DO NOT BUY THE COMPLETE VERSION!!!

If you pay the $35 for this game, you will be paying to skip content. Winning games to unlock boosters is the whole point of DotP, so buying the complete version basically means you've wasted not only the extra money over the basic version, but also the money for the basic version. All. Your. Money. Wasted.

The "pick a deck, but you're stuck with it" gimmick is bad design and the devs are bad for doing it. No preview of the decks, just a vague description that in my case was totally misleading. I chose Red->Black which was described as "focusing on stealing your opponent's creatures and sacrificing them for fun and profit". Yeah it was just a plain RB aggro deck with 2 Act of Treason and 2 vampires that could sacrifice creatures for a +1/+1 counter...in a 60-card deck. 4 cards does not a focus make.
But that bad design was merely irritating, not game-breaking. I could live with it.

The deck-building feature is good, it's about time that they added it. However, they didn't actually add it. They replaced all other features with it, for a net loss of game. Let's see what the trade off was for something that should have been a standard feature years ago:

No more Two-Headed Giant, either co-op vs AI or multiplayer.
No more Planechase multiplayer.
No Challenge puzzles.
No Sealed campaigns.

Is all that worth it? Hell no.

This is a blatant money-grab by Wizards, who clearly fear losing players from MTGO if they add too much actual gameplay here, which is completely stupid as the two games serve two different fanbases.

I have nothing but disgust for the design decisions of this game. Definitely do not recommend.

(TLDR? This review is also available in video format for your convenience below.)

Magic the Gathering; Duels of the Planewalkers has become a yearly franchise, and with the recent success of Blizzard's Hearthstone, they've attempted to step up their game with Magic 2015 by allowing players the much-desired ability to finally create their own decks.

After a brief tutorial, you're able to pick a starting deck and begin the campaign. From there, you're able to unlock booster packs as you defeat opponents, allowing further customization of your decks. If you don't feel like endlessly-grinding the single player, you're also able to purchase additional cards via micro-transactions and collecting every card will run you about $50. If you factor in the initial cost of the game, Magic 2015 will run you about the same price as a full-price triple AAA title.

There are nearly 300 unique cards to choose from or close to 1000 if you include duplicates, allowing for a multitude of options when it comes to crafting your deck. You're also able to adjust the amount of land in your deck for the first time, which is recommended as leaving it up to the game to do this automatically isn't ideal. Often assigning lands with no rhyme or reasoning behind it, such as giving you mountains in a blue deck. Infact the AI in general is greatly diminished in this installment as it will often tap the wrong lands by default if you're not careful enough to use the toggle key. Such as tapping all of your swamps for colorless mana instead of any other lands you may have available.

The campaign features a bit of a narrative where one of the Planeswalkers; Garruk Wildspeaker has gone rogue and has been hunting down other Planeswalkers. It's your job to track him down and stop him. The campaign's story is nothing extraordinary and chances are you've purchased the game to play with friends.

The Multiplayer allows for you to use your crafted deck against your friends as well as other players online. Unfortunately, it's been stripped down from previous games of the series, featuring a lot less gametypes. Two-Headed Giant, Archenemy and Sealed Deck have all been removed, with the only option being a 1 on 1 duel or free for all. The user interface is also completely unintuitive as there's no lobby for multiplayer matches. Once a game is concluded, you're forced to exit to the main menu where you'll have to jump through a few separate menus in order to change your currently equipped deck or to host another game. Also a search function would be a welcomed addition for the deck builder, as it can sometimes be a little tedious searching for the cards you want.

This isn't the only area of the game that is lacking content as the single player challenge mode has been removed as well. There are also a lot of cards that are only available in the single player campaign and inaccessible when it comes to crafting your deck. One could say this is a result of balancing issues, but the game has definitely been designed from the ground up to cater towards micro-transactions. I wouldn't mind spending money for constant DLC card packs and additions if the game was self-contained like Hearthstone but the fact that it's simply a yearly release that will only be supported for a limited time, makes it feel somewhat pointless.

Magic 2015 also has quite a few bugs and glitches. I found that I was unable to change my resolution to 1920 x 1080 without going in and manually editing the config file in wordpad. I've also experienced quite a few freezes in the multiplayer where the timer will disappear, forcing us to leave the game. Not only that, but it does randomly crash to the desktop as well.

