You’ll need a brand new strategy for Duels of the Planeswalkers, the casual “video game” version of the Magic the Gathering card game. Luckily, our ultimate Planeswalkers guide will tell you when to counterspell, when to summon a massive elder
thing, when to reanimate a demon corpse, and how to lay waste to your
opponent.
Duels of the Planeswalkers is available on Xbox,
Playstation, Steam and iPad. Even if you’re already familiar with this game, you’re about to
get a whole lot more familiar. I’ve unlocked every card in all 20 currently
available decks. I’ve tried every strategy and combination, earned every
achievement, and basically learned this game inside out.
The first thing you need to do is make sure you’ve unlocked
all the promo cards. Wizards releases promo codes at various events, and each
code unlocks one card in every deck. You can find all ten codes fairly easily –
this
list at gamefaqs will get the job done. The promo cards are among the best
for each deck, so grabbing those will increase your deck-building options right
off the bat.
The best way to improve your Duels of the Planeswalkers win
ratio is to spend some time using all of the decks, even the ones you don’t
really like. Whether you play against human opponents online or against the AI,
understanding what the deck you’re facing can do and what cards it’s likely to
have available will give you a huge advantage. Magic players call this, “Knowing
the metagame.”
For general deck-building advice, make sure your deck is
focused. With the number of cards available, each deck can be built in
different ways. Get rid of cards that don’t fit the plan. Also get rid of any
spells that cost more than six mana to cast, unless the deck is specifically
designed to play more expensive spells. There are a few exceptions, but this is
a good rule of thumb.
Finally, use 25 lands. A few decks can get away with 24 or
23 if built correctly, but every other deck wants a lot of mana. There are very
few really fast, aggressive deck options – all of these decks tend to require a
lot of building up resources and grinding out card advantage over a lot of
turns. Yes, it sucks when you draw your ninth land that you don’t need, but not
as bad as not being to play anything in your hand because you can’t draw your
fourth land.
Firewave
This is my least favorite deck, but it gets a lot more fun
when you add Sulfuric Vortex and Furnace of Rath. With most decks, you would
preserve damage dealing spells to eliminate creatures, rarely targeting your
opponent directly. This deck, however, wants to force through as much damage as
quickly as possible. It doesn’t really have fast creatures (although Kiln Fiend can come through sometimes), so you can’t always be as aggressive as you’d
like, sometimes holding back until you have enough mana for a huge game-ending
play. I’ve found Final Fortune to be very good in this deck, despite the risk.
You need to find the right moment to use it, but it’s won me lots of games.
This deck’s weak point is an inability to draw cards. You need to maximize the
number of cards you destroy for each one of yours spent. A Cone of Flame or Flames of the Firebrand that takes out two or three creatures can help even the
odds. Don’t forget about your various Phoenixes, which can frustrate opponents
and make a delightful “SCREEEEEE!” sound whenever you bring one back from the
graveyard.
Masks of the Dimir
This deck is all about card advantage. You want to draw more
cards than your opponent, and make her discard from her hand. Eventually, the
imbalance of resources will get you the win. Make sure you cut all the terrible
seven and eight mana creatures. Build an edge on the battlefield with cards
like Last Gasp and Hands of Binding, then push through with a few key flyers. Moroii can give you an early edge, but this deck has no way to gain life, so be
careful with them. Necropolis Regent is your finisher. One solid attack with
her on the board will probably make your victory inevitable.
Enter the Dracomancer
I tried several different builds and strategies with this
deck, but there’s no sense in trying to ice skate up hill. This deck wants to
be a dragon deck, and it works best if you just let it be a dragon deck. Remove
almost every creature that isn’t a dragon (Bloodbraid Elf is a notable
exception, a card so good it should be played in any deck it can legally be
played in, and Ogre Battledriver is excellent too). Use three copies of Dragonspeaker Shaman. Throw in Crucible of Fire. Rely on Cultivate and Explosive Vegetation to accelerate your mana and let you play those huge
dragons on turn five or six. Don’t worry about Dragon Fodder – you’ll use Savage Twister and Jund Charm to sweep away your opponent’s smaller creatures
anyway. The only hard part is imagining just how surprised your opponent looks
when you play Hellkite Overlord with a Battledriver in play.
