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Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 - Out now on Steam, XBL and PSN

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    NinjaPirateNinjaPirate Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Welcome to the pit took me awhile to figure out. Basically pay attention not only to your creatures but other things in play as well ;). Wotan, I sent you a PM with a detailed solution.

    NinjaPirate on
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    ragnarok7331ragnarok7331 Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    OK, I'm already stumped by one of these challenges. These kind of card game puzzles frequently stump me.

    Welcome to the Pit.
    I start with 2 Bloodthrone Vampires, a Death Cultist, a Lord of the Pit, a tapped Mortivore and one hit point. Sarkhan Vol has one 1/1 creature, two 6/4 creatures and one 9/9 creature with trample. It's his turn and there is no way I can see to put up a defence against his attack (there must be, of course; it's a puzzle. I just don't see it).

    Either each one of my creatures blocks one of his creatures and his trampling golem kills me. Or I sacrifice my Mortivore to give one of my Bloodthrone Vampires +2/+2. This allows me to use my Lord of the Pit and my boosted Bloodthrone Vampire to completely block his golem. However, this also means one of his other creatures will make its way through and kill me because I just don't have enough blockers.
    Can you declare a block and then sacrifice your Death Cultist to steal a life from the other player, thus negating the damage dealt by their 1/1 creature?

    ragnarok7331 on
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    Tiger-Tiger- Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    OK, I'm already stumped by one of these challenges. These kind of card game puzzles frequently stump me.

    Welcome to the Pit.
    I start with 2 Bloodthrone Vampires, a Death Cultist, a Lord of the Pit, a tapped Mortivore and one hit point. Sarkhan Vol has one 1/1 creature, two 6/4 creatures and one 9/9 creature with trample. It's his turn and there is no way I can see to put up a defence against his attack (there must be, of course; it's a puzzle. I just don't see it).

    Either each one of my creatures blocks one of his creatures and his trampling golem kills me. Or I sacrifice my Mortivore to give one of my Bloodthrone Vampires +2/+2. This allows me to use my Lord of the Pit and my boosted Bloodthrone Vampire to completely block his golem. However, this also means one of his other creatures will make its way through and kill me because I just don't have enough blockers.
    Block a 6/4 with the Cultist
    Block the other 6/4 with a Bloodthrone Vampire
    Block the 9/9 with both Lord of the Pit and the other Bloodthrone Vampire
    Let the 1/1 through

    After blockers, sac the Cultist to gain 1 life.
    Sacrifice the Vampire blocking the 6/4 to the Vampire blocking the 9/9 to survive

    Win on the swing back.

    Tiger- on
    68979-2.png
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    WotanAnubisWotanAnubis Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Thank you all for all the help with Welcome to the Pit. I managed to beat it.

    Also, I'd just like to say that the rules for sacrificing and blocking are unintuitive and possibly unfair.

    WotanAnubis on
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    chamberlainchamberlain Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Tiger- wrote: »
    OK, I'm already stumped by one of these challenges. These kind of card game puzzles frequently stump me.

    Welcome to the Pit.
    I start with 2 Bloodthrone Vampires, a Death Cultist, a Lord of the Pit, a tapped Mortivore and one hit point. Sarkhan Vol has one 1/1 creature, two 6/4 creatures and one 9/9 creature with trample. It's his turn and there is no way I can see to put up a defence against his attack (there must be, of course; it's a puzzle. I just don't see it).

    Either each one of my creatures blocks one of his creatures and his trampling golem kills me. Or I sacrifice my Mortivore to give one of my Bloodthrone Vampires +2/+2. This allows me to use my Lord of the Pit and my boosted Bloodthrone Vampire to completely block his golem. However, this also means one of his other creatures will make its way through and kill me because I just don't have enough blockers.
    Block a 6/4 with the Cultist
    Block the other 6/4 with a Bloodthrone Vampire
    Block the 9/9 with both Lord of the Pit and the other Bloodthrone Vampire
    Let the 1/1 through

    After blockers, sac the Cultist to gain 1 life.
    Sacrifice the Vampire blocking the 6/4 to the Vampire blocking the 9/9 to survive

    Win on the swing back.

    There is another way.
    There in as enchantment out on your side (I forget the name) that says you win if at the beginning of your upkeep faze you have 20 or more creatures in you graveyard. Block the colossus with a Bloodthrone Vampire, one 6/4 with the other vampire and the other 3/4 with your lord of the pit. Block his 1/1 with your cultist.