Ultimately, Magic 2015 is one step forward and two steps back, it's enjoyable if you're a fan of Magic the Gathering. The deck creation tool is a much welcomed addition, however micro-transactions, an unintuitive interface, bugs, and a lack of features in general holds it back. While the initial game provides a great base to build on, chances are the DLC will be aimed at making as much money as possible from the consumer before repeating the same formula with Magic 2016.

This review is also available in video format:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI4sNlB2I4o


Pros:

+ Deck creation tool finally allows you to craft your own decks.
+ More customization options, such as being able to adjust the amount of land in your deck.

Cons:

- Challenge & Multiplayer modes removed when compared to previous entries.
- Lots of bugs
- Unintuitive Interface
- Lackluster Campaign
- Microtransactions


If you enjoyed this review, feel free to follow me as a Steam Curator: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/4886473/

A lot more bad points than good points on this one.
Edit : BUT, you might wanna have a look at my (edited now that I got more hours behind me) closing words to know if this game is for you or not.

Pros & Cons

Pros :
- Finally being able to build a somehow more "customized deck" !

- The new battle UI is neat (is that even a good point anyway)

- If you're really patient, you can get a lot of cards and shape your deck however you want, tho be prepared for some nuts grinding.



Cons :
- Menus are goddam slow to navigate in. Looks fancy the first few minutes, but afterwards each menu transition will feel like an eternity. You also sometimes have to click several times on a button due to the slow responsiveness of the UI (probably cos it didn't finish its transition)

- You start with only one deck (yes, only one). You cannot swap decks once you have chosen, and you have no idea what the contents of your pick will be (all you know is the colors inside your starter deck).

- The starting deck is WEAK, and I mean it. Compared to the previous Magic DoTP, the deck feels weak, no fun cards in it that makes you grin, no solutions against many types of deck you might encounter. The result is, AI will ♥♥♥♥ you in Planeswalker diff unless you get not only a perfect starting hand but also very good draws. In fact, turn down the difficulty to "Mage" and do some games against a random AI deck, you're not even guaranteed to win, even as a veteran player. The problem would not be with your skills, but because of how weak the deck is. It does look like you can change your starting deck at the very start (tho it doesn't seem clearly visible), but afterwards you're stuck with it until you get enough cards to build a new deck, or to alter your starting one to something decent.

- Grindfest party to build a proper deck. We are very close to a Pay2Win iteration with this 2015 edition. The game now has an online shop in which you can buy boosters (1.79€ for 10 cards) for real money, or an entire card collection for (4.99€). We all get where this is going. And given the facts that even Mage level AI will pown you depending on your starter deck (which doesn't make speed games for farm very efficient at start), you will either have to be very patient or break your piggy bank, the latter being obviously what the game wants you to do. For reference, Only two rares in your starting deck (one at first, and the second when you finish or skip tutorial).

- The land system is broken. Example : Let's suppose you have two plains and two swamps in play, and in your hand you got two cards that each cost one swamp and one colorless mana to play. If you wanted to play both, you obviously would want to pay one plain and one swamp for each.
Well guess what? No. Click the first card in your hand, and the system will often tap both swamps for its mana cost. What the [insert kind words and sing a Bieber song here] hell? You can still tap your lands manually with CTRL, but the system used to be smart enough to leave you with the right mana combinations, which ain't the case anymore. Let's hope this gets fixed.

Closing words

Well, we wanted a better way to customize our deck, so now we have it. While I believe there is a way to build the "deck of your dreams" (will never beat Shandalar anyway), the game obviously wants you to pay extra money to get what you want. I'm saying this because if this wasn't the case, they could've made starter decks more fun and powerful (like the starter decks in the previous series), and still make other good cards unlockable afterwards, which would've been fair trade. Instead, they made your deck as weak as it can be to either push your patience to the limit or make you break your piggybank. This is not a business tactic I am especially fond of, thus I cannot put a thumbs up for this game.

Edit : To clear any misuderstanding, I'm not saying the game is bad per-se. The game itself is solid, and if you're willing to make repeated fights to farm your cards, you'll definitely have fun later on (I can tell without being there yet). I mean, how can it not be fun to make the deck the way you want ?
HOWEVER, and unlike the previous Magic DotP games, you WILL NOT have fun right off the bat. You will first have to farm cards for hours before you have something you can really call a "Deck". In the end, if you know you are willing to spend a decent amount of time to get your cards, I believe you won't regret it and you'll definitely have fun. If not, well...

