I probably could have worded it more concisely, but I think I was consistent in my statement -- that there are times when a player has to wait through a number of phases/animations that aren't relevant to them, and it would be great to skip them all at once, as long as the opponent is still given the opportunity to react with any relevant cards they want to play. A system like Plynx and I were discussing would allow the skipping of phases with the option of picking which phase to stop skipping on (for example, skipping first Main Phase and Combat Phase, and starting to play in Second Main Phase). Hope that helps to clarify what I meant. The list was meant as a summary of the major issues listed so far in the thread, not just my own thoughts, and hopefully I did everyone else's points justice.
Being a noob and starting to get the hang of it why sometimes do I not get a Main after a Combat. I thought it was Main, Combat then Main again before End?
I'm new to Magic, but loving it so far. I had something unexpected happen when playing last night. I was using the green deck against Krenko (red deck) in the campaign (mage difficulty). I was in a much stronger position than Krenko, and was enjoying passing on my combat phase every time just to see how big an army of creatures I could build. Krenko was also passing on his combat, because to attack me would have been pointless. Whenever I put a new creature in to play, I would automatically add about 3 4/4 creatures, and turn over another 3 or 4 cards, thanks to the stacked effects of cards that were already in play. At one point my hand was too big, and the game made me select 10 of them to discard. I carried on building my army until I eventually played 'Khalni Hydra'. It has a mana cost of 8, minus the total value of green mana of permanents in play. As soon as that card went in to play, I immediately lost the game. I'd kept a close eye on Krenko's cards, and am not aware of any card he had that would have caused me to lose for playing the hydra. Any idea what happened? Is it because the mana cost of playing the hydra was well in to negative figures? Or is there an upper limit on the number of cards you can have in play, and when you reach that limit you lose? I've never played a game like this until Magic 2013, so I'm learning as I go along, but this is the first thing that's happened that was unexpected.
Not 100% sure, but probably you may had something in play like Garruk's Companion or something similar which forced you to draw one additional card when a creature with more or equal 4 power enter battlefield on your side. You will automatically lose the game if you're required to draw and instead you have no cards in your grimoire. Since you're saying you're drawing and discarding an important amount of cards, my suspect is you played in a situation like this. Just my opinion, meh.
The app automatically skip your second Main Phase if you have nothing legal to put into play (a land, a summon, but not an activated ability, since these may be used whenever you like and require often that you press the clockwork button before being used properly). In options menu, eventually, you may setup your favorite method of playing, like always asking a confirmation before going to next step. But, to be honestly, this will slow down heavily the whole game flow.
I wonder over the decision to make online so restricted for the iPad.... Why only limited to 2 players head to head or planechase... Why only real time and no async... I'm guessing this might be because of the Instants which can be played at any time? If so, is there no way round this to have async? Magic would be a great candidate for >2 players playing online, particularly in the planechase mode. Also, I'd love to see more customisable options for game speed, animations, etc. Regards
~ Yeah, planechase mode is definitely fun and it also gives a use for all those unused land mana cards! Its unpredictability means it's not to be taken too seriously. The only downside is the wait time to find an opponent online is generally much longer.
Async is never going to happen on Magic. You would have to wait for your opponent not only after every phase, but after every action you perform. 1 turn would take around a week.
Thanks for replying Jools75 You're right, I did have a Garuk's Companion card in play, and perhaps at least another card with similar/same effects. My pack that I draw from was getting visibly small not long before I lost the game, so I can well believe that your theory is correct. I have to say though, I don't really understand the rationale for losing because a card can't be drawn, especially when in such a powerful position that victory was otherwise a certainty. When playing Indrik Stomphowler, if there's no artifact or enchantment that you can choose to destroy, you just play on. As I said though, I'm totally new to Magic, and there's probably a perfectly good reason for it to be this way - perhaps it's a way to stop a game from lasting too long? Incidentally, I bought Magic 2013 for Windows too. It would be cool to be able to sync progress between the two, but I guess that's not likely as one uses Gamecenter and the other uses Steam. Anyway, I probably could do with the extra practice of doing it all twice
There's an indicator on your portrait that shows how many cards are left in your stack. In fact the whole Dream Puppets deck is based on draining someone's library and thus gain victory.
Thanks, Sojourn! It's awesome to see this many people excited about the game - especially new players! This is a great place to talk about major issues with the game. I really appreciate the summary you've provided - we are working hard on collecting as much feedback as possible. I'll send this list onto our devs so they can take a look.
Excellent, thanks for the info krautboy That's a whole new strategy I was completely unaware of until now. I'll look forward to playing the Dream Puppets deck then. In the case of my game against Krenko, it was more a case of me suiciding than him beating me, as I just kept drawing more and more cards so I could see how hard I could eventually hit him! edit: I guess this answers the other thing that had been bugging me... when asked 'do you want to draw a card?', I couldn't understand why I'd ever want to say 'no'. Now I do
Thanks Sojourn for making that list! I'd like to add to that list the wish for a right hand mode. So that your portrait,sandwalker and continue button are on the right side. It's by no means a dealbreaker, but as some others mentioned as well i keep my ipad in my left hand and play with only my right hand. It would feel more natural for me to have it on the right,so my hand doesn't block all my cards while pressing buttons.
Excellent! Let me know if there's anything else I can do, or if the devs need me to clarify anything. Thanks for being so invested in our feedback; I can't wait to see what's coming next!
Are you referring to Odric? I've had good luck using Chandra's deck against him, as it has a lot of cards that deal damage to all of his tokens.
If you are patient enough to go back and unlock cards, both Earthquake and Flamebreak are great. Other key cards in the deck are Flames of the Firebrand, Prodigal Pyromancer, and Chandra's Fury. All are great ways to wipe out the massive number of tokens and other 1 toughness creatures. Good luck!
totally going to get this. I had the 2011 and 2012 version on my xbox and i'm SO glad it's on ipad now. this game is solid.
