Magic the Gathering Arena is the online version of the extremely popular card game. Part of the appeal of Magic is the highly social element; for many Friday night is a time to catch up with friends and play cards. Of course the experience is a little different online, and this has put some off. Many fans however have been lured back to the online game by two factors; Arena’s interface has much improved and the new release of cards are based on the cult-smash that is the Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms setting.
The online game itself does the job very well. You pick up cards to play with either by completing challenges, redeeming online coupons or buying digital booster packs. All of these things will give you random cards and after about an hours worth of familiarising yourself with the interface, the cards and the deck-builder, you should be ready to go. Matches can be played against an AI, through the game’s own matching system or you can arrange to play with friends provided you know their in game IDs.
Over at the Secret Starbust Gaming Thunderdome we discovered that the online matching was very reliable if a little anonymous; after all you can’t really talk to other players using Arena. We quickly gathered a possee of some good friends and thanks to the wonders of Zoom, got a proper social game going. The game also has some digital effects; fireballs go whoosh and dragons appear when dragon cards are played.
Which brings us onto the reason we started playing Arena again in the first place; The Forgotten Realms expansion. For years, Wizards of the Coast claimed that they would not be crossing the streams between the complex Planeswalking Magic setting and the worlds of D&D. We’re glad they changed their minds, Magic and D&D seem like they where made for each other.
(Of course, many of you will already know that they are now several D&D source books detailing worlds such as Ravnica and Theros from Magic. You may have missed a series of Forgotten Realms adventures on the Magic website though, which can be found here.)
We get all sort of interesting goodies brought into play. For a start, the art on all the cards is the sort of gorgeous stuff you’d expect to find in the hardback D&D books. The treasure mechanic (which is a way to get extra mana) has been revived for this set and they are dungeon cards, which are basically progressive boosts that increase provided you can keep certain heroes alive. Character class cards are a similar sort of thing; a way of adding bonuses to play that can make deck-building more interesting and involved.
Of the many D&D beasties in this set, the one we found most exciting was Tiamat. That’s right, the evil dragon god with five heads which can completely destroy a high level party of adventurers, or get easily tricked by some school children who went on the wrong roller-coaster.
In this expansion, Tiamat requires mana from all colours and then some, and is a 7/7 creature that draws unique dragons into your hand. It also triggers a really cool five headed dragon animation in Arena. The monster is tough to bring into play, so much so that you have to build your entire deck around her. But if you can pull it off, you’re the master of Dragons and can incenerate your enemy.
We found this entire experience enhanced by the online version; right now players all over the world are figuring out either Tiamat or anti-Tiamat decks. Of course there’s more this expansion than this one card (it’s full of goodies) and we’ll take a look at those when we actually get our hands on some cards, but for now; Starburst recommends Arena, especially if you want to play with this new set.
