Magic Duels: Origins Reviews
All the great things about the Duels series with a new format that lets players keep their collections and build on them. Great options for both solo battlers that just want to experiment to serious online combatants
Magic Duels: Online reforms the Duels of the Planewalker series with an approachable, free-to-play edition that serves as a fertile platform for all future MTG games. It has issues with an awkward difficulty curve, a Deck Wizard that can't be fully edited, and a limited number of cards, but the freemium microtransaction model is non-intrusive and, with effort, you can collect all of the cards without paying a dime. The bitter aftertaste of Magic 2015 has been safely washed away.
Every version of 'Duels' over the years has been fun, but has been missing something - a deck builder, an ergonomic interface, etc. This year's iteration, 'Magic Duels: Origins,' is missing several of them and is a skeleton of 'Magic' draped in the fool's gold of the free-to-play model. Perhaps Stainless can use it to build something really cool in a few years' time, with lots of modes and cards and avenues of play. As it is, it's hardly worth playing even with its asking price of free.
A great new direction for the series, and the best-playing digital version of Magic the Gathering yet. However, it's buggy, and you will need to invest a fair chunk of change to get the most out of it.