This review focuses on the Downloadable Content pack ‘Expansion 1’ and is written under the assumption that you understand the basic mechanic of Duels Of The Planeswalkers and Magic: The Gathering in general. Read the full review to get the lowdown on the game.
Stainless Games’ now yearly series of Magic: The Gathering games has reached 2013, and this expansion offers some brand new content for the latest edition, based on the Ravnica block in light of the new card set just released, Return To Ravnica.
For half the price of the original game(400MSP/£3.19), you get five new decks to add to the original ten, so there is definite value. After all, the true meat of each Duels Of The Planeswalkers game is the set of decks you get to play with, and the metagame that they produce by interacting with each other.
One of the most welcome additions in this DLC is that the five decks added are all dual-coloured in terms of mana. This means they contain cards that can be paid for using two different colours of mana, e.g red and blue. This allows the manual mana tapping functionality added in this entry of the series comes into its own, as choosing which mana you use is vitally important so that you can play the right spells when you need to.
I am also pleased to report that the decks are good. Not overpowering in terms of what is already available, but definitely worth playing. Each is based on a different style of play and offers either a completely new style, such as sacrificing strategies, and amalgamations of existing ones, like counter and burn. They also all require some level of initiative for the player, and are perhaps geared at the more experienced player, offering all kinds of little tricks and setups.
The expansion also offers new single-player content, which I know is the most important part for many. There are five new Campaign battles against each guild (including Revenge battles once you’ve completed the first set), as well as 5 new Challenges to try to wrack your brains around. I consider myself decent at Magic but I still struggle greatly with the challenges, and love them as lateral thinking puzzles, so more of them are certainly welcome.
There is not explicitly any new Planechase content, but the new decks are compatible with that mode, so if you like it there are new variables to play with.
In a sense, this is a fairly bare bones content addition, but it also adds extra depth and staying power to the online scene of the game, where it really thrives.