Sealed deck and new slivers in Magic 2014 Duels of the Planeswalkers
Well, the rumors were true: Magic the Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 will include Sealed Deck mode, both for the single player campaign and multiplayer bouts.
Players will be able to rip open digital booster packs, make their card picks and, apparently, have their deck strength measured by an Awesome Meter. No, that’s not actually a joke (see screenshots below).
Since I managed to predict this (sealed play, not the Awesome Meter) in my DOTP 2014 wishlist, I feel pretty good about myself right now.
Here’s something I didn’t predict (in fact, I argued against it): there will be new slivers in Magic 2014 DOTP. These are previously non-existent card names, so we’re guessing they’ll also be showing up in the core set of paper Magic. Want to take a stab at what each of these slivers does?
- Sliver Construct (similar to Metallic Sliver?)
- Predatory Sliver
- Groundshaker Sliver
- Megantic Sliver
- Blur Sliver
- Striking Sliver
- Thorncaster Sliver (remove counters to deal damage?)
- Battle Sliver
- Sentinel Sliver
- Bonescythe Sliver
- Hive Stirrings (confirmed: sorcery, creates sliver tokens)
UPDATE: Spoiler images of some of these slivers… Enjoy!
I’ve never really been a fan of slivers, but if the Magic 2014 core set is going to include all new versions of these creatures, hopefully they’ll be more balanced and interactive than in previous iterations of the species! An immediate, obvious point of differentiation: these leaked 2014 slivers only pump your creatures, not every sliver on the battlefield.
Also revealed are a few of the other cards in Duels 2014, including Jinxed Idol. We don’t know if anything shown in these screenshots is limited (ha-ha!) to sealed deck or not, but the card pool that’s been shown appears significantly more straightforward than some of the more complicated stuff in Duels 2013. Whether that’s good or not depends on your tastes, but the jury will remain out until the Duels is released or, more likely, its entire decklist is spoiled in another forum leak.
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- Opening a booster pack
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- Choosing a booster pack
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- Sealed deck campaign mode
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- Sealed deck gameplay
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- Sealed deck construction
Also of note: the PC build of Magic 2014 Duels of the Planeswalkers appears to be touch optimized, with fewer, larger buttons and a simpler, less graphic intensive background. It seems Stainless is pushing hard for optimized performance on less powerful tablet devices, which is a welcome change for anyone who struggled to run DOTP on these devices in the past. Of course, we won’t really know if that holds true until the game is available.
Official Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 press release
Wizards of the Coast today announced two exciting new features coming to Magic 2014 – Duels of the Planeswalkers! Sealed Play and a new take on the popular Slivers creature type will both make their debut in the Duels of the Planeswalkers franchise with Magic 2014.
The addition of Sealed Play will allow players to open booster packs and build decks to play against the AI and other players. Each sealed pool is comprised of 84 cards, mimicking paper TCG booster packs. The PvE experience includes a six-deck ladder where players take on mono-colored Sealed decks each corresponding with a particular Planeswalker, and finally facing a ‘boss’ Sealed deck.
Another feature debuting in Magic 2014 is a new take on the popular Slivers creature type. A fan-favorite, new playable Slivers in Magic 2014 decks will include the following:
- Sliver Construct (similar to Metallic Sliver?)
- Predatory Sliver
- Groundshaker Sliver
- Megantic Sliver
- Blur Sliver (haste? hexproof?)
- Striking Sliver (first strike? double strike?)
- Thorncaster Sliver (remove counters to deal damage?)
- Battle Sliver (uh… bushido?)
- Sentinel Sliver (vigilance?)
- Bonescythe Sliver
In addition, Hive Stirrings, a sorcery that creates Sliver tokens, will also be included in Magic 2014.
The Magic 2014 – Duels of the Planeswalkers video game will be available for PC, Xbox Live Arcade, PSN, iPad, and Android tablet for the first time when it launches this summer. The Magic 2014 product line-up also includes the Magic 2014 – Core Set for the paper trading card game (TCG) and Magic Online.
Those Sliver cards aren’t leaks, they’re official spoilers. The source is the official MTG Twitter and Facebook.
I´m fucking pumped for this!!!
Yep same I’m pumped for this too. Thanks Wingspantt.
Those Slivers look weird.
It also looks like they’re attempting to mitigate the more useful abilities by giving them to high cost creatures. So it looks like at least that there won’t be any sort of Muscle Sliver analogue, so far. A big part of what made Slivers so ridiculous is that they were also mostly low cost for all their abilities.
Predatory sliver is a muscle sliver analogue.
It cost 1G and gives +1 power but I don’t think its toughness boost or its power and toughness have been spoiled.
http://mythicspoiler.com/m14/
This has definately secured my pre-order. I would love sealed coming to DOtP, and it fills my awesome meter. (Pun intended)
I don’t say this often, but SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY
Sorry for my stupid question, but how about those boosters, will I need to buy them as an in-app purchase everytime I wanna play Sealed deck or it will be unlocked only once as a single in app?
It’s too early to tell, but it seems to be a safe assumption that the draft will simply be a mode, not something you have to pay for each and every time you want to play it. The boosters are likely just randomly generated each time for a tournament or match or whatever.
If they would ask for money every time then there’s no reason to get this over MTGO, which is already selling digital boosters and cards. This is meant to be both an introduction for new/casual players as well as a cost effective alternative to MTGO.