Hunter’s Strength
It’s a mono-green deck, full of forests and green spells and
lots of creatures. You’ve got Nature’s Lore to give you a mana boost, but those
seven and eight-drops are going to be a challenge to cast consistently, so use
them sparingly. There are some great cards in here, though, like multiple
copies of Rancor, a very useful Green Sun’s Zenith, and the underrated Bellowing Tanglewurm. Unfortunately you have to rely on the janky Prey Upon to
have any chance of destroying your opponent’s creatures. So just make sure your
creatures are bigger than his creatures. Failing that, Overrun will win you
enough games that you’ll eventually start to feel a little guilty when you do
it.
Avacyn’s Glory
A lot of the decks in DotP 2014 have a tribal theme. This is
the human tribe’s deck, relying on one of the oldest strategies in Magic – the
white weenie deck. Worst name for a deck in the history of decks having names.
Basically you’re going to chuck a bunch of weak, pathetic human creatures onto
the battlefield, then use their various synergistic synergies to synergize each
other all the way to the bank. This deck is actually very well constructed,
with perhaps the best creature removal spells in the game (Path
to Exile and the incredibly versatile Oblivion
Ring), a host of low-cost, high-power humans (Champion
of the Parish, Elite
Inquisitor, Mentor
of the Meek), and a few kick-ass angels to provide air superiority –
including the epically awesome Baneslayer
Angel. Just make sure to trim away most of the 6-or-more mana spells so you
can stay focused on your human mob. Goldnight
Commander doesn’t look too sexy next to Deathless
Angel, but Goldnight will win you more games.
Mind Maze
It’s the blue deck! Full of islands and blue spells. This
time there’s an illusion tribal theme. Most of the illusion creatures are much
larger than they should be for their casting cost, but have the “sacrifice this
if it’s targeted by anything” drawback. Not too difficult to see through these
illusions. Luckily, there’s a nice loophole that lets you overcome this. Lord
of the Unrealphantasmal im gives all illusions Hexproof, so they can’t be
targeted by your opponent, thus eliminating the drawback. Of course, Mr. Lord
himself can still be targeted, since he is not an illusion. He’s just Criss
Angel. However! You also have
Phantasmal Image, an illusion which becomes a copy of another creature
while still remaining an illusion. Thus, make your Phantasmal Image copy Lord
of the Unreal, and he gives himself Hexproof. It’s like Criss Angel staring at
himself in an untouchable mirror. And really that’s all you need to know about
this deck. (Ok, Snapcaster
Mage is incredible, Cryptic
Command is great, and Force
of Will is one of the most powerful Magic cards ever created. Use those
too).
Deadwalkers
This is the Liliana Vess deck, therefore it is the best
deck. It’s a zombie tribal deck with control elements. You’ll use your
annoyingly resilient zombies, like Gravecrawler
and Geralf’s
Messenger, to grind down your opponent’s life value. Just when she thinks
you’re almost dead yourself, you’ll suddenly rise up (in life total) thanks to
a timely Tendrils
of Corruption or Corrupt.
If things get out of hand, Mutilate
can clear the field, and Grave
Pact lets you take advantage of your creatures’ tendency to not stay dead
while your opponents’ probably do. Eventually a Grave
Titan or Mikaeus,
the Unhallowed will hit the ground and shift things irrevocably in your
favor. It might be tempting to run with cards like Endless Ranks
of the Dead or Rise
of the Dark Realms. Don’t. You have better options that don’t depend on
specific situations to be useful (although Endless Ranks is a really fun card,
so go ahead and use that if you want).