    Now for shenanigans. Sacrifice the cultist to gain 1 life. Sacrifice everything else to the Vampire blocking the colossus, pumping him up to 9/9. All of your creatures die but you win during your upkeep because you have 20 creatures in your graveyard.

    chamberlain on
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    tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Maddoc wrote: »
    So, seeing that you could actually remove cards from the deck instantly elevated this from "maybe" to "must buy" for me.

    Now hopefully they've improved the algorithm that determines what land to tap, because that fucked me over a few times in the first game too.

    It seems a little better, but it's still not great. There have still been situations where you have an activated ability on the field requiring red or something and it will tap you out of mountains because you have something in your hand you don't want to cast which requires a lot of blue. It's pretty smart for cards in hand though.

    Oh, and the game has non standard mama sources now! One of the decks has mox emeralds in it :) still, this gives me hope for more going on in the future.

    tbloxham on
    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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    cj iwakuracj iwakura The Rhythm Regent Bears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I'm not the only one who sees Triple H in the OP, right?

    cj iwakura on
    wVEsyIc.png
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    cpugeek13cpugeek13 Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I'm on the fence about getting this game. Its been years since I played Magic (and even then I was just a casual player), so I've forgotten a lot about it. Would this be a good casual game to play during a lunch break? How do you matches usually last? Is there any kind of play-by-email or hotseat?

    cpugeek13 on
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    ArchsorcererArchsorcerer Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    It is good, but I'm not sure it is for a lunch break.

    The gameplay is not agile as playing someone using real cards.

    Archsorcerer on
    XBL - ArchSilversmith

    "We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
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    troublebrewingtroublebrewing Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    so there are no steam achievements for this? That kinda makes me lean towards Xbox. Not a big deal but I guess achievements are kinda fun.

    troublebrewing on
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    BobbleBobble Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    so there are no steam achievements for this? That kinda makes me lean towards Xbox. Not a big deal but I guess achievements are kinda fun.

    umm, yes, there are steam achievements. I've been getting them. I can't speak to any difficulty in said achievements ('win a game with X deck,' 'win an archenemy game,' etc.), but I didn't check the full list.

    Bobble on
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    troublebrewingtroublebrewing Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    ohh I didn't see them in the usual location on the Steam store, I will have to look at that again, Thanks :)

    troublebrewing on
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    Last SonLast Son Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    They are mostly pretty bland. Win a game with each deck, win an archenemy match, complete the campaign, ect.

    They really feel like achievements added for achievements sake. Though I'm not sure what else they could have really done.

    Last Son on
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    WotanAnubisWotanAnubis Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Played around with the vampire deck. I like it, but I'm not sure I can get it to work smoothly.
    Some decks, like those mono-Green and Green/Blue ones, are obvious: get a lot of land down so you can summon your really, really heavy hitters. Then there's that Green/Black Elf deck, which seems to be all about swarming the opponent with elves.

    The vampires... I'm not sure. There are cards in there that become more useful the more vampires you got, but it's not that easy to swarm (as far as I can tell). Nor is it particularly easy to get enough land for the deck's heavier hitters. Mostly it seems like you just need to pull every trick you can to boost whatever vampires you do get out there, and there are a lot of cards that help.

    Mostly, though, I'm sticking with it because the fact this Black vampire deck is capable of giving you heaps of extra life amuses me. I'd have thought that running a deck like this would've seen your own life drained, not the enemy's.

    Could've used another Captivating Vampire, though.

    WotanAnubis on
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    Claw ShrimpClaw Shrimp Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Got to use a Baneslayer Angel for the first time ever. Pretty much won the game single-handedly for me.

    Claw Shrimp on
    steam_sig.png
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    tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Played around with the vampire deck. I like it, but I'm not sure I can get it to work smoothly.
    Some decks, like those mono-Green and Green/Blue ones, are obvious: get a lot of land down so you can summon your really, really heavy hitters. Then there's that Green/Black Elf deck, which seems to be all about swarming the opponent with elves.

    The vampires... I'm not sure. There are cards in there that become more useful the more vampires you got, but it's not that easy to swarm (as far as I can tell). Nor is it particularly easy to get enough land for the deck's heavier hitters. Mostly it seems like you just need to pull every trick you can to boost whatever vampires you do get out there, and there are a lot of cards that help.

    Mostly, though, I'm sticking with it because the fact this Black vampire deck is capable of giving you heaps of extra life amuses me. I'd have thought that running a deck like this would've seen your own life drained, not the enemy's.

    Could've used another Captivating Vampire, though.

