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The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers
By rethrae
Copyright rethrae 2003
Welcome to the world of Shandalar. World of magic and adventure. Ready
to save it? If yes read this FAQ and have fun playing.
Table of Contents:
1. The beginning.
2. How to play?
a) Hot keys
b) World
c) Towns
d) Spells
e) Abilities
f) Fighting
3. Composing a deck.
4. Credits
----------------
1. The beginning
----------------
a) At first you have to choose difficulty level. There are four of them and the
advance of CPU opponents isn't the only difference. Also the decks change:
- Apprentice - this is the easiest level. If you never played the game before
you'll find it perfect for you. However if you're more advanced playing on
this level will be boring 'cause the CPU plays horrible. The deck is pure,
consists of cards of your color and a few artifacts.
- Magician - CPU plays better than on apprentice but it still sucks. Your deck
will consist of two types of cards: the one you choose, a few cards of other
color and a few artifacts..
- Sorcerer - game is getting interesting from this point. The CPU plays quite
well. Uses spells and creatures in different ways but still can't combine
the usage. Your deck consists of 3 types of cards and a few artifacts.
- Wizard - at last a challenging opponent. CPU uses all his might to beat you.
He can use creatures and spells in very advanced way e.g. you try to cast
Disintegrate spell, he has Circle of protection: Black so he casts Deathlace
which changes Disintegrate to a black spell and them counters it with
CoP: Black. Your deck consists of 5 types of cards (it means every color)
and a few artifacts.
Beside that also the health of CPU opponents grows together with the difficulty
b) After choosing difficulty you'll have to choose your deck. There are five of
that's what the game tells us about them:
- Red - Red magicians specialize in the violence of chaos and combat.
- White - The focus of white magic in on healing, protection and the chivalrous
arts of war.
- Black - Black magic's power comes form death and decay.
- Green - Like nature green magic can bring both soothing serenity and
thunderous destruction.
- Blue - Blue magic thrives on mental energy, artifice and illusion.
And now what I want to tell you about them:
- Red - This is the most powerful type of magic in the game. If you wait too
long the spells like Fireball, Lightning, Disitegrate, Earthquake, Inferno
etc. will kill you in no time.
- White - This magic is the magic of Protection so it doesn't know much about
attacking. However spells like Divine Transformation or Blessing can make
an extremely powerful creature out of a standard 1/1 newbie.
- Black - Black magic is very similar to White magic (odd ha?) e.g. in white
magic we've got spell called Holly strength that gives a +1/+2 modifier and
in black magic we've got Unholy strength that gives a +2/+1 modifier; in
white magic there is White knight and in black magic there is black knight
and so on... Basically black magic has powerfull creatures.
- Green - This is the magic of healing. The spell Stream of life can give you a
lot of energy. There are also some powerful creatures like Killer bees of
Force of nature.
- Blue - Very cool and tricky magic. Its spells can take control of your
creatures, unsummon them, move twice in turn skip players untap phrases etc.
c) Now you just have to choose your hero's portrait and his/her name and that's
it. Let's play.
--------------
2. How to play
--------------
a) Hot keys
Right mouse click - Opens menu.
F1 - Opens the deck window. You can have 3 decks in one game. You select them
by pressing the deck [number] button.
F2 - Opens map. In the beginning you can see only a small part of land. The map
draws itself while you're walking.
F3 - Opens city list window which shows statistics of cities that you've
already visited.
F4 - Opens dungeon list showing the information about dungeons. You'll gather
the info while playing.
F5 - Opens your stats window.
F6 - Opens the wizard stats window. The wizards are your enemies in this game.
While defeating their servants the yellow dots that turn red. When all
dots turn red the wizard is dead. It takes a lot of time but there is also
another way of defeating the wizards - you can challange them for a duel.
b) World
As you probably noticed you're the guy in the middle of the screen. You can
move using mouse. In the bottom of the screen there are numbers of gems you
have and your abilities (in the beginning you have only one). A little higher
there are: gold, food (when you run out of it you move slower), life, number
of cards in current deck / number of all cars. After walking for a while you'll
eventually get into a town.
c) Towns
There are five buttons here:
- Buy cards - see what the city has to offer
- Buy x food for y gold - buy food
- Trade x amulet for y cards / Begin a Quest / Speak to wise man - Sometimes
you can buy cards for amulets, sometimes you can begin a quest (one quest in
every city). If you're doing some quest right now or has already finished the
quest in this city you can speak to the city elder.
