Welcome! You're about to be introduced to Duels of the Planeswalkers (Duels), an awesome new game that brings the game play of Magic: The Gathering to the Xbox starting June 17. You read that right, we have an official launch date and it's just two weeks away! Ready to see what you'll be able to get? Duels' graphics and animation are simply better than you've ever seen for Magic or any other digital trading card game (TCG). One glance at Duels on a high definition (up to 1080i) screen, and the evidence is clear. Now, graphics are great, but game play's the thing. In game play, Duels delivers! Duels of the Planeswalkers has over 40 hours of single-player game play against computer AI opponents that will challenge players of all skill levels. And there's an entire metagame of Planeswalker decks for you to wield, whether you're challenging your friends (or strangers) to a duel, three- or four-player multiplayer, or a Two-Headed Giant game, all on the Xbox LIVE Arcade (XBLA) network. Oh and then there's a collection of new Magic: The Puzzling–style challenges, and there's .... In short, Duels of the Planeswalkers is the total package. It's got great graphics, great game play, and great formats, and it's coming to the Xbox LIVE Arcade system soon. Really soon—in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish versions. Single-Player Game Play Duels of the Planeswalkers game play starts with two of the core decks (Chandra and Garruk) at your disposal. If you're new to Magic: The Gathering or Xbox or just want a refresher, you might want to start with the tutorial. Otherwise, try the Campaign game. You'll find that as you successfully complete challenges you'll unlock additional cards, which you can use to customize your deck. Defeating Planeswalker challengers in the Campaign game is special—not only do you unlock additional cards for winning, but you'll have the opportunity to unlock all eight playable decks. Once you defeat the deck's owner, that is .... If you'd like to play a match with a deck you haven't unlocked or against an opponent you haven't gotten to in the Campaign, you can set up Custom Duels against AI opponents. In Custom Duels you can make the games more or less difficult by adjusting the standard settings (life totals, starting hand size) for an extra (or reduced) challenge. There's also a series of nine Magic: The Puzzling–style puzzles, where you have a difficult situation and need to win the game in a turn (or two). However, this is a digital puzzle—you don't just mentally figure out the puzzle, hope you're right, and wait for the solution to be published sometime in the future. In Duels, you attempt your solution in-game. If you're incorrect, the AI opponent can demonstrate the counterargument, but you can always attempt the puzzle anew. Player vs. Player and Multiplayer Game Play Once you're ready to challenge your skills against human opponents, Duels provides several options to demonstrate your skills (with an Xbox LIVE Gold Membership). One-on-one play is available; on the Xbox this uses the TrueSkill matching and ranking system. Also, you can play free-for-all multiplayer with up to three other players on Xbox LIVE. You can either challenge your skills in ranked matches, or play unranked matches against your Xbox LIVE buddies. Another exciting option is cooperative play. Cooperative play allows two players to play under the Two-Headed Giant rules, as a team, from a single console. As a matter of fact, Duels provides an entire cooperative Campaign game against AI opponents. If you'd prefer human challengers, you can play cooperative games on Xbox LIVE with your friends against other teams in ranked and unranked matches. However, you can only play with the cards and decks you've earned! Duels of the Planeswalkers also provides free-for-all multiplayer play. Two-, three-, and four-player free-for-all matches are available, with opponents selected from your friends, matched via the Xbox LIVE matching system. Learn to Play Duels of the Planeswalkers also delivers a full suite of fun learn to play options. Duels being a digital game allows us to teach the rules of Magic in a controlled, fun environment. This can easily be seen from the Duels tutorial. Instead of reading a wall of text in a rule book, you just start playing the tutorial. The AI guides you through your first game, but you're playing Magic from the very start. But we don't stop there. Beginners will receive helpful hints in real time. These hints range from pointing out a creature with special abilities that you might not want to block, to reminders of things that newer players often forget (like playing a land). These hints, as with all new player features (like pausing spells your opponent plays so you can read them), can be permanently turned off once you're comfortable with Duels and with Magic. The interface of