Foreward

Before I begin, I’d like to dedicate this post to the memory of my friend, Matt Bear. Matt was there for me during a time when my life had hit a hard patch, and the person who got me into competitive Magic.

The following is not meant to be a review of the collab itself, more so the ramblings of a fanboy who enjoys both the card game and Puzzle and Dragons. If that’s what you’re looking for, a card review by Cate can be found here! Instead, what you will find are my thoughts and critiques of the design choices GungHo made with the Cards for the MTG collab. I should note that the thoughts and predictions found herein are my own, and only my own. They do not represent what GungHo ultimately decided for the collab or has planned for the future. This post is merely meant to incite conversation. 

Introduction

Magic: The Gathering has been around since 1993… so this year marks its 25th Anniversary, which is nothing to scoff at, as some intellectual properties don’t make it past a few years. My history with MTG started back in 2001; I didn’t know it at the time mostly because I was obsessed with Yu-gi-oh and pokemon as my card games of choice and my mom gave me a random pack of Onslaught (I remember because the set symbol reminded me of a spider, and it scared the hell out of me). I wouldn’t start to get into the game until a few years later, when some friends began playing it during lunch when I was in middle school. From there, I played mtg super casually, up until I began attending tournaments with my friend I mentioned above. Though I haven’t really played much in the last three years, I still have fond memories of the friends I made back then, and all the fun I had playing Magic.

About Magic: The Gathering

For those of you who don’t know, Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game where you (the player) are a Planeswalker; one of the most powerful beings in the MTG Multiverse. With you, is your “Library”, or your deck of cards. Each deck is made up of two types of cards: Lands and Spells. Each “land” card is commonly used to produce mana, which players use to cast “spells” such as summoning monsters, casting enchantments, and even calling out other Planeswalkers (cards, not players) to help you in battle against other Planeswalkers and their summoned creatures! Commonly, lands produce a single mana of one of the five mana types (Red/Green/Blue/White/Black – Similar to how PAD’s elements!). Though there are land cards that create colorless mana, or even have special effects.

Magic also has an extensive amount of lore its cultivated over the last 25 years, which is the part of MTG I never really followed; but I do know those who did follow it found the stories and multiverse interesting and captivating. So if you’re a reader and interested in the lore behind MTG, I’d recommend the books as well as the card game itself!

Thoughts on the Collab

The Puzzle and Dragons collab itself, however, seems to focus on the newest sets of cards that comprise the card games “Standard” format (a play type where players can only use cards from the last two years). Most every card can be found in these sets, the only exception being Lord of the Pit (though he evolves into Demonlord Belzenlok, who appears in the Dominaria expansion). What’s interesting about the choices in which cards to include in the Egg Machine, is that every card is a Planeswalker with the exception of Jhoira , Shivan Dragon , and Serra Angel . I have my own thoughts on including these cards, but I’ll save that for later on.

So, other than Lord of the Pit, everyone GungHo added can be seen within the most latest card expansions. Another thing that I noticed was that while doing some research and running the collab dungeon for Navigator Compasses , was that the background for floors two, three, and the boss floor all took art from Basic Land cards found within the Dominaria expansion for the trading card game. I’m not sure about floors one and four, as Reni and I did a lot of poking around and couldn’t really find the MTG parallel for those two floors. That aside, I’m sure that GH did take inspiration from the actual card game for them, as we plainly see for the other floors; though if you know what cards they’re based off of, don’t hesitate to message me!

Click the spoiler tag below if you’re curious and wish to see yourself!

Dungeon Art!

Floor 2 Art

Plains Art from the Dominaria Expansion

Floor 3 Art

Island Art from the Dominaria Expansion

Floor 5 Art

Swamp Art from the Dominaria Expansion

A Missed Opportunity

If you’ve read my other posts, you know I normally complain about the things that GungHo missed out on, or I felt they could have done to add to the collab. As much as it pains me to say it… they did well this time around. I’m sure some of you who are also MTG fans who are reading this are upset that “X Planeswalker” wasn’t brought in or used; I understand, there’s a lot of things that they could have included but chose not to for some reason or another. However given that it’s obvious that they’ve taken from the most recent sets of Magic The Gathering, Wizards of the Coast might have used this as an opportunity to promote their latest expansion; I mean the dungeon is literally named after the expansion after all. However… there is one single thing I feel they flubbed on.

Meet, Teferi… the HERO OF DOMINARIA

Okay so, remember how I mentioned that I didn’t follow the lore behind MTG earlier? Well, while doing my research for the Land art I showed up above a bit, I had noticed that here on Wizard of the Coasts’ main page for the Dominaria expansion that Jhoira and Karn were both featured, behind who seemed to be a more prominent figure of the expansion. So my curiosity was piqued, and I did a bit more research into Teferi.

