Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 (Game)

Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012

GAME » on June 14, 2011

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The second of Stainless Games' Duels of the Planewalkers adaptation of the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game, featuring a 1v3 "Archenemy" mode and a new selection of decks, opponents, and puzzles.

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Overview

Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 is a fantasy-themed virtual collectible card game developed by Stainless Games and published digitally by Wizards of the Coast for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 (Platform), and PC (Platform) on June 15, 2011. The game was later delisted from all storefronts in 2020-2021.

An updated sequel to the original Duels of the Planeswalkers, Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 features a new selection of decks with new cards up to the Magic 2012 set, along with a revamped Campaign mode and a new "Archenemy" mode (in which three players team up to take down a powerful fourth player).

It was later superseded by Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013.

Gameplay

Archenemy

In the new Archenemy mode, three players team up to take down an Archenemy boss. These bosses have double your starting life and powerful scheme cards. In turn, the Archenemy must defeat all three players to win, so even if 1 or 2 allies are defeated you can still win. The mode is playable online with the ability to add bots if there are not enough players. The mode originally limited players to the role of the allies. In the expansion, players were allowed to play the role of the Archenemy online and offline.

The game plays similarly to the traditional one-on-one format except the three allies all take their turns at the same time, sharing their upkeep, main, and battle phases. In addition, the Archenemy has a scheme deck which is a secondary 20-card deck containing cards of considerable power in respect to normal card effects. At the beginning of the Archenemy's main phase, they turn over the top card of the scheme deck and activate its effect. Once its effect resolves, the scheme is put on the bottom of the scheme deck.

Decks

Magic: The Gathering 2012 offers 10 new decks. Two decks are available from the start (Ancient Depths and Apex Predators), while the other 8 have to be unlocked through the campaign. The first expansion added three more decks and four more unlockable cards for each deck, the 3 subsequent deck packs added 2 decks each.

Like the original DotP, Wizards of the Coast published the deck lists for all decks, along with their unlockable cards, on their website (archived here).

Core Game

Ancient Depths – Kiora Atua (Green/Blue) - This deck is all about Lands, every other card in its deck allows for extra Land cards to be played in a turn so in a relatively small amount of time this deck will vastly outmatch its opponent, which is great as most of its main monster cards are very expensive.
Unquenchable Fire – Chandra Nalaar (Mono Red) - This Mono Red deck is characterised by its very high count of direct damage cards and abilities, this is balanced out by its relatively low creature count, of which few are particularly troublesome.
Blood Hunger – Sorin Markov (Mono Black) - The Blood Hunger deck is also the "Vampire" deck, with its high vampire count and cards with the Bloodthirst and Lifelink abilities, the deck likes to buff its creatures in response to its opponents misfortune.
Realm of Illusion – Jace Beleren (Mono Blue) - The Mono Blue deck is built around its Illusion cards, with creatures being buffed by Illusions, and cards buffing said Illusions, this deck also favours effects that send cards back to their owners hands and drawing extra cards. Similar to the Black / Green deck with its Elf buffing.
Wielding Steel – Gideon Jura (Mono White) - The Wielding steel white deck is centered on cheap, aggressive creatures boosted by a good number of equipment cards. This deck closely resembles the Mono White deck from the first Duels of the Planeswalkers - third expansion. Soldiers make up the most of this deck's creatures, with a few angels thrown in.
Apex Predators – Garruk Wildspeaker (Mono Green) - This deck plays more or less the same as the starter deck from Duels of the Planeswalkers. There are plenty of land boosting cards with several dangerous and powerful monsters thrown in.
Machinations – Tezzeret (Blue/Black/White) - A different spin on an artifact deck, this deck is a more powerful version of the one in the previous game. The deck is still based on cheap artifacts which boost other artifacts and several highly dangerous creatures as well.
Dragon's Roar – Sarkhan Vol (Red/Black) - The efficient dragon deck from the previous game returns. This time, the deck is even more efficient and powerful. The usual assortment of dragons, dragon boosters, and land creatures make up this deck.
Guardians of the Wood – Nissa Revane (Green/Black) - The elf deck returns as well. Like the green and dragon decks, the elf deck has been boosted as well to remain competitive in this new game.
Strength of Stone – Koth (Mono Red) - A creature-based red deck. The unquenchable fire deck concentrates on spells and direct damage, whereas this deck focuses on creatures both big and small.

Ascend into Darkness Expansion

Grave Whispers – Liliana Vess (Mono Black) - Liliana's deck has many effects dealing with the cards in each player's hands, with effects that force opponents to discard, buffing based on the number of cards in a hand or dealing damage based on the size of a hand.
Auramancer – Ajani Goldmane (Green/White) - This deck pretty much consists of just low powered / low cost creatures with a ton of Enchantments used to buff them, it's very similar to the Mono White deck.
Cloudburst – Ral Zarek (Red/Blue) - A deck with some low cost but relatively very powerful creatures, many with negative effects such as sacrificing it at the end of the turn or dealing damage to the player that controls it in exchange for using it's ability for example.

Deck Pack 1

March to War (Red/White) - This deck contains plenty low cost cards with abilities meant to give you a very quick advantage, whether by quickly amassing a large number of creatures, lands, cards in your hand or life. The complete lack of very high powered creatures present in other decks means players will have to end the game as quickly as possible, and the quick nature of this deck allows that.
Ghoulkeeper (Mono Black) - This is the Zombie deck, most creatures are Zombie or Undead and the deck deals with the reanimation of corpses and the general raising of the dead, a deck that seems to get more powerful the more creatures present in the graveyard as there are many effects that deal with the player's graveyard.

Deck Pack 2

Forest's Fury (Mono Green) - Trees, lots and lots of trees, and the interaction between the Treefolk Creatures and Forest Lands, similar to the elf deck, the Treefolk will buff one another or otherwise help other Treefolk.
Dark Heavens (White/Black) - This deck heavily features a Light / Dark, Angels / Demons theme. The White cards buff, resurrect "spirits" and give life, the Black cards debuff, destroy and raise "corpses"

Deck Pack 3

Beknighted (Mono White) - A typical Mono White deck full of cheap cards, what sets this apart is that every card in this deck has a secondary (or even tertiary) effect.
Trinity of Elements (Green/Blue/Red) - VERY cheap cards, this is due to the multiple colours and that the deck is full with single colour cards, it doesn't give much room for high power creatures, oh they do exist, but designed more for hit-and-run tactics.

System Requirements

OS: Windows XP with Service Pack 3
Processor: 2GHz CPU (Pentium 4 or equivalent)
Memory: 1GB RAM (2GB for Vista)
DirectX®: DirectX 9.0c or later
Hard Drive: 700MB
Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
Video: 256MB VRAM GPU capable of Pixel Shader 3 or better

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