Have a great day,

Zanameth, a very old Magic player

My favorite deck? A "Wildfire" variant from the Urza block! Veterans will know what I refer to.


Edit 19th July : Clarified the mana tapping problem and the starting deck problem.

Wizards of the Coast and Stainless Games have listened to hardcore fans and finally given them what they want: a sales funnel.

I'm having a hard time grasping how Magic 2015 became such a mess. Previous games in the series have been wonderful, offering the components and mechanics of the Magic: The Gathering card game without the overly involved meta-game. Choose one of the pre-configured decks, play a quick game online, then step away from the computer and enjoy the other passions in your life. I contend that it is one of the most enjoyable ways to play Magic: The Gathering, if only because you don't have to interact with the sort of people who play Magic: The Gathering on a regular basis.

A common criticism of Magic 2015's predecessors was "Why can't I build my own deck from scratch using all of the Magic cards ever made?" This is similar to walking into a coffee shop and asking for a porterhouse steak. No one will argue that it's what you'd most desire at that given moment, but the resources exist for you to have that experience without making the world collapse and conform to your immediate needs. There is a game called Magic: The Gathering Online that allows players to have the "complete" Magic: The Gathering experience, such as spending hundreds of dollars to build the same deck that everyone else is using because of a mechanical exploit. That is it's own thing. You can go out onto the internet and type "Magic: The Gathering Online" in a search engine, with or without quotes, and spend lots of money on digital trading cards. The Duels of the Planeswalkers series has offered a different experience, more akin to a fighting game. It was a well balanced game that afforded many different play styles and allowed players to have fun regardless of their skill level.

Magic 2015 does away with pre-configured decks almost completely. You play a tutorial and then choose from a list of different decks. None of them are very good. You can not change your deck after choosing without deleting your save file and starting over. You must use that deck for the first section of the campaign. If you are patient you will eventually unlock the ability to build your own decks, but only after slogging through numerous battles with the starter deck.

When you win a battle, you are rewarded with a booster. This booster contains a few cards that are almost certainly worthless to you. Maybe you are playing with a black zombie deck. Your booster might contain three green cards that are not zombies. And you'll say, "Wow, I wish I could get lucky and open a booster with some good zombie cards in it!" The solution to this is to purchase a premium booster. These premium boosters contains the Good Cards. They cost $1.99 each. You can buy as many as you want. The only way to get the Good Cards is by buying premium boosters. If you buy enough of them, you might get a Great Card that wins the game when you play it. If you don't buy enough of them, you will be at a disadvantage when playing online against the people who did buy enough of them. These people will play a Great Card and you will lose the game.

It is important to remember that you have paid at least $9.99 for this experience.

Design decisions like these have turned a reasonably solid series into something foul. You should not buy this game. You should not play this game. If you want a casual game of Magic: The Gathering, buy Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014. It is well balanced and fun to play. If you want to spend exorbitant amounts of money building whatever deck is dominating the Magic: The Gathering meta-game, play Magic: The Gathering Online. If you want a real challenge, open a coffee shop that sells porterhouse steaks. Let me know how it does.

One additional item that I absolutely must mention as part of my "See Something, Say Something" campaign against offensive user experiences: the menus in this game are presented in a slideshow fashion, where you can only see one menu option at a time and have to cycle through each screen. This results in the inability to view menu options that are currently disabled. So it's impossible to judge your progress in the campaign, which is unfortunate because most of the game's content is hidden away behind various milestones. FAQs online told me that deck building was unlocked after beating Avanyc, but due to the poor menu system I was unable to determine how many more events I needed to clear before I reached that point. The "unnumbered list" menu system used in the previous games, as well as almost every single piece of interactive media produced since the beginning of time, would have been a much better solution for content navigation.

BOTTOM LINE:

If you don't already love the MTG games on PC, I would think carefully before buying this. If you do love MtG on PC or consoles and played the crap out of them, this is a nice change to see and lets you see some new cards. If you liked it previous years, get it.

Pros:

- It's MtG
- Can now build decks.
- Easiest way to play MtG without investing a fortune
- Can be fun to play with friends

Cons:


-Campaign starts you with awful decks
-Still has hilariously clunky menus after 4 years of the game (How did they not listen to the players on that one?)
-No rewards/progress for losing games that last 10-25 minutes = wasted efforts and unfortunate for people without a lot of time or people who are new to the game.
-It feels mandatory to restart the duel vs. the computer if you don't draw a perfect hand
- No 2 Headed Giant (2v2) This was one of my favorite coop experiences with a friend of mine.