Chant of Mul Daya
This is a serious, hardcore, totally dedicated ramp deck. It
does literally nothing except dump huge amounts of land onto the battlefield
very quickly so you can cast ludicrously massive creatures like Avenger
of Zendikar and Artisan
of Kozilek. You have virtually no way of dealing with anything your
opponent plays other than All is Dust, which at times feels like using a
hydrogen bomb when you just need a mouse trap. Grazing
Gladeheart and Pelakka
Wurm can often gain you enough life to string out the game until your kaiju
get rolling. Unfortunately, your creatures are all highly vulnerable to just
about any creature removal spell, and you have no way to draw extra cards
except a single Harmonize.
Fierce
Empath can be useful, giving you extra chances to find the high heat you
need. Eye
of Uginprimev will also let you grab as many monsters as necessary once
you’ve got 15 or so mana on the board. Luckily you can fetch it up with Primeval
Titan, so the single copy turns up more often than you’d think.
Sliver Hive
Hey, another tribal deck. This one is the “New Coke” slivers
introduced in this past summer’s M14 Magic set. You’re going to roll with three
colors here to get access to all the slivers you need. Basically, play with
tons of slivers, don’t use things that aren’t slivers. Battle
Sliver, Bonescythe
Sliver, and Thorncaster
Sliver are the ones that will win you games, along with the head sliver in
charge, Megantic
Sliver. You’re going to eat it to cards like Damnation
and Day
of Judgment fairly often. You could try to avoid this by enchanting a few
slivers with Indestructibility,
but honestly that’s a terrible idea. You might be tempted to mess around with Armageddon,
hoping to gain battlefield advantage before wiping all lands out. In practice,
however, this deck tends to come from behind, playing its strongest slivers
late and swinging for a big attack or two. That doesn’t jive with a
slivergeddon strategy.
Guardians of Light
Finally, a non-tribal deck. This mono-white deck has an
enchantment theme, although it’s sort of a half-assed theme compared to the
Enchanter’s Arsenal deck they put out later. You best bet is to wring card
advantage out of auras cast on Kor
Spiritdancer, then hope you can get the kill before your opponent draws a Doom
Blade and erases all that advantage in one fell swoop. It can be tough to
balance playing enough enchantments to make the theme work and enough creatures
to actually put the enchantments on. Never run fewer than 20 creatures. True
Conviction makes a great finisher is you have even a couple of creatures in
play, and Celestial
Mantle is one of the better ways to gain ridiculous amounts of life if
you’re chasing that achievement.
Sword of the Samurai
This deck can be a lot of fun to play if you enjoy a
challenge, because it’s terrible. The samurai all have the Bushido ability,
which gives them a power and toughness boost whenever they block or are
blocked. The problem is they’re almost all 1/1s or 2/2s, so your opponent will
happily let them through unblocked, then hang back until he’s built a force of
superior creatures that can attack through the wall of Bushido. The upside?
Awesome equipment. This deck gives you access to Umezawa’s
Jitte, Sword
of War and Peace, and Sword
of Fire and Ice. It is quite difficult to lose a game with Jitte in play,
and the swords can both swing the momentum of a game with a single attack. Stonehewer
Giant and Godo,
Bandit Warlord make it more likely you’ll find them (you can hedge your
bets with Steelshaper’s
Gift as well). In fact, Godo is often this deck’s win condition, since his
multiple attacks (with him carrying the Jitte he just fetched for you) end
things with great alacrity. Zealous
Conscripts is another instant tide turner as well. This is the deck to get
the “Control Five Legends” achievement with, by the way.