Duels has been designed to make it easy for new Magic players while improving the experience for established players. The Duels interface uses the AI to identify cards that are eligible to be cast (which are then outlined in gold), and there are many subtle interface elements to improve the play experience of players of all skill levels. For example, you'll find that if you play a creature enhancement spell by default it will target the choice the AI believes is most appropriate. If you're the type of person that would rather learn from another player, or if you're interested in teaching a friend (or even a stranger) to play Magic, Duels has a Mentoring system. In the Mentoring system you can pair up with a friend (or a volunteer) that will play a game of Duels with you, with the ability to observe your hand. This creates an experience similar to how many players have learned to play Magic—face-to-face—only this time it's mediated by a mouse and a headset. For the person who does prefer to read game rules, Duels includes a digital Magic rulebook and glossary. If you want additional details while playing, all cards have a "more information" screen. This "more information" screen not only explains the nuances of the card in question but also provides information on temporary effects (e.g. summoning sickness) that are active on the card being reviewed. So, if you're looking for a great way to learn Magic: The Gathering or teach Magic to a friend, Duels is a great choice! Duels and the Xbox LIVE Arcade Experience Duels of the Planeswalkers is fully integrated into the Xbox LIVE system. As mentioned, Duels uses the TrueSkill ranking and matchmaking system. Duels is also part of the Xbox achievement system, with 12 achievements (200 points worth). These achievements range from defeating certain special opponents to accomplishing unusual game conditions. Duels makes extensive use of the Xbox Leaderboards, providing Leaderboards for your friends and the public for ranked match play. There are additional Leaderboards for multiplayer play and even a Leaderboard for top-rated Mentors. Duels is also part of the Xbox LIVE Marketplace, providing additional theme and picture packs so you can sport a Magic: The Gathering look on your Xbox while playing Duels or other Xbox games. Duels and Magic: The Gathering Magic: The Gathering is a trading card game and Duels of the Planeswalkers is a digital game. As such, certain interpretations had to be made. For example, new cards are earned by completing challenges. You can unlock cards through Campaign play vs. AI opponents, matches against other XBLA players or by playing cooperative/multiplayer games. The entire Duels card set (around 280 cards) can be unlocked by winning challenges. Other changes involve pacing of the game. Duels is a faster-paced game than paper Magic or Magic Online. The heuristic of "tapped out means done" is built into the default game settings. Duels has a certain amount of twitchiness that isn't in paper Magic, with a short window of decision to play spells or abilities in response to game actions. Player vs. player matches have a turn timer that keeps the pace of the game going. When we made Duels of the Planeswalkers, we built it in Magic R&D as a paper format then we took those cards to digital. The Duels format is composed of balanced preconstructed Planeswalker decks, similar to Duel Decks: Jace vs. Chandra but with eight different decks to choose from. We extended this idea by providing a sideboard that allows deck customization but still keeps each deck's flavor and also keeps them balanced against the rest of the metagame. We know you'll enjoy playing Duels—hopefully as much as we enjoyed creating it. Oh, one more thing. If you're up to the challenge of Duels, you might receive one of these. Redemption details are based on locality of purchase. More information is available at www.duelsoftheplaneswalkers.com, along with further information about Duels of the Planeswalkers. Source - http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazin...ly/feature/41j Oh god. I'm going to be putting so much time into this. I can't wait. Cost - 800 microsoft funbucks Release - Wednesday June 17 2009 PM me your gamertag if you want to be added to the OP for some online matches. PA Name - Gamertags stlobus - St Lobus POndash - P0nd4sh ChaosHat - Sensazin Octobot - Octobot Helloween - Helloween45 jhunter46 - SEFinnit jack eddy - jeddy lee JaysonFour - JaysonFour Bloodsheed - Eclibull warder808 - Rezin8r Lasbrook - Lasbrook projectmayhem - Decasshern truck-a-sauras - Mad Eye Moody Zerokku - Zerokku Shrieve - Shrieve0 Exarjade - Exarjade Mighty - MightyVVhitey DuckterPepper - DuckterPepper ShadowoftheKatamari - Kuribos Hat Malick - Gdragonstar Skyybahamut - Rainarius culdrasbit*h - tw1tch0rz Damagemanual - damagemanual248 Penny Arcade Metatag! - PAXBLAMTG

