Card game Magic: The Gathering introduced sets which cross over with other worlds last year under the name Universes Beyond. Wizards Of The Coast announced during an investor call today that future crossovers would include Final Fantasy and Assassin's Creed - although not until 2024.
]]>The cardboard fantasy world of Magic: The Gathering has become the foundation for free-to-play action-RPG Magic: Legends, now available in open beta for everyone to try. I say "open beta" because that's officially its status, but it's basically out now. Magic: Legends looks like Diablo with deckbuilding. I like Diablo, I like deckbuilding, and I like Magic too much for my own damn good, so sure, I'll give it a go.
]]>A new wodge of 274 cards hits Magic: The Gathering Arena today with the launch of Core Set 2021. As ever, the annual Core set brings a mix of new and reprinted cards to build a base for the year's expansions - and this year it brings an awful lot of cats and dogs. One card even has a cat and a dog who are best friends. Core Set 2021 doesn't officially launch in cardboard form until July 3rd, so it's a bit of a sneaky peeky for the digital version.
]]>Next month, Wizards of the Coast will release a new way to play Magic: The Gathering in the form of Jumpstart. Available physically and also in Arena, its PC-based incarnation. We previewed Jumpstart yesterday in conversation with Magic’s principal product designer, Mark Heggen. Today we’re exclusively revealing two of its 46 different themes, and discovering the incredible calculus Wizards of the Coast apply to their card designs.
]]>A new trailer gives the first in-game peek at Magic: Legends, the action-RPG set in the world of monumental card game Magic: The Gathering. Made by Cryptic Studios, the mob behind City Of Heroes and Star Trek Online, it looks a whole lot more like a Diablo-y click-clicker than the MMO I had once expected. Initial whispers of Cryptic's Magic game in 2017 described it as an MMORPG, but by its formal announcement at The Game Awards in December 2019 had become an "MMO action RPG". I don't see the "MMO" part at all here but hey, that's what they say. Come have a look.
]]>Next week, on January 16, the latest card set will hit Magic: The Gathering Arena ahead of its physical release on January 24. It turns out that developers Wizards Of The Coast weren’t joking when they said their PC-based online game would stand right alongside the traditional game.
Theros Beyond Death is a new set in a series of four based on the Greek mythology-inspired plane of Theros. Gods, monsters and humans clash and heroes return from the Underworld in the continuation of a story which began back in 2013. But the important thing is the cards. A couple of months ago, I looked at how the previous set, Throne Of Eldraine, was designed, so I was interested to find out how this new one came together. I got to talk to design lead Mark Gottlieb about two of its new cards, Favoured of Iroas and Heroes of the Revel, which RPS can exclusively reveal below.
]]>“It’s hungry mother. It’s trip to the fair. It’s bad trade. Magic beans. Jack’s cow, angry mother. It’s surprise beanstalk. It’s climbing the beanstalk, giant’s castle, giant’s wife, golden goose, self-playing harp, escape with the goose, chop down the beanstalk.”
Mark Rosewater has been head designer on Magic: The Gathering since 2003, overseeing the creation of thousands of new cards in the collectible card game that spawned them all. Among 269 new cards in Magic’s latest expansion set, Throne of Eldraine, some tell the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. Others feature pie-baking and big bad wolves, and some spin out Arthurian legends. All together, they form a densely intricate game of attack and defence, playable both as physical cards and in Magic: The Gathering Arena.
]]>Open the door, get on the floor, infinitely spawn the dinosaurs! The free-to-play CCG Magic: The Gathering Arena updated yesterday with the 2020 core card set. One card from this new set -- Marauding Raptor -- can be played together with Polyraptor to destroy the game. Causing an infinite loop of dinosaur spawning, the perpetrator can only grin smugly and dare their opponent to hit the concede button. It's either that, or watch helplessly until the heat-death of the universe. Below, a video of this by "RiddledWith Adventure" on YouTube.
]]>The great granddaddy of collectable card wizard em' ups is back in style, and cribbing a few style tips from Hearthstone today, as Magic: The Gathering Arena opens its doors to all, free-to-play. While technically now in 'open beta', that's just a warning sign that the paint might still be wet, and a couple bugs may still be lurking around - there'll be no account wipes from here. The game is effectively out now, and after playing the closed beta for a while, I reckon it's a solid starting point for Magic novices and experts alike. Below, the launch trailer.