Sylvan Might
This is the elfiest elf deck in elfland. It’s literally just
elves and forests. The elves make the other elves more badass. Non-elves are
not invited. You will occasionally find a bunch of your elves eat a Flames
of the Firebrand or a Mutilation,
so Lead
the Stampede and Sylvan
Messenger are around to restock your hand with more elves. Your most clutch
play is to drop a Joraga
Warcaller, then use
Immaculate Magistrate to put a bunch of +1/+1 counters on him, making all
your elves huge. I find Ezuri,
Renegade Leader highly useful, and Beastmaster
Ascension is tons of fun in this deck. I also refuse to run anything that
costs more than four mana in this, allowing me to play 23 land. That helps
create the high elf-to-not-elf ratio we’re looking for.
Hall of Champions
Hall of Champions is a 3-color deck that relies on the
Exalted mechanic, which boosts a creature as long as it’s the only one
attacking. This isn’t the strongest deck, but it has some powerful plays that
can end games out of nowhere. First, get rid of all the overly expensive cards
like Iridescent
Angel and Empyrial
Archangel. Focus on playing the best Exalted creatures possible, making
sure they can survive into the mid-game. You need a critical mass of them so
that your sole attacker each turn is a real beast. Your finisher is actually an
enchantment, Finest
Hour. Because Exalted benefits last until end of turn, the second attack
will stack more Exalted boosts on top of the ones from the first attack,
assuming the creature survived. You’ll often attack with a 14/14 with Lifelink
or something crazy like that. You also have the highly versatile Bant
Charm – getting rid of creatures with it dodges regeneration, indestructibility,
and effects that trigger when a creature dies (like Keiga,
the Tide Star for instance). Behemoth
Sledge, Rhox
War Monk, and Battlegrace
Angel give you lots of opportunities to gain life. Mirror-Sigil
Sergeant, while not really fitting the deck’s theme, can often win games on
his own by just relentlessly making copies of himself.
Lords of Darkness
This mono-black demon deck is, obviously, the best deck for
getting the “control a bunch of demons” achievement. It’s a deck that does
great harm to itself at times, knowing that ultimately it will harm the
opponent slightly more. It’s a traditional strategy with black decks, to trade
life for other resources, typically drawing extra cards. You can mitigate the
life loss somewhat with Tendrils of Corruption and Corrupt. What’s particularly
interesting is that you can build this as a control deck. With Damnation,
Mutilate, and No
Mercy, opponents will have a tough time building a strong force, and you
have Diabolic
Edict and Doom Blade to take care of any stragglers. This allows you to
play your bigger, stronger demons, which easily crush any opposition. Bloodgift
Demon keeps the cards flowing, while Reaper
from the Abyss oversees a steady parade of creatures straight into your
opponent’s graveyard. If you really want to be clever, play with all three
copies of Heartless
Summoning. Yes, it makes your creatures weaker, but it allows you to play
them two turns earlier, and enables this deck to use huge demons like Demon
of Death’s Gate and Rune-Scarred
Demon, which might otherwise be too expensive to get into play.
Dodge and Burn
This a classic “counterburn” deck. Your goal is to generate
card advantage both by destroying multiple enemy creatures with a single spell,
or by just drawing a ton of cards. In the late game, Future
Sight and Charmbreaker
Devils will keep your hand stocked with spells and plenty of mana to cast
them. But quite often you’ll find yourself with a squad of Kiln Fiends out and
a few burn spells to clear the path of blockers, and you’ll just swing for 16
damage on turn four or five to end the game. This deck has an interesting mix
of counterspells available – don’t overlook Remand,
which seems like treading water, but can give you a huge tempo advantage. I’m
not really a big fan of Pongify,
but it puts really huge creatures in range of your burn spells, so it can be
useful. Don’t try to be too clever with this deck. You can sit there all day
with six mana open waiting to cast Draining
Whelk on a huge spell when you could have just been winning the game with Char
the whole time.
Unfinished Business
It’s a reanimator deck, and a pretty damn good one. You can
live the dream with a turn one Putrid
Imp, then on turn two discard Demon of Death’s gate and play Exhume.