Before I continue, I will say Teferi’s history in the MTG Multiverse goes back further than what I’ll mention (seriously guys this stuff is good, I might start getting into it myself). So, the premise of the Dominaria expansion is Demonlord Belzenlok is up to no good, and someone’s gotta stop him. Teferi steps up, and joins Karn, Jhoira, and her crew, and fights alongside Gatewatch (think the Avengers or the Justice League, but in MTG) and ends Belzenlok’s reign on Dominaria. After his victory, Teferi decides to join The Gatewatch and protect the Multiverse.

Regardless, it’s safe to say we haven’t seen the end of Teferi and his exploits in the MTG Multiverse… and we can expect much more of him. So that’s why I’m confused; why exclude one of the three most important figures in the current MTG lore, and the person on the forefront of the expansion? Serra Angel wasn’t the best of cards… and even appears in the dungeon; so even if they didn’t want to make Terferi a 6 star card, they could have easily made Serra Angel a dungeon drop and given him her spot. I have my thoughts… but I’ll leave that speculation up to your imagination.

About what we got

So, we got some nice stuff in this collab, and honestly, transitioning from a TCG to a mobile puzzle game is probably harder than creating cards from an anime or video game; so I’m gonna take it easy on GungHo this time. So instead of saying what they did wrong or bad… I’m going to do something a littler different this time. I’m going to compare the best fitting, latest released version of each card with what we got in PAD, meaning I’ll be looking at the Standard format versions of cards. If I went by older versions, I’d have to complain about Jace being underwhelming due to the fact that Jace had an incarnation of himself that was so powerful, he went for hundreds of dollars back when he was in the standard format, in fact he still goes for a pretty penny even today.

Also, sorry for some of the low quality images; these were the best I could find.

The Farmables

Llanowar Elves

Probably one of the most well-known cards in the game, by the way. This one might be a bit of a stretch, but perhaps they gave them two awakenings to reflect they have a “tap” active ability on the card? Sounds dumb but it’s the only thing I can think of; so perhaps this one they might have just winged.Maybe they should have given them a green skyfall active instead of making all your attacks mass attacks. That might be a bit too useful for a farmable card… but as we’ll see next and what we’ve seen in the past , it’s not uncommon.

Weatherlight

The Weatherlight is one of the coolest cards in the collab, and was executed well.In MTG, a strategy most use is to draw as often and comfortably as possible. While drawing and having your hand full of useful cards is a good thing, it can also have serious consequences if you don’t know what you’re doing. Weatherlight’s main purpose here is to get cards you can use out quicker, which makes its haste active in PAD makes a whole lot of sense. Even the RNG from the active skill on the card in PAD can be attributed to the random chance that the card within the top five cards of your deck meets the requirements for the skill of the MTG card.Finally, we have the Crew 3 part of the MTG card, which means you have to use one or more creatures you control to even use Weatherlight; similar to the fact you have to put Weathlerlight on a card in PAD in order for you to use it.I know that some of this thought process was a stretch, but still implemented well.

Jhoira’s Familiar

Honestly, there’s nothing between the MTG and PAD incarnations of this card that tie together other than the fact that it’s Machine type. I don’t blame GungHo at all, though, as the MTG card didn’t give them much to work with.

Demonlord Belzenlok

So, the poison skyfall active is nice for him to have in his PAD card, but I do kind of wish they gave his active a defense break as well to match the MTG incarnations trample ability.Other than that, he was also well designed. His poison based leader skill reflects his ability in MTG well. Not much else to say on him.

The 5 Stars

Disclaimer: Since the Planeswalkers are 5 Star, I’m not expecting them to be as powerful or useful as their MTG incarnations.

Chandra Nalaar

So, as we see here, Chandra pretty much just tosses out damage left and right, which is reflected in her gravity; in fact her +1 ability deals 10% of a players base life point total. So, pretty on point there.In addition, MTG Chandra and PAD Chandra both create red resources with their actives! Over all, well done implementing her into PAD. A+ GungHo.

Shivan Dragon

Okay, they give him a defence void active… which honestly doesn’t fit with him; though the ability to fly might work if you ignore the fact that walls or other creatures with flying can still block him in MTG.His active skill in PAD is nice, it buffs all dragons which mirrors his self buffing ability in MTG; though the PAD version is much stronger comparatively.

Nissa Revane

Nissa in PAD comes equipped with a nice short buff active (that’s decently powerful to boot), and three . Nissa in MTG comes with nice buff ability and an active ability that heals three life. See the correlation here?My only critique would be they didn’t do much for her second ability from MTG, maybe creating three wood orbs or increase wood skyfall for two turns would have been nice; but not needed. GungHo did a good job designing her regardless.

