Like so, and per the old rules who ever was diagonal from you was your enemy(so for white it was red and black, for green blue and black and vice versa) and directly next to you was your friend. Now some of you might be looking and saying, "wait what, but that means both of your allies are also allies with one of your enemies!" yes, yes they are. Which makes for an interesting bit of diplomacy, because sooner or later you are gonna want to go for a kill shot and are going to have to make a request. for black to win white and green have to die, for red to win blue and white, and so on and so forth.
I guess I need to go ahead and give the basics of the regular game before I go into the x-box game since they are the same guidelines, minus owning a physical card.
Magic classes and Mana
Each color represents an element, and said element provides magical power that is called mana, think of mana as fuel. So White is usually Air/Light/Angelic, you used to mostly get the flying creature in white now everybody has fliers. Most of the artwork on the white mana cards are of plains or white open areas. Blue is water/magic, so you get a lot of islands and sea creatures. Black is dark/arcane/undead magic so the power is provided by swamps and the creatures are usually zombies, vampires, and other nasties that go bump in the night. Red is fire, and the power is provided by mountains you get a lot of ogres, dragons, and other flame hued or using creatures(back in the day they had dwarves), green is earth/life/forest magic so you see a lot of forest to get many and creatures/fauna. Now before you ask, yes if it is just a one on one game or a two on two you can use any color you want, and hopefully if you are doing a doubles match you remembered to select a complimentary color to your partner. Because a partner can lend you mana if you ask them, and some spells need more than one type/class of mana.
The Phases of a Turn
Magic is also a pretty organized game, each turn is organized into phases, there's the start/untap phase, main phase number one(you can place mana down in this phase or cast a spell), attack phase, main phase number two, and then ending phase. And each of these phases have different actions that can or can't happen during them. There are also "breaths/pauses" in each phase, where you can cast spells called instants and use some abilities that also act like instants.
Now some maybe looking at the word "tap" like what like tap your feet, your fingers on the card. No, in magic the gathering when you first place MOST cards on the table/playing surface they are placed north and south(pointing straight up towards your opponent), to activate the card, to use some of it's abilities or else to get Mana from it, you turn it east and west/on it's side and that is called tapping. Tapping is also considered an instant, and instants can happen at almost any time as long as you have the mana for it. or if it is an ability that has an "if then" type of sequence in it then boom if you meet the requirements then you do the action.
Oh wait let me fix something you can place ONE land down per turn normally in either main phase, most people would of course place it down in the first main phase because most likely you plan to use said mana to cast a spell, but you may want to wait just to see what your opponent has up their sleeves. Instants can be cast regardless of who's turn it is. Enchantments and sorcery spells can only be cast during this main phases as well. The reason why the "end of turn" is a phase is because some cards, abilities, or spells give you bonuses, extra attack, extra defense, or are in effect until the end of your turn. and it is important to make sure you either make no more moves or deal that last bit of damage before the end of turn comes about. Lets say you had someone block a creature and while your creature was destroyed, theirs is still alive but at low health. Well that health regenerates at the end of the turn, so if you have a spell or an ability that can add extra damage you better cast it before the end of the turn.
And like I said INSTANTS can be cast at any time, on either persons turn and sometimes it is in your best interest to wait. If you happen to have a blue deck, usually you have all the counters, interrupts, or the majority of the destruction spells. And depending on what is about to be cast, you may be in trouble. so sometimes it's better to wait and see than it is to spend all of your mana just to cast that next big creature.
Magic on XBox
Magic Duels is not the first Xbox magic game, they had a previous one just called Magic the gathering that came out early in the Xbox 360 cycle. It used the basic premises of the game(never really found out if you going play a full five player match), had a few decent cards available, and if you wanted a quick match or two you were good. Nothing out of this world but it was a good start to something that requires a lot of strategy because one wrong move and you could be catching a 10 point fireball. Oh damn I forgot to mention life points, at the beginning you get 20, who ever gets to zero first loses. Now as always depending on the deck you have and are working with, this could go well or it could dive bomb on you. A deck is only as good as it balance between: Spells, Mana, and Creatures. You get 7 cards out of your library(the deck) to start the match, if you are lucky you have at least two or three mana cards, a couple of intermediate level spells, and some varied creatures. And at the start of each turn if you pull something nice from the deck well, the game can sometimes turn on one card.