Your opponent might have a Path to Exile at the ready, but she might not, and
you’ll wrap that game up pretty damn quick. Failing that, you’ll want to make
sure your build has the following ingredients: ways to chuck huge creatures
into your graveyard (the aforementioned Imp, plus Oona’s
Prowler, Hidden
Horror, and Sift),
ways to bring huge creatures from your graveyard back into play (Exhume, Rise
from the Grave, Living
Death), and huge creatures, whose shambling, stitched together corpses will
batter your opponents’ life totals (Tidespout
Tyrant, Rune-Scarred Demon, Sphinx
of Magosi, Keiga, the Tide Star). You can pick whatever mix of bombs you
like best, but I like creatures that do something interesting other than just
smashing face during the attack phase. There’s a lot of other fun stuff you can
do in this deck, too. River
Kelpie cranks out card advantage. Body
Double lets you duplicate a bomb that’s in your graveyard, while still
leaving it in your graveyard for Exhume to target. Decree
of Pain keeps the slate clean in the early game, and Diabolic
Tutor ensures you have exactly what you need.
Bounce and Boon
I find this deck insufferably annoying, both to play with and against. The idea is that your creature do cool things when they come into
play, and then your other creatures bounce them back into your hand, so you
cast them again and get another use of whatever that cool thing was. This
ranges from gaining a little life (Lone
Missionary) to destroying every tapped creature (Sunblast
Angel) to creating a mini army (Captain
of the Watch). Bouncing and recasting Duplicant
is a good way to whittle down your opponent’s forces. You want to play Cathar’s
Crusade as soon as possible – it will quickly make all your creatures
enormous. Other key bounce targets include Blade
Splicer, Stonehorn
Dignitary, Solemn
Simulcrum, and Cloudgoat
Ranger.
Enchanter’s Arsenal
This is a serious enchantment deck. There are so many cards
that allow you to draw cards when you play enchantments that fairly often you
will find yourself drawing most of your deck and having to discard at the end
of your turn. It can get ridiculous. Many of the enchantments are auras, and
they suffer the drawback of losing you two cards if your opponent destroys the
enchanted creature. For this reason, the best auras in the deck are Rancor
and Spirit
Loop, which keep coming back to your hand (and allowing you to recast them
and draw more cards). Your non-aura enchantments are generally pretty safe,
because there are relatively few ways of destroying enchantments in any of the
decks. Creature removal (or effective removal) enchantments like Journey
to Nowhere and Pacifism
are clutch, while Sigil
of the Empty Throne will often serve as your win condition. It cranks out
an army of 4/4 angels without much effort. I also really like playing Martyr’s
Bond in this – no one can destroy your stuff without destroying some of
their own stuff.
Up to Mischief
It’s another tribal deck! This one is focused on faeries.
I’m disappointed that they made this deck mono-blue instead of black and blue,
since that would give everyone a chance to play with the incredible Bitterblossom.
Alas. This plays a bit differently than other tribal decks because the faeries
never really get that huge. You do have Scion
of Oona to boost them, but for the most part you’ll be attacking with 2/1s
and 3/2s. The upside is that every creature in the deck flies. This also a deck
that works so much better if you go first, mainly because of Spellstutter
Sprite. The tempo boost of countering your opponent’s turn two play while
dropping a creature of your own is huge. This deck also gets a ton of mileage
out of the Cipher cards, like Hands of Binding and Last Thoughts. Since you
have so many flyers, it’s easy to get combat damage through and get multiple
free castings out of them. Sower
of Temptation and Vendilion
Clique are extremely powerful cards as well. Because so many of your
creatures have Flash, you’ll end up doing a lot of your playing on your
opponent’s turn. This can include your draw step if you play with Psychic
Possession. Multiple copies generate card advantage quickly, and they
completely shut down huge parts of other decks’ strategies (imagine the demon
deck playing Harrowing
Journey when you’ve got a Psychic Possession in play. You both draw three
cards, but only he pays three life).