Jace Beleren

Okay here we’re not doing as hot as Chandra (hehe). I won’t entirely blame GungHo for this, as all of Jaces’ abilities are pretty much impossible to implement into pad. However, they could have given Jace a delay to give us another turn on that floor instead of gaining control of creatures, or drawing a card… maybe? Though let’s be honest, even that’s a stretch.Like I said, this was a hard one to do. I did take a look at Jaces’ other card that appears in the same expansion as this one; though that also has mechanics that seem impossible to implement, such as creating copies of himself or creating monsters.

Gideon Jura

Both incarnations of Gideon do not really match what we got in PAD, so I used the one I liked most. Gideon Jura is my favorite Planeswalker; so I’m going to keep this part as unbiased as possible. That said… This is some horse shit. Yes, I know he’s a five-star in PAD, so I shouldn’t have expected a whole lot.But seriously, GungHo could have shown Gideon more love than what we did get; a dinky 35% shield with a three turn, +1 combo boost does not correlate into any of the three abilities that Gideon has. No, I didn’t expect GungHo to make it do owning Gideon would make it so we never lost a dungeon again; that’s dumb. I did hope that he’d at least get a stronger shield or something. Thanks GungHo…

Serra Angel

Much like Jhoira’s Familiar, there wasn’t much to go on here. Also like Jhoira’s Familiar, she should have been a farmable card and replaced by Teferi or something else.

Liliana Vess

Another example of the cards not aligning at all. PAD Liliana has a nuke and dark orb creation active, while the MTG version debuffs and instantly kills; and a resurrection mechanic that’s impossible to implement into PAD anyway.It would have been nice to give her a defense break active, or at least add it onto her active skill.

The 6 Stars

Jhoira

Jhoira’s only common factor in this case is her attributes match between the two games. I suppose that they could have done something with her ability that allows you to draw a card; but as I said up when talking about the Weatherlight, giving her a haste for that is kind of a stretch.Other than that, there wasn’t much else to go off of.

Vraska

Much like Jhoira before her, the only thing I feel GungHo could have done was match her attributes; which they did.Though, her MTG ultimate ability was a 99% gravity… so they could have given her one as well like they did Chandra. However at the scope her gravity was in MTG, I don’t blame GungHo for not implementing it.

Karn

So, Karn is interesting. When he was leaked a while ago, some of the other players I talked to were wondering how PAD would implement a card that had no attribute. Turns out they made him light and made his active skill create jammer orbs, and his leader skill activate off of jammers as well. A nice touch to be honest, and a really fun looking leader skill to boot.Nothing else matches between the two games though, but I’ll ignore it due to his MTG versions unique abilities and the fact they implemented jammers to poke at the fact that he was colorless/attributeless.

Nicol Bolas

Nicol Bolas should have been Dark/Red or Dark/Blue in PAD. That’s easy to point out.Another thing that should have been done with his PAD card was instead of a shield, he should have had a nuke much like Liliana’s active. Instead, he was given the active Gideon should have gotten.That aside, Nicol Bolas is a bit of a powerhouse within the MTG Multiverse, and what they did give him in PAD didn’t disappoint, but it wasn’t terribly reflective of his MTG cards abilities.

Overall, I’m pleased with the general outcome. We got some nice cards in PAD from this collab, and some really unique ones as well! My only complaints, and the changes I would have done for sure would make Gideon less crap, make Serra Angel a farmable, and add Teferi in her place. I should also note, that some of these cards are actually really useful despite my complaints. Remember, I’m only comparing the design choices GH made when implementing the cards… not how good they actually are.

The future of Magic: The Gather x Puzzle and Dragons

Do I think that we’ll see this collab again? I personally do, and hope we do for the sake of buffs and seeing new cards introduced. There are so many possibilities to implement: More equipment cards like the Sword of War and Peace, or even more Planeswalkers such as Ajani Goldmane or Sorin Markov! As someone who played MTG since middle school, this was an unexpected treat, and one I did enjoy (as much as some card designs did upset me.)

The fact that NA, KR, and JP all got the collab at the same time also fills me with hope that this won’t be the last time we see MTG come to PAD…

The End

That’s pretty much all I really have on my mind about this collab in general. I will say, it was a walk down memory lane. Gideon Jura and Nissa Revane were the two Planeswalkers I used all the time, and seeing them in another game I love only made me want to play Magic once more.

For those of you who play PAD, but never played MTG, I hope this was even slightly informative and a fun way of looking into the world of Magic. For those who started PAD because of MTG, I hope you got the cards you wanted, and I hope that you have fun solving puzzles with the rest of us!