    It feels that the decks which were strongest before now feel much weaker, while the weaker decks feel much stronger. The power level seems more uniform, but it's below where say the elves and vampires decks were. Both now feel that they are lacking a final 'punch' which they had before and now lack.

    tbloxham on
    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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    hyperpowerhyperpower Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Picked this up on steam and am loving it.
    It seriously needs to come out on iPad though

    hyperpower on
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    FightTestFightTest Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I don't know if I have shit luck or if being on the highest difficulty cheats rather than just having a smarter AI, but I feel like I'm getting fucked non-stop.

    Play green deck, get 2-4 mana and loaded of 5+ CC creatures. Play white weenie deck and find myself drawing 8+ land. Computer also seems to have a pristine draw. Restarted probably 20 games now to win once.

    Maybe I'll suck up my ego and kick it down to medium because I can't remember ever having such a miserable stretch playing MTGO.

    edit.. also stops in this game are fucking terrible. Particularly trying to activate things after blockers are declared but before damage is applied where I see no hard stop, you just rush to activate abilities? I don't know. Maybe I'll get used to it but it feels super janky compared to MTGO. Don't know why they didn't model the game off that mechanics-wise.

    FightTest on
    MOBA DOTA.
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    LeevityLeevity Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Started playing the Machinations deck and been having fun with that. Haven't gone online yet but probably will tomorrow, if anyone wants to play on Steam, send me a message.
    FightTest wrote: »
    I don't know if I have shit luck or if being on the highest difficulty cheats rather than just having a smarter AI, but I feel like I'm getting fucked non-stop.

    Play green deck, get 2-4 mana and loaded of 5+ CC creatures. Play white weenie deck and find myself drawing 8+ land. Computer also seems to have a pristine draw. Restarted probably 20 games now to win once.

    Maybe I'll suck up my ego and kick it down to medium because I can't remember ever having such a miserable stretch playing MTGO.

    I know that feeling and it happens way too often. Actually dropped it down to mage and I still tend to get manafucked a third of the time.

    Leevity on
    XBL/PSN/Steam: Leevity
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    MgcwMgcw Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    FightTest wrote: »
    I don't know if I have shit luck or if being on the highest difficulty cheats rather than just having a smarter AI, but I feel like I'm getting fucked non-stop.

    Play green deck, get 2-4 mana and loaded of 5+ CC creatures. Play white weenie deck and find myself drawing 8+ land. Computer also seems to have a pristine draw. Restarted probably 20 games now to win once.

    Maybe I'll suck up my ego and kick it down to medium because I can't remember ever having such a miserable stretch playing MTGO.

    edit.. also stops in this game are fucking terrible. Particularly trying to activate things after blockers are declared but before damage is applied where I see no hard stop, you just rush to activate abilities? I don't know. Maybe I'll get used to it but it feels super janky compared to MTGO. Don't know why they didn't model the game off that mechanics-wise.

    The computer definitely cheats on the highest difficulty, most decks they'll get the copy of the card they have one of in their deck 9/10 times exactly when they can drop it eg: Nocturnus at 4 mana for the vampire deck.

    I've never had a problem stopping after declaring blockers but before damage is applied, though.

    Mgcw on
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    eelektrikeelektrik Southern CaliforniaRegistered User regular
    edited June 2011
    So how many decks are in this version anyways?

    eelektrik on
    (She/Her)
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    CorehealerCorehealer The Apothecary The softer edge of the universe.Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    eelektrik wrote: »
    So how many decks are in this version anyways?

    I think there's 10.

    Corehealer on
    488W936.png
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    WotanAnubisWotanAnubis Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    eelektrik wrote: »
    So how many decks are in this version anyways?
    Assuming there are no secret unlockable decks still out there, there are indeed 10.

    WotanAnubis on
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    mere_immortalmere_immortal So tasty!Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Are there any gamer pic unlocks in this one?

    Know there's some avatar gear, got me a hat.

    mere_immortal on
    Steam: mere_immortal - PSN: mere_immortal - XBL: lego pencil - Wii U: mimmortal - 3DS: 1521-7234-1642 - Bordgamegeek: mere_immortal
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    cpugeek13cpugeek13 Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    So i gave in and bought this on steam. I remember now how much i sucked at Magic when i was younger, and still do now :-P Had a rough time beating even the first planeswalker in the campaign. Oh well, its still a lot of fun!

    cpugeek13 on
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    HuxleyHuxley Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    C/P my post from the modo thread because I'm lazy.

    It's the exact same mechanically as the first one, but that's not a bad thing. The decks are pretty interesting, too. For instance the blue deck starts off as an illusion beats with two cancels and a couple of Air Elementals. But as you unlock stuff you get tools to make the deck into either a grindy control thing (with more counters, evacuate and finishers) or into a fish deck with more illusion beats and tempo stuff. I played through the first half of the campaign last night with it and thought, "man, there's really not a control deck in this game." Then I realized the blue deck COULD be, I just hadn't built it that way, upgrading the cancels into counterspells rather than just cutting the bears and having 4 counters.

