yeah. got in yesterday evening.
didn't pay too much attention to the threads/streams, so went in fairly blind.
the UI on play/practice/arena is weak. I kindof had no idea what each was. Building decks same thing.
playing the default mage deck it says you unlock cards, but I never see them pop up. so I guess those are not added to the default deck.
Did play for something like 10 games, before backing out, and looking at practice, at which point THERE it tells me I can unlock decks in practice. (wish I had known that earlier)
went something like 15/2 in "play" with default mage.
deck is a basic small creature deck. a few taunts, and nukes. most wins come on raid leader + attack, I found. fireball and polymorph wrecking most large summons, or special action summons.
Before I logged out, I did find the custom deck building. Put together a +spell power deck. no idea how effective it will be. +spell power minions, taunt minions to protect them. and some freeze, and damage spells. primary concern is lack of direct attacks. and minion clearing spells on the other side, will wipe out all the +spell power.
the two I lost to were a priest and druid.
Priest utterly wrecked me. I don't remember the exact. but I think I went first. but had shit cards. had to pass. he pulled out a footman and pw:s I think. making it 1/4. I probably pulled a 2/1 murloc next.
he then 2 northshire clerics. I had arcane nova, and the like. completely useless.
clerics with 3 defense for 1 mana, and that effect are insane. He was drawing 2 cards every turn after,healing his footman. which I couldn't kill for like 4 turns. couldnt even plink it down do to the healing.
pull out a turtle. sw
. 2 mana to kill a 4 mana minion. pull out a big gun. sw:d for 3 mana.
Shit was just brutal.
Mana costs on priest cards seem really low for their effects.
Druid was closer. he took the game late. with a swipe, that cleared my field. and then just drained my hand with strong late game counters, till I hand an empty hand, and was just pulling 1 card at a time.
Also yeah, this just makes me want to play a good MTG online client.
lack of a defense phase is really weird to me. I dont like the feel of not saving mana, or having to plan for a defend phase. More secret/trap cards I guess would feel better.