Game Review: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 Deck Expansions1 and 2

Magic: The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 is the newest adaptation of the highly popular Magic the Gathering card game. This video game allows you to play the card game with up to three other online players or against AI, and it’s a great way to stay in the game even when your alone at your home. The Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 universe has already received one expansion via the Magic 2012 Expansion that was released back in September. The game has expanded once again with two new Deck Expansion packs. Each Deck Expansion contains two brand-new 60 card decks and 20 unlockable cards for each deck. While neither expansion offers more incentives such as new achievements or personas, each expansion costs a modest price of $3.

The first deck in Deck Expansion 1 is March to War. March to War is a white and red deck that’s hard to classify into a single category, but it is still amazingly powerful in the right hands. It is primarily a life gaining deck, which may not sound very appealing at first, but this ability works well with cards like Ajani’s Pridemate, who gains a +1/+1 counter each time you gain life, or Searing Meditation, which allows you to pay mana to damage your opponent or his creatures when you gain life. There are also many cards, such as Leonin Sun Standard and Glory of Warfare, that will give your relatively weak creatures boosts to power and toughness.

The second deck in Deck Expansion 1 is Ghoulkeeper. Ghoulkeeper is simply a badass, mono-black, zombie deck. Nearly every creature in this deck is a zombie, and there are cards – such as Cemetery Reaper, Death Baron and Lord of the Undead – that give all of your other zombies +1/+1 in addition to some other powerful abilities. Once you’ve amassed an undead army, you can bring out nearly unstoppable mythic rares such as Grave Titan and Phage the Untouchable to finish off your unlucky opponent. There is also plenty of creature destruction in Ghoulkeeper as well with cards such as Go for the Throat and Cruel Revival.

Forest’s Fury is the first deck of Deck Expansion 2. Forest’s Fury is a mono-green deck loaded with a bunch of Treefolk and powerful creatures. There is also an emphasis on drawing extra cards using spells like Heartwood Storyteller and Rites of Flourishing. There is also some mana acceleration in Forest’s Fury with cards like Nature’s Lore that allows you to take a Forest from your library and put it into play for only two mana. These cards will allow you to quickly overrun your opponent with an army of powerful green creatures, and speaking of Overrun, there is one of those in this deck as well.

Dark Heavens is the final deck in the two expansions. This nifty deck is a white and black deck full of awesome angels and demons. Cards such as Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Deathless Angel and Pestilence Demon will make short work of your opponent once they are cast, and there are plenty of stalling cards to ensure you live long enough to cast them. You can make plenty of 1/1 tokens to block with using cards such as Doomed Traveler, Midnight Haunting and Field of Souls, and there are also some high toughness creatures and life gaining cards to help keep you alive longer.

Both of these Deck Expansions feature two great decks filled with some awesome cards. If you could only choose one expansion to buy, I’d go with Deck Expansion 1, because it comes with the better two decks. However, Dark Heavens may be the most fun deck to use out of the four, so you can’t really go wrong with either expansion. Even with a lack of bonus content, these decks are well worth the asking price. They will give you even more options when choosing your deck, and they also add hours of gameplay as you try and unlock all 20 cards for each deck.

Game Review: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 Deck Expansions1 and 2