    Plus you unlock cards in blocks rather than one at a time, so you only have to win one match to not put 3 Kraken's Eyes in your deck, rather than 3.

    Huxley on
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    HuxleyHuxley Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Played around with the vampire deck. I like it, but I'm not sure I can get it to work smoothly.
    Some decks, like those mono-Green and Green/Blue ones, are obvious: get a lot of land down so you can summon your really, really heavy hitters. Then there's that Green/Black Elf deck, which seems to be all about swarming the opponent with elves.

    The vampires... I'm not sure. There are cards in there that become more useful the more vampires you got, but it's not that easy to swarm (as far as I can tell). Nor is it particularly easy to get enough land for the deck's heavier hitters. Mostly it seems like you just need to pull every trick you can to boost whatever vampires you do get out there, and there are a lot of cards that help.

    Mostly, though, I'm sticking with it because the fact this Black vampire deck is capable of giving you heaps of extra life amuses me. I'd have thought that running a deck like this would've seen your own life drained, not the enemy's.

    Could've used another Captivating Vampire, though.

    Looking over the cards/unlocks, I think the Vampire deck is a lot like the Illusions deck in that
    there are two ways you can go with it, but if you try and do both you're going to flop. There's the bloodthirst deck and the vampires deck. If you are making the bloodthirst deck, you want the 1/1 unblockable illusion guys to make it easier to trigger thirst. In that case the multikicker vampire is pretty bad, and you can cut him for better stuff you unlock. Captivating Vampire and the sword and the "vampire only" removal also are pretty poor, since so many of your creatures aren't vamps.

    But if you're going for the vampires, the multikicker vampire is better than the unblockable guy because of Nocturnus and Captivating and the sword. But the unblockable guy is just a miserable draw late when you could play the multikicker guy as a 4/4.

    Just in general, my tips would be

    1) Don't run a card that all it does is gain you life, especially against the red deck with Punishing Fire.

    2) Don't run more than 60 cards (unless doing so is more fun for you, in that case have at it, it's just suboptimal). A lot of mana flood problems come from the game adding land as you add cards.

    3) When adding/removing cards, think about what your deck is trying to do. How is it going to win? What does it want to be doing on turns 3-5?

    4) If you're having problems with beating a certain deck, think about what kind of deck is good against it. Think about what cards you cut might be good against just this deck. White is good against the illusion deck because you have ways of targeting their creatures to kill them (the tapper). The red deck is going to be good against the Vampires because they have Punishing Fire, but Punishing Fire is pretty bad against a deck that never gains life (which should be most of them).

    Huxley on
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    tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I finally have started to win a few games of archenemy in the single player, I've figured out that more than anything else it's a huge decision what decks your AI buddies start off with compared to what deck you are playing and what deck the AI has. And, beyond even this, what cards does the AI have in it's scheme deck. If the AI has that damn Doom Laser card which destroys all permanents other than land a player has then a deck which builds a strong army is useless, or, if it has the card which steals a creature and gives it +3+3 and first strike etc then decks which only have one big creature aren't much good.

    The illusions decks, the machinations decks, and anything which focuses on control and denial and aims to win using raw mana power is good.

    tbloxham on
    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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    chamberlainchamberlain Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    tbloxham wrote: »
    I finally have started to win a few games of archenemy in the single player, I've figured out that more than anything else it's a huge decision what decks your AI buddies start off with compared to what deck you are playing and what deck the AI has. And, beyond even this, what cards does the AI have in it's scheme deck. If the AI has that damn Doom Laser card which destroys all permanents other than land a player has then a deck which builds a strong army is useless, or, if it has the card which steals a creature and gives it +3+3 and first strike etc then decks which only have one big creature aren't much good.

    The illusions decks, the machinations decks, and anything which focuses on control and denial and aims to win using raw mana power is good.

    I won the first one on my first try last night with three illusion decks.

    Also, does the AI really cheat on the hardest difficulty, or does it just feel like it is cheating, like Puzzle Quest?

    If it actually is stacking the deck, then fuck it, time to lower the difficulty.

    chamberlain on
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    TejsTejs Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    It can feel like it is stacking the deck, sure. However, I dont think there is a way to know for sure.

