Magic Card and How to Play Game

Magic Card: The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers had been updated to the new Magic 2014. It is finally operational on the Android platform and is basically a digital counterpart of the famous card game called Magic Card: The Gathering which had been around for the past 20 years already. Magic Card 2014 is free to download but is storage-intensive – it requires 1.29gb of storage space. Plus you also have to pay $10 if you want to unlock the full version of the game because the free download lets you play only approximately 25% of the campaign mode.

There are so many issues with Magic 2014, some of which include its plain visual effects and the poor optimization of space resources. But despite these things, the game is still good enough for you to learn the basics and to keep you sufficiently hooked. Those who had been Magic card game enthusiasts would be delighted to know that they will have access to a test bed for the strategy and deck building, and the local card battles.

If you like a strategic game, then you’ve got nothing to lose by downloading Magic 2014. Just make sure that your device is prepared for the large storage requirement, and prepare yourself to expect the in-app purchases.

Playing the Game

The game rules are similar to the Magic Card game, but for those people who have never tried that before, you also have an access to a full tutorial. Basically, Magic involves two players who will play against each other on a “battlefield”. Each player can use 3 cards that are of different kinds (land cards, modifiers, creatures). The first one are land cards that provide manna in five flavors and lets you place creatures or apply modifiers. Creatures do the majority of the fight as they are the ones who can attack your enemy’s health and/or defend your own camp.

There are several Magic Card   in the game, and there are a variety of rules applied for every battle. It’s a complicated game to learn and be extremely good at; but that’s the thrill of it. It can take years for one player to acquire his deck collection and master his strategy. The tutorial provided by Magic 2014 is, therefore, helpful, because, without it, newbie players would be completely lost.

Here are some things you need to know about Magic Card 2014:
– As said earlier, it has a tutorial that recommends movies to you and explains the basic mechanics to you. The tutorial campaign may not let you be familiarized with the game easily, but at least you have an idea of how the game works.
– The problem with the tutorial mode is the interface and the Magic Card game’s obtuse structure.
– Magic 2014 has a story: you are in an alliance with Chandra for revenge and treasure hunting.
– It has variety. A game will never be completely the same as other games. You will need to strategize to beat the opponent.

• The campaign mode has several pre-built decks and the cards slowly become available to you on the deck builder as you progress through the game.
• Multiplayer mode is available but unlike other versions of Magic Card, the Android version is for Bluetooth ad-hoc only. It’s the only version of Magic 2014 that does not have an online multiplayer setting.
• The game has a Sealed Play mode where there are several booster packs and where you’ll learn the tricks of deck building.

The Deck

1. Pricing problems

You have a Deck Manager where you can create and change your decks. This starts as a green thing, and you slowly build your deck by unlocking the cards one by one through single-player battles. Another option again is to use in-app purchases so that you can access the entire deck easily (an expensive shortcut). The green deck may also be changed to a shiny version for a price (again). Magic 2014 is surely one of the premium games on the Android platform, what with these numerous in-app purchases.

2. …But it’s still a good deck

You can do a lot of things in your deck. For example, you may assemble your cards by type: rarity, manna, card, creature class, etc. Building a good deck is one of the game’s main challenges. For the newbies, you can just let your device of the computer build your deck for you.

3. The best feature

You have the option to select cards from your deck and let the AI build the deck based on your chosen cards. The AI frees you from the task of thinking how to balance out your cards and to form an effective deck that will be successful when you go to battle. The Deck Manager is one of the best features of Magic 2014, especially for the experienced players. For the newbies, it becomes useful only as they learn the tricks.

 

Graphics

The good points:
– The artwork is up to the high standards of Magic cards. You can easily see the details on every card’s artwork.
– The Android version of the game looks like the console and PC versions.

Points of complaint:
– The size of the game alone would lead you to think that the monsters would appear from the cards in a fabulous way. Magic 2014 is a 3D game: it has high-res versions of the Magic cards that move on a 3D gaming board. The cards have brief animations and the battle effects are very few.
– The large size of the game kills the processor, RAM, and battery life. It is power intensive, RAM intensive, speed intensive. The game uses 25% of battery life each hour.
– The poor game optimization that will make it difficult for people to run it.
– A lot of improvement can be done on the game interface.

The game would have been good enough on 2D/on sprite graphics. That way, the storage requirement could have been much less than what it is now because the 1.2gb requirement is just crazy. Having a device with 1gb RAM won’t let the game run properly. The size is not even justified by the quality provided. Hopefully, updates could improve these issues and make it more stable and fun to play.

It is advisable to play Magic 2014 on tablets. The entire game interface is better on a larger screen because smaller ones like phones make the fonts and buttons super small.

 

Downloading the game

The free version of Magic 2014 allows you access to the following:
– Two story campaigns out of the total five
– Basic deck building
– Sealed play mode

By paying $10, you will have access to the rest of the story campaigns, access to multiplayer, the video player, and an artwork browser. You can spend another buck for the full deck, and another buck to get the foil edition of your deck. Every additional desk slot costs another two bucks.

It costs nearly the same or even cheaper than playing the real-world Magic cards, which costs approximately 20 bucks for the basics, and $5 for the booster packs which will lead you to the rare cards.

The verdict

The Magic 2014 Android version disappoints in a lot of us. On top of the list is the fact that it is expensive, so you only get the fun of it for the demo stages. The huge space requirement of the game also does not provide excellently in terms of the technicalities, and the controls are also a bit difficult. There are several improvements that can be done with the interface, and the Android version has a lot of catching up to do to match the versions on other platforms. For one, they may include an online multiplayer mode.
The game itself is excellent and would surely be enjoyable for gamers who like making strategies. The real game may still be preferable especially for the hardcore enthusiasts. You may determine if you’d like to buy the in-app purchases after you have tried the full version of the game.

What do you think of Magic 2014?

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