M:tG Duel of the Planeswalkers 2012

[Furiously]

Yes.

[Ingmar]

The illusion one? It doesn't strike me as tremendously out of line.

[Malakili]

The illusion one? It doesn't strike me as tremendously out of line.

It might be that I just know how to play it better than the other decks, but I definitely win with it a majority of the time, and I often get beaten by it when I'm not using it. 

[lamaros]

So, does anyone else think the blue deck is absurdly good compared to the rest of them?

Depends. In my view it goes:

Blue - Dominates all apart from white (when played as a proper weenie deck)
White - Beats nearly all, dominates red, can struggle against black.
Black - Can get smashed by blue and red burn, but can clean up everyone else
Red Burn - Very good and will win most games if you're better unless you get Sworded.

I've kept some stats on my games recently. (I usually play the same person a couple of times, and I don't counter decks.)

Black: 13 games, 2 losses
Blue: 27 games, 7 losses (4 loses were me trying to take games off a decent player playing white, I won 3 times)
White: 19 games, 4 losses (nearly all to other white decks, half when they got Mystic early and I got zlich)
Red burn: 6 games, 1 loss

And, surprisingly, Dragons: 11 games, 4 losses. Nowhere near as poorly performed as the deck 'feels'.

Still, some of the other decks (Elves, Machination) can get killer draws even if they are weak most of the time.

SoS and Beasts are clearly the worst two in my view, though SoS can at least be fun to play. Ancient Depths is also really bad, but it can annihilate sometimes with a good draw, which happens only very very rarely for SoS and almost never for Beasts.

[Maledict]

Um, assuming your build ancient depths appropriately I find it to be one of the strongest decks around. I'd certainly rank it and the blue illusion deck as the two clear 'top ranking' decks available, with White weenie / vampires closely behind. Assuming you pull a lot of cards out of the original deck, you can increase i's consistency  substantially - it's modelled on a successful standard deck type after all.

[lamaros]

Umm... Ancient Depths is ass. It's nowhere near one of the best decks. It gets eaten up by the top three decks (especially Blue and Black), and loses to others (Burn, Elves) as well unless it gets a good draw. Hell, it even loses to the worst decks in the game unless it gets a good draw.

[Maledict]

Hence my point around modifying the deck to increase consistency.

Not sure if you have played magic before, but the ancient depths deck is based on a very successful standard archetype, and by pulling out cards appropriately you can make it into an extremely strong and very consistent deck type. It really, really is not 'ass' by any means - it's clearly one of the strongest  decks available, and the magic community seems fairly in agreement on that?

The blue deck has an advantage over it, but vampires and elves should be losing to it 60%+ of the time generally. Neither has the capacity to deal with a deck that consistently gets a large creature with shroud onto the table early on.

[lamaros]

You can't increase consistency to a winnable enough position with the deck as you only get one or a couple of the key cards you need to win certain matchups. "Consistently get shroud" is complete bullshit. If you are pulling out a skyswallower (2 of 60 cards) that often you are in the middle of a really lucky run. For those that have direct damage or unblockable creatures you also need to pull a Living Destiny to stay alive.

Sure, every now and then you will pull explore and co early, then throw down a skyswallower or kick replicate something nasty before they've had time to blink, but it is nowhere near 60% of the time.

If by the magic community you mean the online DotP2012 community then, nah, they don't. It's generally considered to be mid-tier, around Elves and Machinations. Blue, White, Burn and Black are pretty universally considered the top 4 decks. I hardly see anyone who has trimmed their deck even play it anymore.

Consensus Deck Metarankings 2012

1. Blood Hunger
2. Realm of Illusion
3. Unquenchable Fire
4. Wielding Steel
5. Guardians of the Wood
6. Ancient Depths
7. Machinations
8. Dragon's Roar
9. Apex Predators
10. Strength of Stone

[HaemishM]

In case you missed it, the expansion pack for this dropped yesterday for $4.99 on Steam. I bought it, and only got a few games of the campaign at lunch. The campaign is strange. There are two tiers. The first looks like normal campaign matches against a single opponent. The bottom tier looks like you have to beat 3 opponents to unlock the next part. I did unlock Liliana's black deck.

[Kitsune]

The bottom tier is a three-versus-you archenemy fight which is way more fun than the other way around.

[lamaros]

In case you missed it, the expansion pack for this dropped yesterday for $4.99 on Steam. I bought it, and only got a few games of the campaign at lunch. The campaign is strange. There are two tiers. The first looks like normal campaign matches against a single opponent. The bottom tier looks like you have to beat 3 opponents to unlock the next part. I did unlock Liliana's black deck.

I don't see it. Hmm. Am I stupid?

Hmm, found it.

They didn't have it pop up under news for the original version, and I had to search by release date to find it in the end. Pretty strange publicity.

[Kitsune]

That Auramancer deck is a mean little baby too; it can seriously mess up someone's day.  I'm not as keen on the other two thus far, but haven't experimented much.

[Minvaren]

Bah, needed something new to play.  Haven't seriously touched Magic since Ice Age.  Let's see what happens.   

[stu]

That was pretty much the same for me except I played last year's edition and liked it fine. I didn't expect the boss to roll over so easily on the campaign though.