    Tejs on
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    tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    tbloxham wrote: »
    I finally have started to win a few games of archenemy in the single player, I've figured out that more than anything else it's a huge decision what decks your AI buddies start off with compared to what deck you are playing and what deck the AI has. And, beyond even this, what cards does the AI have in it's scheme deck. If the AI has that damn Doom Laser card which destroys all permanents other than land a player has then a deck which builds a strong army is useless, or, if it has the card which steals a creature and gives it +3+3 and first strike etc then decks which only have one big creature aren't much good.

    The illusions decks, the machinations decks, and anything which focuses on control and denial and aims to win using raw mana power is good.

    I won the first one on my first try last night with three illusion decks.

    Also, does the AI really cheat on the hardest difficulty, or does it just feel like it is cheating, like Puzzle Quest?

    If it actually is stacking the deck, then fuck it, time to lower the difficulty.

    I believe it may be more likely to get 'priority shuffling' where cards with low casting cost are on top, and ones with mid to high casting cost show up a few more cards in. However, it might just be that it's usually playing hamstrung and only on highest difficulty does it shuffle fairly.

    tbloxham on
    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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    tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Tejs wrote: »
    It can feel like it is stacking the deck, sure. However, I dont think there is a way to know for sure.

    You'd need to play lots of times and see how often the AI is mana screwed or has mana but nothing to play. If those things happen the expected amount of time, then the AI isn't cheating much.

    tbloxham on
    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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    JepheryJephery Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I'm not sure if or how much its cheating, but I did notice them getting mana screwed, though a lot of the decks are built around drawing so not all of them had that problem. I rolled over them a few times when they were stuck at 3-5 mana. In general I was able to get through the main and revenge campaigns without too much trouble on planeswalker.

    One of the bumps I hit was Sorin and his Blood Magic deck. It was a total dick to the Equipment deck, with him constantly removing my guys with instants right before I attached something to them and generally being a huge pain.

    After I finally beat him I started using the Blood Magic deck and breezed through most of the main campaign with it, mainly because the guys after him didn't seem to have good counters to it.

    The challenges were awesome, real mind teasers, I hope they release more of them.

    Jephery on
    }
    "Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
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    TejsTejs Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    tbloxham wrote: »
    Tejs wrote: »
    It can feel like it is stacking the deck, sure. However, I dont think there is a way to know for sure.

    You'd need to play lots of times and see how often the AI is mana screwed or has mana but nothing to play. If those things happen the expected amount of time, then the AI isn't cheating much.

    Indeed; there have been enough times where the AI has been mana screwed to me to not question the shuffling. Also, I doubt the developer would have needed to change the shuffling code they use, so if the old one wasnt cheating, I doubt the new one is.

    Tejs on
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    LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I'm not sure if this question belongs here in G&T or down in CF, but I'll ask it here as I think it might be a bit more relevant to the Duels video game.

    My friends recently got back into magic. My life has been incredibly crazy and hectic recently, and I've barely had time to hang out with them, let alone devote any sort of time to a hobby. But I'm thinking that I'd like to be able to collect and play with them if things settle down here a bit.

    In the meantime, is Duels of the Planeswalkers a decent way for me to sharpen my gameplay skills and strategy if I were to ever get back into collecting the actual cards again?

    I'm also having a difficult time deciding which platform to get it on. I've got a 360, PS3, and a gaming PC. I'm just not very sure which one would be the better choice for playing the game on.

    Lucascraft on
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    ArikadoArikado Southern CaliforniaRegistered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Yes.

    Platform doesn't really matter. If you want the promo card, I think the PSN version gets the worst of the three.

    Arikado on
    BNet: Arikado#1153 | Steam | LoL: Anzen
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    ArchsorcererArchsorcerer Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    Liliana doesn't have a deck in this. I liked her deck in the previous game. Hope it comes back in a expansion.

    Nissa's deck seems weaker compared to the previous one. I miss the Elvish Champion.

    Archsorcerer on
    XBL - ArchSilversmith

    "We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
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    MaddocMaddoc I'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother? Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I miss Garruk's Troll Ascetics

    But then, they were probably the single most broken card in the first game so I can totally understand why they're gone

    Maddoc on
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    ArchsorcererArchsorcerer Registered User regular
    edited June 2011
    I didn't get all the expansions for the previous game but the closest to broken I had was the Immaculate Magistrate. You got a small army then you could go for a one-hit kill with an Elven Riders.

    Archsorcerer on
    XBL - ArchSilversmith

    "We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
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    ArikadoArikado Southern CaliforniaRegistered User regular
    edited June 2011
    The green-blue ramp deck is a lot of fun. You either fail terribly or win gloriously. It makes the game a lot more interesting for me compared to playing the safe white deck.

    Arikado on
    BNet: Arikado#1153 | Steam | LoL: Anzen
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