Magic Duels Shadows Over Innistrad Update Review

Card games do not have the best reputation. As any trading card game aficionado will know, there is particular joy in manipulating paper cards, which one cannot find in computer games. Firstly, you purchase a new booster pack. Those three pounds conscientiously spent on fifteen cards, which pay off when you rip off the package and the smell of new paper hits you in the face like the aroma of a well-aged wine. You nimbly skim your fingers and reach the last three cards, traditionally the ones with more value. When in a game, shuffling the cards in your hand is relaxing and stimulating. Unfortunately, this array of sensations is not present in Magic Duels; Magic Duels has other reasons for its appeal.

Shadows over Innistrad is the latest content update added to Magic Duels, and brings all cards from the latest two Magic: The Gathering sets. One of them is Oath of the Gatewatch, the second set of the block Battle for Zendikar, only being introduced now, three months after its release on paper, even though the first set was released on time. Shadows over Innistrad, the second and most novel set, sees planeswalker Jace taking us back to the eponymous plane of Innistrad. With the Pro Tour for this set headlining this weekend, it seems like the best time to dive into this world of werewolves and vampires.

The most notable inclusion in this update are the cards, which bring the grotesque and perverse stories of Innistrad and the resolution of Zendikar’s fate printed in over 300 unique cards. Some mechanics featuring in the set are a perfect translation of lore into card-game mechanics. For example, for werewolves, the card is double-sided, with the more powerful lycanthrope in the back. However, you can only flip it when there are no spells cast in a turn — that is, during the night. This transformation is quite common in Innistrad, where Soldiers turn to more powerful Clerics when there are enough creatures serving them; or where researches get corrupted by their own experiment, turning into abominable giant insects. Some other transformable creatures even suffer from induced ‘Delirium’, an ability that can only be activated when your deck has seen enough death.

Aside from transformations, Shadows over Innistrad returns with more aggressive skills, such as ‘Skulk’, which avoids creatures from being blocked by a more powerful one. One of my favourite abilities is ‘Investigate’, which allows you to start putting Clue artefact tokens onto the battlefield, with the promise of being able to draw cards by sacrificing them. In blue and black, ‘Madness’ allows you to cast spells as you discard them, usually for a cheaper cost. Oath of the Gatewatch has a clear division between mechanics. The colorless mana symbol represents wastes, the characteristic land of the Eldrazi. The Allies, whose job is to fend off these inter-plane, all-devouring creatures, ‘Support’ each other and ‘Cohort’ together in order to become an even more powerful army. Lastly, Jace and Chandra’s oaths allow you to capitalise on the momentum of the game with ‘Surge’, a mechanic that makes casting spells cheaper as long as another spell was cast by you or a teammate in the same turn.

Shadows over Innistrad also introduces two five-battle campaigns, one for each set introduced. These hand you out a pre-made deck and make you fight against AI, with the battles themed around crucial events in each plane. In Innistrad, Jace seeks planeswalker Sorin, but as soon as he gets there, he realises that the plane has been corrupted by somebody, with zombies unearthing from their tombstones and blood-thirsty vampires guarding the gates of the cities. Soon, the angel Avacyn, Sorin’s creation, will make her appearance, but not in her purest form. Before any of these events, Jace had been in Zendikar, where Gideon, Chandra and Nissa had taken the Oath of the Gatewatch, swearing to protect the inhabitants of this plane from the Eldrazi, who in the previous set were able to break free from their imprisonment with the help of planeswalker and demon Ob Nixilis.

Whereas each card is beautifully designed, with enthralling writing and incredibly enticing artwork, this update is still held back. Both sets work perfectly on their own, though not as well when combined together. However, the main issue with the update is the way in which the base game is structured. Aside from the Story mode, playing 1v1 matches with other people or AI with your own constructed deck is not enough. Of course, this will keep you busy for a while, but soon you will start seeing the flaws in this system. The deck builder is not very comfortable to use: you can’t search for cards, or particular types of cards, by typing their name in a search bar. No matter how many cards you have, you will have to scroll throughout your collection to find them — even with the filtering options, there are not enough settings to tweak. I encountered a similar problem in the store: I could only buy six-card booster packs, and there was a limit to the amount I could buy. This means that I could never build a deck with four Chandra, as a planeswalker, because I could only have one of them in my collection.

The Two-Headed Giant format is, at the moment, unplayable, as you may be waiting for too long until you have the chance to play your cards. What’s more, this makes people less attentive to the game, making them fail more or stall more in their turns. The most notable aspect is the lack of any Limited format. For many, this is the best way to play Magic, and moreover, the absence of tournaments or more obscure formats like Pauper or Block will alienate many. For me, who I consider myself fairly sociable in spite of the vast amount of hours I spend playing games on my own, the lack of a chat option makes playing against other people feel the same as playing against AI. Sadly, whereas Magic Duels provides a pastime entertaining enough to procrastinate with, its design doesn’t allow players to dive into the game fully. This latest update brings the richness and enticement of Magic lore, but it lacks the versatility to have different formats and purchasing options included. On the flipside, Chandra is still a badass, no matter what.