Like I said, I could be mistaken, but I hope I’m not.
Ok, that makes sense, hope your right :)
Will we see a Mac version?
Hmm.
If everything goes as it probably will, then winning at the Sealed campaign will either come down to following a guide or pure luck. Y’know, or the card pool will literally be half “Pass this to Nicol Bolas” and half “Use this to build your Naya deck.”
Cynical prospects aside, Slivers? Really?
Okay, it looks like they’ll do to them the same thing that they did to Homelands and co. Unplayability due to overcareful balancing. Sure they now only affect your stuff, but wasn’t that what made the mirror match exciting? (And also made people sideboard 4 Hive Stones…)
Those things are obviously balanced so that you won’t be screwed in case of a mirror match (which would be common if Slivers turn out to be the powerhouses they were before) and so that not everyone plays them, which ironically takes care of the mirror match issue in itself. Especially in DotP, encountering other Slivers means somebody else who dedicates themselves to the same deck as you.
Anyhow. Someone is going to do this, and it might as well be me. In the following, I’m going to assume that the problem of your stuff versus all stuff is irrelevant, that you’re playing against somebody with no Slivers.
Groundshaker Sliver: Compares fairly to Battering Sliver, getting +1/+1 for 1 more cmc and shifting back to green. However, you also need to include Horned Sliver, which chops off an entire 4 cmc in exchange for -3/-3. Honestly, if you’re playing Slivers, you’re more interested in the cheap keyword than the body, I’d say.
Battle Sliver: It’s Bonesplitter Sliver, with slightly more cmc and lifting. Could be worth it.
Blur Sliver: Disregarding colour, actually strictly better than Reflex Sliver. (Monocoloured, only 1 mana symbol, 3 cmc vs 4 for the same body and ability.)
But, of course, don’t forget Heart Sliver, doing the same job as a 1/1 for even 1 less. However, might be worth it since it’ll likely come out before other Slivers providing it protection, so being a 1/1 makes it a huge target.
Sentinel Sliver: How many strictly better bears are they going to print? Jeez.
The only equivalent is Synchronous Sliver, a 5 cmc 3/3. Given how strong Vigilance is, this feels tremendously undercosted. They won’t even give you a 2/2 which has Vigilance only for itself at that cost, so why did it have to be a Sliver?
Idea: Make it have Defender. I know that’d break the flow of Slivers giving all their bros their abilities, but wouldn’t it be flavourful that one guy is staying behind, watching over everything so his friends know when to come back?
Steelform Sliver: Okay, with this one it’s actually fairly relevant to only your dudes. Regardless, 2 less mana will get you Plated Sliver with -1/-1 compared to it, and one more will get you Watcher Sliver, same body but twice the effect. If you have the choice (and you won’t, but if you did), this card pretty much sucks.
Look at it this way. At this point, every deck that’s even remotely able is running 4 Lightning Bolts, Lava Spikes and what else. Watcher Sliver will at least put everything you have (most slivers are bears) outside of that burn’s range. Steelform won’t.
Striking Sliver: A 1/1 with first strike for 1 is very strong. It is amongst the best abilities in the game. Giving FS to ALL your dudes and only yours for the same price is madness. Again, disregarding colour, strictly better than Talon Sliver. (Hell, you’re much more likely to have R in your deck than W anyway, so it really is almost strictly.)
For completion, also note Spitting Sliver, which gets +2/+2 for 4 cmc more. Boo.
Yeah, they seem to have, for the most part, weakened the “weenie” aspect of slivers. Tempest Slivers were all 1/1s and 2/2s and all costs 2 or 3 cmc.
Later sets fiddled with that a bit, but the power/toughness were rarely touched.
This new set seems to be trying to balance keywords by putting them in big, gigantic and expensive bodies. Which is kinda counter to the whole Sliver motiff.
And it IS weird that Sentinel and Striking are SO much better than the rest…
It appears that more details about this mode have been given: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/29920115/Details_on_Magic_2014_Sealed_Campaign
“The game will come with two available slots for players to start Sealed Campaigns. These slots will keep all the deck edits and additions you make, plus your progress though the Sealed Deck Campaign. If you’d like to save more than two Sealed Decks, additional slots can be purchased for $1.99 each, and each slot will give you access to a different pool of cards and allows you to unlock different boosters. All Booster Packs use cards from a 180+ card “set” that’s unique to the game. To begin a Campaign, players will pick an open slot and get six 14-card Booster Packs to open. Players are then taken to the Deck Editor so they can create a 40-card Sealed Deck out of the 84 card pool they’ve opened (plus Basic Lands).”
Great news, this has actually make my day, thanks a lot Wings !!!
I guess Dotp is slowly but steadly evolving into the game I always wanted to be (I’ll probably have to wait five more years thus five more editions to get wait I really want though).
So this is a bit off topic, but since we are talking new games…
I’ve learned to play this game through yours videos back in 2012 and I have a huge respect for your advice and knowledge of the game. So I dare to ask for your opinion on this :
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cze/hex-mmo-trading-card-game?ref=home_popular
Maybe you’ve already heard about it or maybe you haven’t, but I would love to read your thoughts on this project to see if you’ll back it, thus meaning it’ll be worth it.
Thank you again in advance !!! De la part d’un fan français !
P.S : How’s your Ouya doing ?
When will we see a Mac version?