If you can get past the those and you like Magic, then it's still fun. It's good for those who might have stopped playing MtG and just want a taste of it again. Plus, it's pretty cheap for the main game. Although if it's your first experience with MtG or the PC versions I'd recommend MtG 2014 instead.




I'm dissapointed that online play vs other players now puts you at a big disadvantage if you don't to buy boosters to get good cards.

First I want to clarify that I've finished the campaign and played some multiplayer even the FFA.
As someone who prefers Coop/Singleplayer it's a rather disappointing game.

Pros :
- finally some freedom to build our own decks (still not like the paper version)

- the Ingame UI is beautiful


Cons :
- no team based multiplayer whatsoever (IT'S HIS FAULT)
http://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/2ac4v9/ama_with_nik_davidson_lead_designer_for_magic/citnrid

- slooooooow menu handling

- the payment model (I mean a Complete Edition that doesn't include all cards... really?)

- reasonable cardpool BUT there are cards in the game, that are only usable by the AI like the Slivers

- no Challenge puzzles.


Overall :
I like the gameplay, but it's frustating to play against others who have more cards and yes there are some that are especially powerfull or AI that has Cards that you can't unlock at all like the Slivers. As someone who has bought the complete edition i can only turn away in shame.

Slow interface, pay to win, card library too small, features removed. A blatant money grab and a step backwards for the series.

I was forced to spend an hour beating the first campaign to simply unlock the multiplayer mode. There was no option to change my "starter deck" after I had selected it so I was forced to use the same deck throughout the campaign. Once I finally unlocked the multiplayer mode, the only options that I was given were for "2 players," "3 players," and "4 players." I guess I should have done some research on the game first, but it never even dawned on me that they would remove one of the most popular modes, and the only mode that I ever played in Magic 2012, 2013, and 2014.

2HG does not exist in this game. I have no interest in the solo game or any other multiplayer mode. Wasted money.

Not fun.

The UI, while looking fancy, makes you slog through the menus. The fade-out/fade-in trick gets annoying very fast. Not fun.

The deck system, while not necessarily bad, is simply not fun. You can no longer alternate between thematically oriented, colourful and interesting sets like in DotP '14. Instead, you get to choose a single deck by colour -- without knowing what it actually does and what cards it contains. While the optional second deck is based on your existing portfolio of cards and therefore fails to alleviate the issue, the inability to redo that crucial choice in the beginning is a real kicker. Cue endless tiresome games during which you desperately try to improve the absurdly abysmal starter deck with zero synergy so you stand a fighting chance against a full-blown enemy. It's possible to win, yes, but those 20+ minutes fights of attrition are not fun, unless you consider stabbing yourself in the eye with a rough spoon "fun".

I'm not interested in multiplayer, but it appears that Wizards of the Coast is slowly pushing for pay-2-win by implementing booster packs with additional, potentially more powerful cards that cannot be obtained via normal play. Not fun.

Sigh. Had I known DotP '15 was going to be so much less enjoyable than DotP '14, I would not have bought it. I really wanted to like this, but I think I'll stick with '14 for now, thanks.

Really wish i didn't spend the 35 bucks on this game. I had high expectations and it all flopped. Well, so far. CANNOT USE ANY OF THE CARDS YOU BOUGHT THE COMPLETE PACK FOR until you GRIND your way through the first level. I Had to reset match a few times due to the cards they start you with being so crappy. PREMIUM cards cannot be gained without purchasing. That is just GREED. 35 dollars should be enough for all of them. They went backwards with too many things in 2015. Crap.

The Good: You can finally construct your own decks. Some of the opponents are interesting.

The Bad: No puzzle mode. The computer opponents get cards that are more fun than yours. Most of the good cards are locked behind pay walls, even in the fully purchased version (like the one I got).

The Ugly: Game crashes CONSTANTLY. And I mean constantly. I have yet to actually shut the game down of my own choice. It always crashes to desktop instead.

Recommended For: Masochists who enjoy a Computer Opponent who cheats and always has an optimal hand. Folks who really just can't get enough crashes to desktop. Your enemies.

-The game is designed around microtransactions. The 10$ price tag is misleading.

-You must choose a single starting deck and build from there, unlocking more cards as you progress, which would be fine if the cards unlocked at a decent pace (be prepared to grind for them) and if all the starting decks weren't horrible.