]]>Magic: The Gathering might be the great granddaddy of card-battlers, but it's still cool, dammit - you'll be able to see for yourself when Magic: The Gathering Arena enters open beta next week. You kids may have your Hearthstones, your Eternals and even your Slay The Spires, but there's still nothing quite like passively aggressing someone to death with an all-blue shutdown deck. The free-to-play CCG launches into open beta on September 27th. Below, a bizarre launch trailer featuring Danny Trejo, who apparently knows a thing or two about elves.
]]>Welcome to Spawn Point, where we take something wonderful from the world of gaming and explain what it is, why it’s worth your time and how to get involved. This time: collectible card games (or at least, the videogame kind).
Hello, I would like to collect some cards please. Of course, friend. We have a wide variety of fantasy themed cards, ranging from hostile dragon to raving ghoul to –
Hang on, what are these numbers? Oh, ignore those, they’re nothing to worry about. Look at this wizard!
]]>While I'd never describe myself as a die-hard fan, I've dabbled in Magic: The Gathering since the 90s across its physical form, the early RPG-like Microprose adaptation of the game, and even a bit of Magic Online, which is still running despite having barely changed over the past 15 years.
The latest digital adaptation, Magic: Arena is currently in closed beta testing, and the developers have just outlined their initial economic plans for the game. While it may sound a little daunting, the abridged version is that this sounds more generous than Hearthstone for casual players, at the very least, although they've yet to pin down the final real-money pricing for the game.
]]>In the manner of a bodyguard hurling themselves in front of a bullet, I am hurling myself in front of a story about Magic: The Gathering's digital free-to-play card game, Magic: The Gathering Arena [official site] in order to protect Alice and Brendan from it. SAVE YOURSELVES, FRIENDS!
]]>Cryptic Studios, the creators of superhero MMORPG City of Heroes, are making a free-to-play "action MMORPG" [official site] based on Wizards of the Coasts' mega-hit collectible card game Magic: The Gathering. Publishers Perfect World Entertainment, who announced the game this week, don't have a name for it yet, they don't have anything to show of it (all the artwork in this post is from cards), and they can't tell us anything about it, but... huh!
Update: Oh for... I'd missed Cryptic's follow-up information that yep, it is an MMORPG, what a silly sausage I am.
]]>Now that the Duels of the Planeswalkers series has gone free-to-play, new sets are being released for the video games alongside their cardboard launches. That's nice. Magic's Eldritch Moon expansion will hit tabletops on July 22nd but Wizards of the Coast have announced we'll actually see it early on desktops and laptops in Magic Duels [official site] on July 20th.
It'll continue the Shadows over Innistrad block with a new story campaign, a new pre-built deck, and new cards with new mechanics. You can, for example, meld a town's soldiers and its battlements to form a writhing, horror-spawning meat-town. Nice.
]]>Hey folks. This week I want to do something special – I want to quickly revisit a few board games I've covered before – because board games often reveal more of themselves over time. The games I cover this week are ones that have grown in my estimation since I first covered them here. Next week I'll be talking about games that have gone down in my estimation for one reason or another. I think it might be interesting to see how time has affected my take on these titles, and to see what you fine people think of these games the more you've played them.
Let's begin.
]]>These days, you're just not a proper RPG unless you've got a fancy card-game spin-off either in or out of world. Gwent. Hearthstone. Arcomage. Triple Triad. Legends of Norrath. Pokemon CCG. Now The Elder Scrolls is throwing its adventurer's cap into the ring with The Elder Scrolls: Legends, as announced aeons ago, but only just going into closed beta. Quite a gold-rush, especially given that historically, these games haven't done particularly well in digital form, even when backed by a big name or license.
]]>Wizards always have room for more tricks up their sleeves.
That joke's better than me. It deserves better. It could've been told so much better. Could someone better than me pick it up and run with it? Thanks.
Point is, the free-to-play wizard 'em up Magic Duels [official site] has launched its 'Shadows over Innistrad' update with 304 new cards to collect and cast. It's also added new story campaigns, new quests, bug fixes, and other patchy things.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Not Duels of the Planeswalkers, not the cardboard version - I mean MicroProse's MTG game from 1997. Far less literal than DotP, it took Wizards of the Coast's collectible card game into an open world RPG-ish thing. Your wizard roamed around battling monsters and winning cards to build a better deck, grow stronger, and challenge an ultimate evil, which was an interesting adaptation. But, as far as I can recall, this is the only video game I have ever returned for a refund because I didn't like it.
]]>Hello youse.
Magic The Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers is a bit of a mouthful, right? But it's definitely a title worth saying, and definitely a board game worth ordering. I was surprised by how good this one was – let me break it down for you real quick right here in this column today.
