Duels: Origins?
Online Magic forum
Posted on July 31, 2015, 6:25 p.m. by gsnh
Has anyone here been playing Duels? If so, what are your thoughts? I have been playing it for the past few days and am enjoying it. Anyone have a successful decklist/archetype? Lots of people seem to be running auras and I'm seeing little removal/tricks.
Rasta_Viking29 says... #3
I have 2013 and 2014 on ps3, still play them. I have an iPad and was curious how Duels functions and what do you have to purchase in game? Is the card pool legit?
July 31, 2015 7:31 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #4
You have to use gold to buy boosters. You can buy gold or earn it in game. Since there are no "premium" boosters you can get the entire card pool without ever spending a cent, or you can pay for access to the card pool without spending all the time in game.
The pool is pretty good IMO, the basic pack has a good mix of commons and uncommons. The only rares in the beginning pack after the tutorials are the check lands. I am ok with that though since having a decient start to a mana base is good.
The Walkers from origins along with another mythic is in each color are in the origins packs. The rest of the origins packs seem to consist of about 75% of the set. It should in the future support some good games that take place in a format of it's own.
There are still a few things wrong (targeting problems, sometimes cards don't interact consistent with the comp rules, timer is short). And the current video problems on PC don't help. By "the back ground" not loading I mean anything that goes over the background also isn't visible. This includes the edges of cards where they interact with the background, the edges of the character portraits, and most importantly the targeting lines.
July 31, 2015 7:52 p.m.
Yeah I am having some issues with targeting, but overall it seems good. Managed to get an Archangel of Tithes, 2 Sigil of the Empty Throne, and a Hixus, Prison Warden so I feel somewhat stuck playing white until I open some other solid rares.
Playing PvP is interesting, win and your rank goes up 1 point, lose and it goes down. At rank 3 I was paired with both a rank 5 and a rank 2, so I am not sure how it works yet.
As for getting new cards, here is the breakdown:
Completing the Story Mode/Tutorials: ~1000 coins
Win Hard AI Match: 15 coins
Win PvP Match: 20 coins
Booster Packs cost 150 coins and there is no discount so you should probably buy once you hit 150 coins. If you are purchasing coins with real world currency, there are some deals as you pay more, but I'm going free-to-play.
July 31, 2015 8:03 p.m.
I kinda find it silly that there's no discount for bulk buys, that's kinda standard for that sort of thing. But I've been enjoying my time with it. I haven't really any horrible problems. I have been having trouble getting thelland selection to work ((Like...you have 2 different sources of green mana but you want to use the forest instead of a check land, etc etc)) but I've never been able to get that working. It's definitely a step up from the last one, and is currently much better than i expected with it being f2p
July 31, 2015 9:01 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #7
Do you know about pressing left control to cycle through possible tapping configurations on the PC? if you are on a different platform I'm not sure how you do it though. The current problem I'm having with the background makes it hard to tell which lands it plans to tap. It has been doing a pretty god job of not tapping multi-lands when it could tap basics, but it isn't always the best at tapping the correct basics for what I would like to cast next.
July 31, 2015 9:54 p.m.
The problem I have is that I wish that at the end of my opponent's turn it would display a button and it would not proceed to your turn until you press that button. Many times, I passed turn with mana open, and wanted to cast an instant at the end of my opponent's turn, and all of a sudden, their turn is over and my turn just happens. I miss the timing and it's pretty unforgiving. If you're trying to activate an activated ability at end of turn, good luck.
July 31, 2015 10:50 p.m.
I have the same problem activating abilities at the correct time during combat.
July 31, 2015 11:08 p.m.
IcyLightning says... #10
It continually crashes my computer, like 1 duel then half-way through the next, CTD. Besides that, from the few duels I have actually played, seems enjoyable. I like casual dotp to just play a few games here and there without fretting decks too much.
July 31, 2015 11:17 p.m.
So THAT'S how you do it Gidgetimer , Thank you so much for that.
July 31, 2015 11:59 p.m.
I just played a matched game. I'm using a custom deck I made with the very limited pool of cards I started with + about 4 boosters that I earned through playing. It was my first ranked match. I'm rank 0. I got paired against a person rank 9. His deck had a Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, and bunch of other good stuff in a Simic Control deck. It wasn't too bad for the first seven turns, but after that, he gained overwhelming advantage with Jace and I had to concede to on turn 12 to his seven cards in hand, six creatures in play, and he had answered everything I had.
If you haven't paid to win, don't waste your time on ranked matches.
August 1, 2015 12:39 a.m.
RussischerZar says... #13
Yeah, I'm also farming my boosters against the AI with a WU aggro/tempo deck with stuff like Consul's Lieutenant, Dauntless River Marshal, Frost Lynx, Welkin Tern and obviously Elite Vanguard and some Nimbus Wings thrown in for good measure. I usually kill the hard AI around turn 6-7, never lost yet.
I also did pretty much all of the achievements except the 'Walker ones (have 0 yet) and the "win # times".
If anyone wants to do battle, my Steam name is the same as my T/O name :)
August 1, 2015 7:59 p.m.
RussischerZar says... #14
Oh and you can cycle mana tapping by clicking the left stick on the controller, if you're using an Xbox one. Or CTRL, if you're using keyboard, as Gidgetimer already stated.
August 1, 2015 8:09 p.m.
I got paired up against a rank 15 guy with a foiled Simic control deck. I was rank 3 and had just lost 2 in a row. I really hope they work on the pairing system...
Gidgetimer says... #2
The game is a bit buggy, I haven't had the background ever load correctly and the fact that you can't use custom decks for the archetype quests sucks.
It is a DotP game so the same problems that they have always had apply, but this also means that it is functional and pretty elegant (at least more elegant than the MTGO client). I like it overall and I haven't played much of the online. The game I did play my Simic artifacts/control seemed to do pretty good. It is mostly bouncing and tapping as the control elements.
July 31, 2015 7:29 p.m.