And your timing better be right, playing against the wrong deck you can get worked. You can have all the mighty ground troops that you want, but if somebody hits you with a deck full of 2 mana 1 or 2 power fliers, the match can end quickly. Because there are rules in this fight, a ground pounder can't touch a flier, unless of course it distinctly says "can block flying creatures" and they have added a few new abilities, one being intimidate "can only be blocked by one or more creatures. There used to be cards in the old game they didn't need to tap to attack, they know gave that ability a name "Vigilance" which can be extremely important, because a tapped card can't defend. So if you do have some decent fliers but you have less health than your opponent but stronger creatures, a few cards with Vigilance can allow you to attack this turn, defend on their turn and win on your next.
Games Modes
You have Story mode, Battle mode, collection, and story. Battle mode also has 3 sub categories: Versus, Solo, and Two Headed Giant, two headed giant is for a cooperative two on two fight where the team shares 30 life points. Versus is you against another random player, your deck vs their deck, winner take all. Solo is you versus random CPU opponents. While solo battle can help you hone your skills it will probably also be the main cause for you throwing your controller, I'm not saying the CPU opponents are stupid, they are just annoying. Like seriously, some of the spells they cast basically cause them to amount to trolls, internet trolls. They will make moves that no human player would make, two rounds in, and you are constantly attacking them "hey let me unsummon this 2 power creature" and you have like 6 mana, and a big creature in your hand. Bruh, no, I am not playing this match, that is just stupid.
And yes I will restart a match for that, vs a human opponent I would have to play it out, but usually vs a cpu opponent I am trying out new deck combinations, seeing how fast or slow a deck is(to hell with the arbitrary rating they give you while building it, only playing with a deck allows you to gauge speed and effectiveness). This is not to say that you won't be at the whim of RNGesus(in gamer terms that would be Random Number Generator Jesus, RNGesus for short because he can either bless you with just the attack, card, critical hit, damage amount you need or else bone you because you just missed), but it may limit the amount of times you need to pray to him. And in case your wondering yes the CPU characters have him on speed dial, I know some matches that get drug out simply because RNGesus gave them a few more turns by either wiping out all my creatures(yes there have always been cards that did that in magic) or else by reducing damage dealt this turn by xyz amount.
How do you get cards
Now in the real world you would go to your local convenience store, walmart, or collectibles shop and buy you a booster set. Down here I know walmart, Kroger, Walgreen's, rite aid, cvs and target sell them, I forget how much they cost but in the xbox game you win a match you get a random amount of coins vs a Cpu character its a max of 15, a human character it's 30, and I don't know how much you get for the two headed, I haven't played on yet. Now there are also daily quests: cast X number of either this color spell or that color spell, do this random task, summon this many of xyz type creature, and a few others each of them with a random coin bonus amount added to them. the highest I have earned so far is an extra 60 coins so if you just buy a single booster that's 150 coins(in game currency not real life currency, though you can spend cash for in game credit). currently you can buy from two types of boosters Magic Origins or Battle for Zendikar, they give you different creature, land, and spell cards but you still have to figure out a way to organize them into something useful. Just because you have a shiny new card doesn't mean it will work for you, or help you out. Giant creatures are nice, but it is rare that you are going to get a chance to cast them, unless you or your opponent either both got a bunch of land early and not a lot of creatures, or else a bunch of evenly matched creatures that neither of you wishes to lose in an attack it will probably be over in like 8 or 9 rounds. And if you get land each of those rounds you aren't getting creatures, and if you are getting creatures you probably aren't getting land.
It's better to get both because I think at most you can only have 7 or 8 cards in your hand and then you have to start discarding, which is never fun. Having to choose which of the awesome cards you were gonna to slam on them next to win the match you have to throw away due to lack of mana, no ma'am.
Anyway, enough of me being a geek. I can go more in depth if anybody wants me to, hell when the new expansion packs come out maybe I'll revisit the game.
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