Writing off Magic: Legends as “just another Diablo-style action RPG” is an easy knee-jerk reaction to its isometric hack-and-slash gameplay, but it’s not an accurate one. Despite Cryptic Studios’ action RPG-meets-deckbuilding hybrid including plenty of surface-level similarities to Blizzard’s genre-defining series, there are just as many differences—both good and bad—that help it stand out in its own way, even if not always in a positive light. The deck-building concept really does set Magic: Legends apart in fundamental ways, I’m just not sure all of those ways are a good thing. You’re never really comfortable in Magic: Legends because your strategy is always changing and evolving based literally on the hand that you’re dealt.
In Magic: Legends you take control of your own Planeswalker, but the options for customization lack enough detail to feel meaningful. In the Magic universe, being a Planeswalker means you’re an extremely powerful spellcaster that can “planeswalk” between realms at will, use powerful sorcery, and summon creatures to fight by your side. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/magic-legends-what-to-expect-in-the-open-beta"] There is a story about uniting forces across the Magic Multiverse with some above-average voice acting, but after battling through it for about 30 hours, I honestly don’t remember anything of note. There are a handful of epic moments and it’s certainly flashy, but its characters and plot are all just so uninteresting. Action RPGs are rarely known for having great stories to tell and Magic: Legends is certainly not the exception. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=You%20can%20never%20fall%20into%20a%20routine%20of%20popping%20off%20abilities%20over%20and%20over%20again."]Where it does break the mold is in its card game-inspired dealing out of abilities, and it adds a lot of variance to combat. When building your deck you get to pick 12 different cards from your entire library, and those are drawn into your four-card hand randomly. Which means, for example, for one combat encounter you might not have any summons at all and need to rely on ground-based AOE spells and your default attack, whereas 30 seconds later you might only have four summons in your hand to cast instead. Since you never really know which of your abilities will show up at any given moment you can never fall into a routine of popping off abilities over and over again.Just like the card game it’s based on, every ability in Magic: Legends is divided between five types of mana, each of which is native to a given class. The Necromancer, for example, uses black mana, which is all about death, draining life, and raising corpses -- which explains why the logo is a skull. The Beastmaster, on the other hand, is a green mana class (with a tree logo) that’s all about rapid growth from plants and beasts themed in nature that all herd together. Where it gets interesting is when you unlock the ability to have more than one color in your deck, so you could supplement the undead hordes of a Necromancer with powerful burst sorcery spells that deal quick burn damage with some red cards. There’s a lot of flexibility there, and tinkering with your deck composition is the best part of Magic: Legends.
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