[Malakili]

Hmm, 5 bucks for 3 new decks.  Probably worth it.

EDIT: Friend bought it and convinced me to buy it as well.  Just played a game with each of the new decks.  I don't like the Cloudburst deck, but the other two seem fairly fun to play.  Definitely worth 5 bucks to freshen up the game though if nothing else.  New unlocks for each deck + 3 new decks is well worth it for anyone who like the game.

[Kitsune]

Yeah, Cloudburst I'm still very iffy about.  I'm playing it to unlock some cards and see if that doesn't make things click better.

[Mavor]

 You guys do know that they purposefully butchered this game and it's potential gameplay to herd gamers to MTG : O right? You are ok with a company that would do something like that?

 I mean, if you unpack the game's data files, all of the cards are there.. they are just restricted. The cards could be made available to every deck, and full deck customization could be easily implemented in a day or two by a modder... and yet they forced the game developer to restrict everything. They are worried that full deck customization and access to enough cards would make them lose money on all of the rich brats who spend 100s a year on foil cards and other stupid things. :)

 You guys should feel ashamed supporting a company that uses such tactics on their customers.

[Teleku]

In before the comedy begins.  

[Malakili]

 You guys should feel ashamed supporting a company that uses such tactics on their customers.

I value your opinion so much.

[Strazos]

You guys do know that they purposefully butchered this game and it's potential gameplay to herd gamers to MTG : O right? You are ok with a company that would do something like that?

I'll feed the troll.

Yes, I am fine with it. MtG is their (Wizards') IP, and they're free to do with it as they please as far as I'm concerned. If I want the full product, I can make a little MtG:O account, but this game scratches the itch just fine. Treat it like a demo of sorts, if that makes you feel better about playing a throttled MtG experience.

[Ghambit]

It has probably very little to do with IP.  Mechanically, it's not possible for MTGO to go full MP-coop (do they even have 3+ player play yet?).  They'd still end up restricting the decks to at the very least theme decks.  So, why not just have an entirely separate client for such?  Which is what they did.  Much easier to balance this way.

[Minvaren]

Fun so far.  Annihilator ability is pure cheese, though.   

[HaemishM]

You guys do know that they purposefully butchered this game and it's potential gameplay to herd gamers to MTG : O right? You are ok with a company that would do something like that?

I might believe that if I got hit with an ad for MTG:O every time I entered or exited the game. The most nefarious thing I can highlight about this game is that it's a good advertisement for any full form of MTG. It's a great $10 taster for the paper card game or the Online service that gives you access to full deck customization. Or, it's a cheap ass game that scratches my itch for MTG without requiring me to turn into Mr. Suitcase.

So really, what the fuck are you on about?

[lamaros]

I don't really agree with the business model, I think they could make Planeswalkers a better game and make more money without ruing their other markets, but I'll still play it for $10.

Especially as it's not making me pay more because I'm Australian.

[Tebonas]

I love this game and all, but there is an add for MTG:O in the game. Not enough that it bothers me or lets me even remember where, but it is there.

[eldaec]

Mtgo (which is free) does include dotp cards for free and usable in a dotp cards only format. If you want to play this with full deckbuilding.

[Johny Cee]

Mtgo (which is free) does include dotp cards for free and usable in a dotp cards only format. If you want to play this with full deckbuilding.

I think the occasional card expansions for this format are something like $3-5 for a pack of a few hundred cards, and I'm not sure if you can use the format with a trial account, so you may have to pay the $10 to move from a trial to a real account...  though that gets you a $10 gift certificate to the store to buy the DOTP cards.

[Kitsune]

A new DLC pack came out about two weeks ago with two decks for two bucks (or one buck if you got it on the Thanksgiving sale, take that everyone who isn't in the US!  ).  Both decks are very nice, they're a white/red lifegain-beatdown deck and a mono-black zombie deck that kicks the crap out of the old mono-black vampire deck in my opinion.  While the old deck was some vampires, some skeletons, some graveyard control, some kitchen sink, the the new deck asks just two questions: Is it a zombie? and Is it dead?  If the answer to the first question is yes, then play it.  If the answer to the second is yes, pull it from your graveyard and play it.  It has a laser-sharp focus on its theme that I really appreciate, and it's always fun to let an opponent kill your creatures, just to instantly pull them out of the graveyard and slap them back on the table.

It's worth the insignificant price.

[lamaros]

Did it add cards to the old decks too?

[Kitsune]

No.  Apparently older decks only receive card updates in full-fledged "expansion packs".  This was only a "deck pack", thus the lower price.

[Teleku]

Is there a website/active forum where people post deck builds for this game?  Googling only gets me random random forum bs that's not very useful.  I'm having a hard time trying to figure out what to cut on a few decks and was looking for some ideas.

[lamaros]

The official magic forum for the game seemed the best. Advice is a bit dodgy sometimes IMO.

[luckton]

Is there a group here on f13 that actively plays/competes a la Blood Bowl?  Can we get something going like that, or is it not possible due to how the game/client works?

[lamaros]

It's more that the game doesn't have enough depth to get going in that way. Plus there are probably fewer players.

[eldaec]

There is an mtgo forum in the graveyard.