-Since all the starter decks are absolutely terrible, you will have difficulty playing against the computer in the Planeswalker difficulty even if you are an experienced Magic player.

-Terribly slow and badly designed user interface. I'd say it was designed for consoles but it doesn't work well with a gamepad either (maybe it was designed with touchscreens in mind, but definitely not PC).

-Lots of people are having issues with crashes, and the game takes loads of time to startup for some mysterious reason.

-Cutscenes still look like they belong in Age of Empires II.

-No Two-Headed Giant mode.

-You need to unlock the multiplayer mode.

-The AI that decides on the mana usage is even worse than before. You can set it to manual (as you should), but the "suggestions" that the AI give are still terrible and will cost you plays if you're not careful.

-This is personal preference, but there are even more "encounter"/"challenge" type duels and less against other Planeswalkers, which I don't like.


Stay away from this one. If you need to scratch that Duels of the Planeswalkers itch, get the 2012 version.

The types of decks you can build are improved over 2014, The filtering interface is nice.

The pay-to-win approach, which unlocks slower than 2014 to push you to buy boosters at $2? I get enough of that with REAL M:TG, thanks! The slow menus? Terrible. Why did most of the interface take a step BACKWARDS?

I'm regretting this purchase.

Has no split screen
Has no two headed giant
Really Really slowed down gameplay
Menus move really slow
Menus load slow
No more custom duels
Practice matches are useless
-_- multiplayer is nothing but red premium players
You cant get boosters from replaying campaign as well
You only have one deck to equip from start
Ai hax with perfect hands and perfect luck
Ai has a pre built deck that destroys yours
There is only 300 cards
about 50 from each plane (5 planes, 250 cards)
and then 50 in premium cards (counted)
game sucks

Sadly the addition of a pay to win premium booster system coupled with the removal of MtG 2014 co-op and challenge modes do not make up for the addition of a deck builder.

In order to take full advantage of the new deck builder you would need to spend many hours battling with a tedious starter deck (that you are forced to choose with no card list available and you cannot change) against the AI to unlock cards, or pay $35 to skip. The content is so tedious that I'm sure plenty of people are paying that $35 just to avoid experiencing it. In addition to that, even if you pay $35 or unlock all free content the strongest cards in the game can still only be obtained via the RNG of opening "premium" booster packs.

It feels like they are trying to shift these Duels of the Planeswalkers games in the direction of MtG Online, expecting people to pay large sums of money to open boosters, build decks and play competitively. Whilst the UI and gameplay is superior to MtG Online, MtG 2015 does not offer the trading, social and most importantly, competitive/tournament scene that the Online client does.

So it straddles in between and ultimately offers the best of nothing. Not the enjoyable co-op, single player or casual PvP game that MtG 2014 is, but not the competitive PvP client that MtG Online is. Overall I do not know what the developers were thinking when they designed this, but I'm pretty sure the $ sign was involved. This game is moving in the wrong direction.

What a miserable piece of bad work, lazyness and greed. It's M14 with new look, old bugs, no Two Head Giant, pay-to-win model and an idiotic model of unlocking game. You CAN'T sort your card or play multiplayer without finishing first chapter. Do not buy it. I wish i can take my money back.

What a terrible game. WotC went completely Pay to Win.

Where as in Duals of the Planeswalkers 2014 sealed play was one of the best things in the game (Even if you had to pay in DotP 2014 to have 3 or more sealed decks ..of course.. ), they completely REMOVED sealed play from M2015 and I will tell you why.
It's because their other game, Magic Online, makes them a lot more money in offering sealed play events because people pay the full price for virtual card packs over and over again (By the by, yes, the full retail price is charged in Magic Online. The exact same 4 dollars per pack like you would have to pay for physical ones.). And because that alone is not making them enough money yet, they changed their business model to make this game appealing only for the crowd of new players who are new to Magic and want to learn how to play.

EDIT: They removed Two Headed Giant too apparently

Don't even try multiplayer in this game. A number of card sets are available for everyone who wants to pay to make the perfect decks. If you just buy this game you are stuck with a cheap deck of commons that you picked at the beginning of the game. A choice you can't even revert later on if you don't like your deck.