]]>Magic: The Gathering has been such a popular collectible card game that it's no surprise to see traces of it in many modern CCGs, but Hex: Shards of Fate [official site] looked more like Magic than any digital CCG I've seen. Magic makers Wizards of the Coast noticed the similarities too, and in 2014 sued the Kickstarted CCG's makers for allegedly infringing their intellectual property rights. Well, that's now settled, and Hex will continue on its merry deckbuilding way.
]]>After the stonking success of Hearthstone and other free-to-play collectible card games, it was inevitable that Magic: The Gathering would follow suit (this pun was unintentional, but I'm leaving it in). Magic may be head honch of the cardboard scene, but its offerings on virtual tabletops have been relatively disappointing. The Duels of the Planeswalkers games only added proper deckbuilding - a huge draw of Magic, for me at least - in its fifth revision, for goodness' sake.
Magic Duels [official site] continues on from DotP and turns it free-to-play, and... seems to be a good direction for the series? It launched last night, available on Steam.
]]>I've been playing Magic regularly for the past five years, and the blame for all that lost time and money is the first Duels of the Planeswalkers [official site]. During that time, the game grew from gateway drug for its cardboard cousin into a full series in its own right, and one looked forward to by long-time fans and new players alike. Unfortunately last year's edition did almost as much work making me hate it as the original did making me love it. I've been playing the next iteration, Magic Duels Origins, to find out whether it manages to fix the series amid the move to an ever-updating free to play model, or whether it falls into the same trap (cards) all over again.
]]>Ah, Magic, my particular brand of cardboard narcotic. The first game in the Duels of the Planeswalkers series is what got me into it, while the last nearly got me out with its terribly designed interface, boring grind of unlocks and poorly thought out battles. Which way will the newly announced Magic Duels: Origins [official site] point me? It marks a switch from a yearly release structure to a free to play, updated regularly one. The former is what made it so popular, while the latter drove people off from last year's edition. The trailer and more details below.
]]>Uh-oh.
It seems like only almost exactly a month since I was musing on the existence of Hex: Shards of Fate and its similarities to Magic: The Gathering. Well, it turns out that a month before that Wizards of the Coast (or, more accurately, their lawyers) were doing a little more than raising an eyebrow. They've gone whole hog, taking Cryptozoic and sub-company Hex Entertainment to court for "copyright, patent and trade dress infringement." To which the wider internet has responded with a mix of "what do those things mean?" and outrage. Essentially, Wizards believe that Hex is too similar to Magic in the way that is looks, functions and plays to be distinct. This comes down to a number of different factors like whether customers will confuse the two brands as well as whether there's been wholesale nicking of work. Now, I am not a lawyer, nor should I be, however I've dug up a few juicy morsels and am more than happy to throw out an opinion or two, which you'll find below.
]]>"Alice!" friends scream in my face. "You have to play Netrunner! Why don't you play Netrunner? Let's play Netrunner! Netrunnerrr!" I sneer dismissively but turn away to hide a single tear rolling down my cheek. I can't play Netrunner, I just can't. Having spent so much of my teenage years obsessing over Magic: The Gathering, I'm too afraid that I'd be held rapt by its cardboard wiles.
The annual Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers games from Stainless have always given me just enough to tide me over, reminding me of how wonderful a game Magic is but being limited enough to stop me sinking in. It's a bit concerning, then, that the newly-announced Magic 2015 edition is said to expand deck-building.
]]>You know what I like to see first thing in the morning? It's Spelunky creator, Derek Yu, topless. Mmmmm-mmmmmmmm. Plants Vs Zombies songstress Laura Shigihara gets in touch to say she's put up an extremely silly video, featuring Shigihara, Andy "Spelunky XBLA" Hull, George "Plants Vs. Zombies designer" Fan, Paul "Sword Of Legends" Hubans, Tommy "Super Meat Boy co-creator" Refenes, and the exposed nipples of Mr Yu. Sorry, what is it? It's a rap about Magic: The Gathering, of course. And they're calling themselves, Funktrollers.
]]>My mission was a simple one. Take a look at the PC version of Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012, and write a little bit about Wot I Think of it. Easy, right? I'd already played it a bit on Xbox 360, so there's a good start. I'm familiar with the previous edition of the game. Nice. And I'm very familiar with the tabletop game. No problem. Easiest bit of writing work ever.
Ugh.
]]>Early news reaches us about not one, not three, but two new PC/360 games based on the Magic: The Gathering license. Wizards of the Coast, who own all of fantasy ever, are moving the collectable card game franchise over to videogames for the first time since 2003.
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