The mobile game, Magic: ManaStrike, is made by Netmarble Games who also created Marvel: Future Fight in 2015. It was released in January of this year. Magic: The Gathering is the classic and long running card game. The game started with Limited Edition in 1993, I started playing with the eighth expansion, Alliances in 1996 right after Ice Age, and the latest expansion is Magic: The Gathering 2021. The basic rundown of the game is you have a deck of cards, there are decks to purchase or you can open packs to get a random assortment, deck building is a skill. You can chose to play a color, a dual colored deck (my favorite), or a multi-colored deck of several colors.
The five colors each have their strengths and weaknesses; Black which has its Vampires, Blue with its Merfolk and counterspells, Green has Elves and spells like Giant Growth, Red is a burn deck with Fireballs and Dragons!, and lastly White with Angels and Disenchant spells. The colorless cards are Artifacts which may be creatures. You play cards from your deck which is casting spells as wizard known as a Planeswalker. This is against a rival player or even team. You play cards based on how many lands you have in play, this is Mountains for Red cards. If you play a creature card like Mistral Singer, you pay the Mana cost which is gained by tapping cards on the battlefield, turning Islands and also generic mana which can be any color. This brings the creature to the battlefield. There are special abilities like Flying with the red Hellkite Punisher which can only be attacked by other creatures with Flying.
Planeswalker were introduced as cards in the Lorwyn (2007) set. The prominent characters are; Lilliana Vess (black), Jace Beleren (blue), Nissa Revane (green), Chandra Nalaar (red), and Ajani Goldmane (white). My favorite is Ajani because he is a white-furred lion man, the cat soldier, from the plane of Alara. Manastrike gives you the choice to play one of the Planeswalkers. You can play others once you get started. The game screen and intro graphics are fantastic. Once you click the Manastrike icon, it switches your phone to horizontal mode. The Magic Pass icon on the left side of the screen has Quests like Use Mana this gives you some bonuses like Common Coin or Emojis. The shop has daily items like cards. You build your Rank through game play and earn titles from Beginner to Mythic. On the Card section on the right of the screen, you assemble your cards into the creatures and spells used for the duel. The Mana costs go from 2 to 5. You have to careful balance your cards so there is a mix of strong creatures and cheap, fast creatures.
Some of the cards are common to players like the Ratchet Bomb that destroys creatures or buildings. Below Card is Battle and Event, this is PVP battles, the Event puts you into battles to win rewards. You see the battlefield, your side has two Guardians that you must protect, and you have to destroy the Guardians on the other side. They are large statues that can throw bolts to protect themselves. You gain a Spark from every battle you play even if you are defeated. This helps you gain in Rank, you might lose Rank if you are at Rank 4 or higher.
The creatures that only attack Buildings like the Guardians are weak, but I have one, Aedrop Aeronauts that blows up and turns into Dwarves! The Building I like is the Barracks that sends out waves of soldiers. It has a limited time and also vulnerable to Ratchet Bombs or heavy attacks from your opponent. The rest is a mixture of Flyers, cheap and tough to take on a variety of enemy Flyers. Then, I have a number of small, cheap swarmers. It either works out that I can destroy an enemy Guardian or my opponent overwhelms me with powerful creatures or swarms! At Rank 4, the game's stake rises since if you lose rank, you get kicked out the club. I found out: 1 bring some very strong creatures instead of mostly low mana creatures, 2 wait, you have to wait to see what side your opponent brings in a Planeswalker, also you are building up your mana, 3 swarm the Planeswalker if too close to your Guardian! In any case, you have to give a pause and take a breather. Magic: Manastream is an intense PVP cell phone game!
Four Mana out of Five!
#MagicManaStrike, #NetmarbleGames, #MagictheGathering, #AjaniGoldmane
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