But wait, there is more:
This game's interface, for some reason, is SLOW. It's not my hardware but even scrolling through the main options is slow.
The design is poor. You are pretty much forced to use your keyboard to scroll through it because it's so oddly placed on screen that if you try to use your mouse you will often accidentally click something, and your have to wait until it's loaded up (which takes like 3 seconds) before you can go back and load the interface back up (takes too annoyingly long as well). You might think; 'a few seconds? What is this guy whining about?' well, buy the game. You will see how annoying it becomes after you misclicked for the fifth time. The whole feel to this game is just as if it's an unfinished, unpolished game. Very badly optimized.

My rant is not over yet:
The promo you get for buying this game: Soul of Shandalar is terrible. Last year we got a decent rare but this card is just unplayable. Don't even get this game for the promo card if you were planning on that.

Even if you are a new player whose characteristics include infinite patience; this game is not worth it for you even though you are the main selling audience. If you are determined on learning how to play Magic, just drive to your local store, pick up an intro deck (like 20 bucks) and play some real Magic with the people there. Im convinced it's a lot more fun to play together and Magic players are often very helpful and will teach you how. They don't have to improvise a way to help you through the constraints of a shabby business model. I am seriously contemplating quitting Magic the Gathering now. Don't get this game.

Positive points:
I bought the standard edition and didn't waste another 20 euro's on the full edition.

I am so sad that I picked this game up.

For the most part I buy the DotP games as a fun time waster to get my magic fix every once in a while, but this game just infuriates me at every turn. the UI is just terrible, it takes a good 5 seconds to load between menu options because of a god awful animation that plays every time. You are stuck with the deck you pick at the start of the game, which I would not be so annoyed with since you are able to customize the deck in its entierity, but some of the cards required to make most archetypes are behind pay walls...

I will finish the campaign by sheer brute force, but every time I play instead of being happy I get to play magic, I get annoyed at everything this game does wrong.

I love MtG, but I can't in good conscience recommend this game to anyone. The Duels of the Planeswalkers games have always existed more as a product primarily targeting a casual/former/new Magic player audience, but even when I still avidly played the physical game, I could find something to enjoy in a DotP release. This year's edition makes the welcome change to allow deckbuilding to give more advanced players a meatier experience, but it does so many other things wrong that it ends up not being a product that is casual/new/lapsed player friendly, but isn't going to appeal to most avid MtGers either.

Pros:
Adds Deckbuilding
New UI graphic design is nice

Cons:
UI drags, even on a high-end setup
Removed challenges
Removed sealed play
Removed revenge campaign
Removed Two-Headed Giant format
Card unlocking system is horrendous
Not all cards unlockable without additional purchases (totalling almost $30 for everything, on top of the $10 for the game)
Locks you into the starting deck you initially choose, with no way to view the decklists or try them before choosing
Starter decks seem weak and have little synergy
AI doesn't seem very intelligent
Some enemy decks seem overpowered (despite poor AI), attempting to force you into the booster microtransactions

As much as I love Magic, this just isn't fun. It's like WotC wanted to go the Free-to-Play route, but didn't want to make it actually free to play. Some of this could be patched away (though I'm not holding out hope), but a lot of it seems to be problematic at the game's core. Between my Xbox 360 and Steam, I've bought every DotP release as they've come out. Without significant (and unlikely) changes, this will be the last one I purchase.

This is the worst sham ever.. at least compared to the previous titles in this series. It used to be a cheap way of getting to play some MtG sure it had its limits with deck building, but it also had fairness in the sense that everybody had acces to the same cards, This new 2015 edition allows you one deck with no way of pre-viewing and then you have to buy booster packs to actually make it strong.... They really screwed the franchise for all of us casual player, the pros play the real online mgt anyway..
To clarify you do unlock cards, but you'll have to spend more cash than the initial purchase if you want to have acces to the same arsenal as your oppenents.
Other than that the game is pretty much the same as the other games of the serires.

Edit: Felt i had to add an edit. Yes, you unlock a lot of cards so you can build more decks, which is fine if you only goal is to play vs. a somewhat broken AI.
Unable to make a proper AI like all previous MtG games they allow the AI to chat in the sense that it play solely reactive with what must be classified as miracle draws. No real plan of attack besides the predesigned strategy.
I for one have spent most of the old MtG's playing vs human oppenents.
And here it very much matters that you need to buy boosters to unlock all the cards. The other MtG's had all the cards unlockable from completing games vs AI or human oppenents. This one does not. So I consider it to be a hidden charge that you need to pay if you plan on playing online. Sure you are not "forced" to do it, but it is borderline pay to win.