Last week I got the latest Magic duel deck, called Heroes vs Monsters:
According to what I read online, duel decks not based around Planeswalkers don’t sell as well, so this one needs to get by on strong deck design and perhaps the fact that it contains preview cards for the upcoming Theros set like this one:
My experience is that this set nails the design, and the two decks are better matched than in any other duel deck I have played. In fact, in 6 games played, the scores were evenly matched with 3 wins apiece.
The first of the two decks is mostly white with a splash of red. It is heavy on creatures, with a slight enchantment theme. As with most duel decks, some of the included cards are not what I would choose, and were I to tweak the deck I would start by making more of the creatures below 3 CMC to better enable the Sun Titan that is one of the big-hitters of the deck.
The second deck is a red/green big creature based deck with a token theme. The hydra up top is one of the biggest (and best) cards in the set, but victory with this deck was often too fast for such a card to be relevant.
In the many games I played the pattern seemed to be if red/green didn’t win in the first 5-8 turns, then white/red would be the victor. In all six games I only cast the hydra once (and immediately shut it down with Bonds of Faith) and never cast Sun Titan. Red/green often won on the backs of such cards as Blood Ogre and Volt Charge, and white/red via cards such as Freewind Equenaut and Bonds of Faith (which I always cast on an opponents non-human creature).
I very much enjoyed playing these two decks. As with others, they help give an appreciation for cards I may otherwise have overlooked. In addition, there are some very good cards in here ‘for the collection’. I think overall the product may have benefitted from slightly slower decks (or at least a longer mana curve for each) but overall this product gets two thumbs up 🙂