- Edit deck/Sell cards - add or remove spells from decks, sell cards.
- Leave - no comment :)
d) Spells
To cast spells you need mana which comes from lands. The number of lands should
be between 1/4 and 1/3 of all cards in current deck. Each mana type is provided
by a different type of land:
- red - mountains
- white - plains
- black - swamps
- green - forests
- blue - islands
Cost of every spell is in the top-right corner of the card. The colored icons
are symbols of different types of mana (look up) and the gray icons are a
symbol of colorless mana (mana of any type). The spells are divided into
groups:
- Summons - This are creatures.
- Enchantment - Their effect lasts for a few turns.
- Sorcery - This type of a one time spell.
- Instant - Every other kind of spell can be casted only in your turn. Instants
can be casted also in opponents turns. Just like Sorcery spells they can be
used only once and then they go to your graveyard.
- Interrupts - This are Instants that work faster. When someone is casting an
instant you can counter it with an interrupt. You can interrupt an instant,
but you can’t instant an interrupt.
- Artifact - Different types of creatures or objects.
Beside that some creatures have...
e) Abilities
- Banding - Creatures can attack together. The attacker may choose which of the
creatures will take damage.
- First Strike - Creature deals damage before others.
- Flying - Cannot be blocked by creatures without flying.
- Landwalk - If opponent controls a specific kind of land the creature is
unstoppable. The ability isn't called landwalk. It's called: Plainswalk,
Islandwalk, Swampwalk, Forestwalk or Mountainwalk.
- Protection - Creatures with “protection from” are practically immune to
creatures and spells of that color. There are different kinds of protections:
Protection from White, Protection from Blue, Protection from Black,
Protection from Green and Protection from Red
- Regeneration - Creature can regenerate. This prevents its death.
- Trample - If blocking creature took damage more than it's toughness then the
excess damage is dealt to the creature's owner.
f) Fighting
Sooner or later you'll get into a fight. Everything that you saw so far is a
pure fiction but duels like the one that'll take place now are being played in
reality with real cards. Let's get to the point. You can see two yellow numbers
which are your and your opponent's health. To win you have to make your
opponent's health go down to 0 or less. To do this you have to cast spells
and to cast spells you need mana. Mana as I said before comes from lands. You
can cast only one land per turn and as many spells as you like (mana is the
only limit). And that's it! That's all you need to know about the battle
system. The rest depends on cards that you have. Move your mouse cursor over
a card and you'll see it's desctription in the window to the left.
--------------------
3. Composing a deck.
--------------------
While playing Magic the Gathering I've learned that there are three types of
decks:
- creature deck - deck that consists of creatures related with each other e.g.
Zombies and Master Zombie or Goblin King and different kinds of goblins. This
makes the deck very powerful, each turn you cast new creature spells and
deal large amounts of damage to your opponent.
- destructive spells deck - deck that consists of different types of
destruction spells like Terror, Unsummon, Alladin's ring. The best magic type
for this kind of deck is red magic. It has Fireball, Disintegrate and many
other spells that combined with Mana Flare can deal 10-60 damage.
- tricks deck - deck that consists of different kinds of cards that enable you
to control the duel. When you have Royal Assassin card you can kill every
tapped creature, Flashfires helps you destroy your opponent's lands (which
makes him helpless), Winter Orb - cast it when you casted all you wanted.
The best magic type for this kind of deck is blue magic. There are many kinds
of cards that effect only one type of magic like dark grip or life force so
rearranging your deck before an important fight or entering a castle is
very important.
----------
4. Credits
----------
MTG is a game of endless possibilities. You can always develop your deck. Even
if you think that it's perfect you can try playing via Internet, then you'll
see how strong some decks can be.
If you have anything to tell me contact me via mail
[email protected] or via
ICQ my is 178324695.
