and even then not much.

So yeah, this for me a single player card game. I wish I had more games like DOTP2012 and this one, as there are few "something to do while nursing a cup of coffee" games this good. It's easy to sit down, play a 12 minute session and then go do something else.

To get the negatives out of the way: The game still feels a little janky in parts. The UI is good, but the number of menus you have to click through is obnoxious and at times a little bewildering. When you complete a match, you unlock cards (unless you paid for the fully unlocked version, but that's like paying double to get a third the content) which then prompts you to go to the deck manager. You hit deck manager and it asks you which deck you'd like to manage, rather than immediately putting you into the deck you just unlocked a card in. There's lots of extra clicking and bonking like this through just about everything. Exiting the game is horrendous.

Also the game is, on a fundamental level, a subsidized advertising mechanism and you will get a couple ads here and there for pretty benign Magic products. Stuff like 'come play at FNM!' or 'there's a big game day in september!' Doesn't really bother me, but that's the aim of the product, a means to get people started on the path of giving WoTC hundreds of dollars a month. It probably doesn't bother me because I made money off my time with Magic, but maybe it'll cause a couple people to relapse and foam at the mouth. This game is pretty gross for feeling like a f2p game you put money down on to play, but then, welcome to WoTC products - All the marketing and analysis of game design circa 2002 you could ever want.

this card is still crazy good

The game also seems a little light on content compared to DOTP2012, but it's possible I bought DOTP2012 after the expansion came out and didn't notice. I think I did. The UI is like I said mostly improved over DOTP2012, though the sealed deck builder is extremely rudimentary and not how limited decks are supposed to be put together. Though I've watched bad players do it and it looks like that, so maybe it's just for inexperienced players. I've slung a ton of spells, so my experience and opinion are probably a little on the veteran side.

Also the encounters thing is weird, but they might have been new in DOTP2013 and I just missed it. They feel pretty lazy, but they do allow for some interesting variety I guess.

Onto the good. Well for one thing, DOTP 2012 was / is based at $20 while this one is base $10. Ten bucks really isn't a bad deal for the amount of content, although at full price you'll end up buying a $5 expansion and 3 $3 deck packs, which is a little bit less exciting. I feel like unfortunately those don't like to go on a full 75% off sale either, so you get kinda needlessly punished for buying early. Actually to go into a negative (my bad) it's a little bit gross how the preorder bonus was, uh, nothing? Could at least thrown people a free extra sealed deck slot or something.You'd definitely be well off just getting this during the steam sale in a couple weeks.

her wings flap when you click on her

The art and little touches of animation show restraint while still charming you in the right places. I'm still as much of a sucker for Magic art as I was when Urza's block was rolling through, so maybe I'm a little biased but this is a really nice looking edition. Card selection is excellent and though several of the encounters are dopey, you still see quite a wide range of magic cards. Card power in general seems a little higher than DOTP2012 though some of the decks are very confusing in that light. The Ramp and white weenie decks were such a breeze to unlock while the other ones are kinda tedious and disjointed. I have no idea why Illusionary Armor is in the Masks of the Dimir deck. Actually I have no idea what the point of the masks of the dimir deck even is.

The music, heh, I really like the music and feel like it perfectly nails how music in a card game should sound. It's not too over the top, but it's present and good ambiance. Just sort of jungle beats and a couple notes here or there that sound excited but not punch up at a wedding level excited. I don't remember DOTP2k12 having music at all, but here I find myself smiling at it. It's a simple little touch but it really improves the game.

Sealed deck and the over hyped deck building thing is a little disappointing. It's a fun game mode with less content than I think it should have had. Six opponents, one of which is the same guy and a card pool that definitely isn't the entire game (or maybe it is, but in the one mode I saw so many repeats it was a little confusing) It's especially baffling since more than 2 slots requires you pay money up. I'm sure there's ways around that limit in grey area, so it seems like maybe making it easier for casual players to enjoy more of it would be better? Multiplayer magic is nice and all, but a little more content here seemed conductive to getting people to spend more.

SAAAAAAALE

The other thing is the opposing sealed decks do not feel like sealed decks, they feel like toned down constructed decks. It's a little dismal and doesn't replicate the experience as well as I feel like it should, but I guess we go with baby steps. The fact it is in at all and might stick if it makes them money is pretty neat.

So in summary - Incremental improvements, great music, nice art and good card variety. A little underwhelming content wise and sealed deck mode wasn't quite as well thought out, but still altogether a pretty solid product for $10. Probably best to wait for a sale - Why didn't I wait for a sale?