I'm not entirely sold on the idea of it being preconstructed decks only. It threatens to turn into Megaman-esque Deck X will dick over Deck Y jobs and everyone will choose Deck Fox because it can do stuff that's clearly broken.

I'm not entirely sold on the idea of it being preconstructed decks only. It threatens to turn into Megaman-esque Deck X will dick over Deck Y jobs and everyone will choose Deck Fox because it can do stuff that's clearly broken. If anything this is what sells me on the game. All cards can be unlocked by doing challenges and the way I took it you can still do limited customization to the eight decks so it is not about who can spend the most money getting the best cards.

I'm not entirely sold on the idea of it being preconstructed decks only. It threatens to turn into Megaman-esque Deck X will dick over Deck Y jobs and everyone will choose Deck Fox because it can do stuff that's clearly broken. Ok, from the official FAQ: Q: Can I create new decks or modify my deck? A: Duels of the Planeswalkers allows players to customize their deck with cards unlocked by defeating opponents. The core of the deck is constant but how you choose to modify your deck is up to you.

This will be fantastic until they eventually start selling cards. At that point Magic again becomes he who spends the most money wins.

This will be fantastic until they eventually start selling cards. At that point Magic again becomes he who spends the most money wins. On the other hand, until this point this is why I'm excited for this. The only reason I quit playing the real game is that it just costed way too much money to keep up with standard play.

This sounds like another time sync for me ><;; I haven't finished my current deck ideas and I'm already thinking about this >.>;;

Wow. Magic is on the Xbox? I guess I'm getting an Xbox. The Duels format is composed of balanced preconstructed Planeswalker decks, similar to Duel Decks: Jace vs. Chandra but with eight different decks to choose from. We extended this idea by providing a sideboard that allows deck customization but still keeps each deck's flavor and also keeps them balanced against the rest of the metagame. Oh. Magic isn't on the Xbox. I guess I'm not getting an Xbox.

I'm interested in this but I haven't played MtG in about 10 years, so the cards look confusing. Also this deck unlock shit, well, it sounds terrible. Edit: Well it's just that Garruk card that looks confusing really.

Man, I haven't played Magic in like...10 years? I don't know. Weatherlight, maybe. I don't count that time I got Magic Online, bought like 40 dollars worth of cards, and then uninstalled, no idea what I was thinking. Long story short, I look forward to the idea of being able to play online without being charged real money for fake cards.

I hate you so much for bringing this to my attention. I'm one of the idiots who played a fair amount of Magic Online before realizing spending money on imaginary cards was dumb. ...see you online.

I hate you so much for bringing this to my attention. [img]http://ep.yimg.com/ip/I/yhst-34640480252896_2052_1984365[/im I'm one of the idiots who played a fair amount of Magic Online before realizing spending money on imaginary cards was dumb. ...see you online. Bahahahahaha. We'll definitely need to get some online matches going on here. Edit: Well it's just that Garruk card that looks confusing really. That's called a Planeswalker, it was a new card type introduced in the Lorwyn Block. This'll probably help explain them a bit better - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Art...swalkers/week4

Depending on how much customizability the decks have, I may have to get this. Being able to play Magic again for only 10 bucks sounds like a win to me, I always enjoyed the game but stopped playing because it cost too much money and all my friends stopped playing. High school was the last time I played regularly, around the time of Mercadian Masques, Invasion, and Odyssey blocks.

I'm with chamberlain, I was wandering along happy to have forgotten that MTG existed, and then this happens. I'm screwed.

I will add my hatred for pointing this out. God, I still have a dresser FULL of the damn cards. I think I stopped around the time of Odyssey, though I might be misremembering the order of release (so... so very many releases...) .

And I'm mad at neoGAF for bringing it to my attention. I just thought I'd share By the way, here are the achievements for the game - http://www.xbox360achievements.org/g.../achievements/

GOOD BYE LIFE.

There's no way on earth that my wife will let me buy this. I'll probably buy it anyway. ;)

I'll buy this as a sort of time waster, and for the free garruk. This isn't going to compare to actually playing given the restrictions, but it's cheap and looks kind of fun.

I'm looking forward to this. I'm not looking forward to the barrage of DLC cards.

I doubt they'll release DLC as individual cards. Probably release expansion packs with more cards/opponents/core decks.

The main thing that has me interested in this is that I hope it shows visably things like "the stack", in which case I could use it as a teaching aid to bring my girlfriend up to speed on how we play when my circle of friends gets together for some crazy multiplayer action. I suppose MTGO could fill this role as well, but the single player mode could be really helpful, as opposed to trying to get a friend into an online game and then trying to teach from there, one sidedly. Also, this would make TWO sets of cards that I don't physically own.

I am so down for this, MtG with out spending 100 bucks at a time to play it is a very wonderful thing. I assume the dlc will be like blocks of new decks that you can play against the others, so long as the number of decks is consistant to the initial release I'll drop the same price every time for more, it's still way better a deal then doing drafts or sealed decks at prereleases like I normally would do for a magic fix.

Oh shit. I'm glad there's no cards to purchase for this, or I'd lose all my savings.

Oh shit. I'm glad there's no cards to purchase for this, or I'd lose all my savings. There's about zero chance that if this game does even remotely well that there won't be more cards available to buy.