This. I really don't understand why other CCGs bother trying if they haven't nailed down a UI/UX as good or better than Hearthstone. They've set a standard.
Harpies seem to be tricky, but are really easy. Play a land and a creature the first the turns and always try using your complete mana. Always attack with everything. On turn 4 or 5, you need to bring out the permanent +1/+1 enchantment, after that, bring out flying creatures on turns 6-8, if possible. Ignore the damage on your side and don't block creatures yourself. The game wants to teach you how to rush and overrun your opponent. Important: put +1/+1 markers on creatures with first strike and double strike, if possible. Because the harpy deck is 2-coloured, it's always slower and you'll have the bigger creature pool at the first 7-8 rounds. Your opponent won't block everything anyway. At turns 8-9, you should still have around 10-12 health and your opponent should be defeated. You'll learn when it's best to sacrifice your life for your adventage soon enough. And never hesitate to sacrifice a creature if it gives you an advantage.
It helps that Hearthstone was developed as a digital card game, so the UI and the flow of the game is elegantly refined. The fact that MTG is the more complex game works against it when converted to digital form since there's so much more stuff (including the ability to interrupt pretty much any action). I believe Magic Duels is doing the best UI/UX it can for a digital MTG game. It wouldn't be able to match the quality of Hearthstone and still be MTG.
You make a great point, but I think Magic can be as good as HS production values. Magic's title scree, story screens, naming combatant screens are fantastic! Then you get into a battle & everything is bland. Make the cards digital, not copies of physical cards. The back of the cards look terrible in digital farm. Bring the multiverse to life with playing field details, not just a bland grey flat board. As far as playing the game it plays great!!! Add some personality & they are champs!!!
Thanks in strategy games I like a defensive approach but this is a tutorial so I see what's up. I was blocking a lot too
Yes, I think Magic Duels has too steep of a learning curve with touch controls, and doesn't feel as polished as Blizzard's Hearthstone. I'm looking forward to updates to MD, I hope it gets polished a bit. I love MTG.
Yea, the visuals are lacking to me too. HS is much brighter, has more detail and fun elements etc. But for its not even that. Things are harder to click on, cards don't always move with my finger when i play (i find i constantly double click, then play a card instead of directly from my hand), and gameplay feels sooooo slow in Magic Duels. HS has this down as a science. In my mind, Magic Duels just needs to be quicker (after learning the game of course) and better UI first. Then visuals can match as it grows. Quite honestly, this feels closer to Shadow Era than HS which is kind of surprising given the awesome and long standing game MtG is.
It would appear I'm in the minority here, I really don't mind the interface at all, seems perfectly serviceable to me. It does need optimising for battery life though. Still, all in all I am glad to be playing proper MtG on my phone now, rather than waiting another 6 months for them to polish everything. If they do put in extra stuff like prettier visuals then great, if not I'm not really bothered, it is after all a digital representation of a physical card game that is known for its depth of gameplay over flashy effects. Just my opinion though.
The thing about the UI that really puts me off is the lag. In HS everything is so snappy. Here games are longer because of the complexity and even longer because of the UI. I can live with the poorer aesthetics but the snappiness of HS has spoilt me.
I would also like to say that MD is a great game!!! I agree that HS ha set some standards. But Magic shouldn't be bright & a little comical like HS. I just think they need to bring the battlefield to life. They need to fix battery life immediately!!! Really, the only sure miss is a MD login. If they wanted to "compete" with HS they missed the ball. I would love to this be the game that lasts for years so I can really build a deck & enjoy the game. If this is just the New Magic game and next year we see MD 2, that will be a real shame. Side note: are y'all playing Earthcore? It's a really good game that works awesome on your phone!!!
Just needed to come in here because I'm extra chuffed I finally got this working on my 6+ running iOS 8.1.2 and JB'd. I decided to delete a particular tweak and guess what....this and a few other games no longer crash immeditely on start up. Talking about a few other big time games release over the past few months that I've not been able to play, now all of a sudden working. So ******* happy right now!! Will be playing after work. Can't wait. And this stuff about MD being no HS, well, big deal, it's freaking magic on your phone! The best bit I like is it can be played offline. I'm all about that. So it trumps HS already actually for me.
Other issue is how the game restarts when I switch out to another app. Progress is lost. I mean it's a tablet, you are bound to get distracted ;P
Stopped getting gold Hello everyone, finished the campaign, grinded on the AI yesterday a whole bunch and at the end of the day decided to play MP. I won my first match and got an achievement (First win of the day, bonus 20 gold), but after that win, I no longer receive Gold from any matches. Either MP or Vs AI. Does anyone know if there is a daily cap? Or maybe it was linked to the achievement I unlocked. It is one hell of a coincidence if I hit some sort of daily gold cap(assuming there is one) right after winning my first MP game. Any ideas?
yea thats my biggest gripe. When I'm playing a game on a phone, my hope is i can complete it in about 10-15min a match. HS does this, but MD has so much slow turn play. I get it - they have phases and a lot of cards and abilities (more so than HS given how long MtG has been around). However, if they had a way to turn off certain timers and quicken up some sequences it would go a long way. I bet if that alone was implemented I'd enjoy it a lot more. No - i thought this was ipad only and my mini couldnt handle it. Ill have to try on my iphone 6 then....nice!
For all the people saying the gameplay is too slow, you have to understand that hearthstone was designed to have fast paced gameplay. Magic was not, it a long drawn out methodical game with way more instances that can change the sway of the game at anytime. Any version of magic digital or not will ever be as fast paced as hearthstone. It's just not in the cards.
I think the interface is definitely an improvement over last year's. That bar in the middle that kept opening and closing drove me crazy. Hearthstone is definitely still my number one game but I will play this one on the side definitely.
People are right to remind everyone that MD is not a "fast" game. Comparing game styles (speed really) of HS & MD doesn't really work. I understand reasons to say why I like HS or MD but they are very different. What HS has done is set a quality standard. Nobody wants another HS game. Earthcore is awesome, MD is awesome, and Soulspark is awesome....all different! Keep in mind, we wouldn't be playing any of these games, or having this discussion without Magic!!! When I first got a tablet I downloaded Magic for free. I had never played before. I never would have started without a digital version. Seemed to late as an adult to start buying the physical game. Once I played it, I loved it!!! I wish I'd been playing my whole life. I immediately bought all the expansions. I thought, man card games play awesome on tablets. I have bought all card & board games on tablets since! Magic made the card game world, physical & digital. Now HS has upped the antie in production values, but it's all owed to Magic!!!
That said, I hope this isn't the next year of Magic & keep getting yearly games. I want them to go all out!!! Let's have this game for a long time & really enjoy it. Another HS standard: make a game that will last, keep adding, and people feel invested, not just "my game for this year." No more tiny changes year-to-year!!!!
Yeah, it's kinda funny. I never played any of these card battler games until the review of the first iPad version of magic, which acted as a great intro to magic and got me really hooked. Then, once my friends started playing HS I pretty much left magic completely and I've never looked back. Honestly though, I don't think I could go back. I just don't have the time for slower magic games anymore, especially when they're all multiplayer so you can't pause it and come back to it later. Oh well.
I believe this is going to be the core game now with expansions coming as the paper sets are released. MD will not be getting the full set though, only a portion of it. I heard on another site that wizards said it's possible for older sets to be implemented also! Wether that happens or not unknown. Still for what it is it's awesome to have a legit version of magic on tablet or phone. Like others have said magic and hearthstone are two totally different games, and they should stay that way.
