In the past, my partner and I followed the instructions on the box every month and ‘met’ with our friends to play Magic: The Gathering. We have a comfortable sealed concept of what the latest set was, and at the end of the (sometimes very long) night, the winner walked home with some premium packs and bragging rights. With Magic: legends“Our meetings may soon migrate from kitchen tables to our computers.
Magic: legends is a free ‘hack’n’cast’ game from Cryptic Studios. It’s coming later this year on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, with an open beta starting March 23rd. Legends asks “What if we obsessively stitched saam a hulking ogre made of Destiny 2MMO aspects with Diablo 3-style game in a Magic: The Gathering theme cupboard? The answer is a smooth or sometimes rude action game that I think my group is Magic buddies will enjoy. I recently participated in a directed demo of the game, with Stephen Ricossa, creative director at Cryptic Studios, acting as my Faerie Guidemother, which shows me the details of the game and how to play.
In Magic: legends you play a Planeswalker, the “main characters” of Magic who have incredible magical powers and the ability to move between the multiple realities of the Magic multiverse. But instead of one of Magic’longtime heroes like Teferi, Chandra or Cloud Strife mimic Jace Beleren, Magic: legends can create and customize your own Planeswalker. The prospect of creating my own Planeswalker like Kaya or Vivien is extremely exciting to me. My preview does not cover much of the creation of characters, but from the few minutes I had to tinker with it, you have ample options and styles.
After creating characters, you have five options to choose from for your Planeswalker class, with each class aligned with a section of Magic’s color cake: Beastcaller, Geomancer, Sanctifier, Mind Mage and Necromancer. I spent my time with the Necromancer.
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The game is from above, isometric, and click to move. (There are also WASD and controller-assisted moves.) There are objectively based missions you initiate, which take place in advanced areas. Enemies swarm around you, and you fight them in real time in a battle that, if you looked over someone’s shoulder, would remind you of Diablo. But instead of relying on a weapon or magic wand to fight, your Planeswalker fights by acquiring, assembling and casting a small number of spells.
There are creature sayings like Goblin Offensive calling on goblins to fight on your side. There are spells like Zealous Charge that strengthen those creatures and make them hit harder, and spells like Lightning Strike that can directly damage your enemies. Just like in paper Magic, spells require a specific amount and color of mana, and as soon as you cast a spell, it leaves your rod and is replaced by another random game from your deck. You never know what you’re going to get, so make it your best. You do have a weapon that you can use to kill enemies, but only do it if you want to be slow and be eaten alive by swarms of enemies.
You also have static abilities specific to your class (as you would see in Ear Watch) and a super-powerful ultimate ability that you can only use after uploading time. (See also: Ear watch.) Your class is only important for the static and ultimate abilities you can use. What I enjoyed most about the game was that besides, there were no restrictions on the game I could use to build a deck. I could be a Necromancer – a black mana wizard traditionally associated with helpful flesh constructions, zombies and skeletons – and play a deck without a single black game. In fact, this is what I did in my first mission: I played as a Necromancer with a red / white themed deck filled with angels and goblins.
What I appreciated most about Magic: legends is that level of freedom and the great pain that the game requires to get the essence of a Magic: The Gathering Card game. If I use a game like Diligent charge to pump up my creatures, the little henchmen who followed me grew larger. You can “kickCertain spells just like you can “kick” cards in paper Magic, by paying more mana to get a more powerful creature or game. And, just like in paper Magic, it still feels good to Shock a creature for deadly damage if they least expect it.
I’m not as interested in the game’s story as I thought. (I’m one of the rare people in my group who really likes it Magichistory.) You can complete Legends alone or with two other friends. There are various planes that you can explore, fight with your friends in 1v1 PvP, and mythical level bosses that roam the world to take off.
From what I saw, the thing that will hook me Magic: legends is testing my deck building tele with and against my friends. It’s free to play, so I do not think I will have a hard time convincing myself Magic brothers to try it out. And for what it’s worth, I think they’d like it – at least until we’ll all been vaccinated and can “assemble” safely again.
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