Magic the Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers First Impressions
Magic the Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers brings the Magic the Gathering world onto the tabletop.
Where Planeswalkers are soooo weak…
In the Magic: The Gathering – Arena of the Planeswalkers, players customize the battlefield by designing the map then placing terrain and powerful glyphs. Then players choose one of five different Planeswalkers and move their figure and unique creature squads around the map in a race to out-manoeuvre opponents and gain tactical advantages! Cast devastating spells, summon powerful squads, and tap into your unique Planeswalker abilities to defeat your opponents. Be the last Planeswalker standing to win!
The game takes place on the drifting, mana-rich world of Shandalar.
In this game, everyone picks a colour and gets a Planeswalker, squad units and a deck of cards. In this base game, they are pre-constructed and quite balanced but future expansions will let you customise your team/deck.
We played a scenario that meant we had to stand on certain points of the board at the end of the game to score. You can also win by eliminating the other Planeswalkers.
On your turn you draw a card, choose a card to activate (either a Squad or a Planeswalker), move, attack and play up to 3 cards from your hand.
If you activate a Planeswalker you can summon Squads onto the board.
Movement is simple, you move around hexes, stop in the water and pay extra movement points when going up levels.
The levels add to the look of the game with plastic terrain… If you’re stood on them and you’re higher than your opponent you get an extra die in combat.
Combat is simple. You roll X dice equal to your attack, they roll X dice equal to their defence. Attackers Swords rolled – Defenders Shields rolled = damage.
Magic the Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers Summary
This game suffers a bit…
While it is good, looks great and has a theme I enjoy it just doesn’t sit right in my collection.
There are no campaign rules, yet… But even if there are will it be better than Arcadia Quest? No…
So as a one-off quick game it is better than Arcadia Quest… You get your models (after expansions) and cards and everyone will spend time building a deck and putting a team together to play with…
But I would rather spend this time playing No Thanks! or something. Or even better, spending that time letting people build a team for Dungeons & Dragons: Attack Wing which is a better game.
While I think the game is good I need to look at it without my Magic the Gathering tinted glasses on.
It’s simple and fun yes, but Magic the Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers just doesn’t fit in my collection.
Jesta ThaRogue
