That TCG Blogger

Charles Caleb Colton once said “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, and it has made sense to society to be quotable. It becomes even more apparent as we look at the game Duel Masters, from Wizards of the Coast. In short, this Trading Card Game was just a carbon copy of Magic: the Gathering in pretty much every way possible. The design seemed mediocre and just stole ideas from other games and put them onto cards with flashy art. It is apparent that this game was designed to appeal the younger generation into the Trading Card Game world, and eventually lead them on to Magic; or else Wizards would have never bought into the idea from Japan. Need you forget that it is originality that made the games that are going strong today become successful.

Every time a new game is released, the number one complaint that we here is that it is just another Magic: the Gathering rip-off. If players want to play Magic, they will just buy Magic; it is a simple formula. Sadly though, Duel Masters fails in that it is just that; MTG. Most games will go the distance to disguise this fact, but not Duel Masters over here; just look at the creature “civilizations”: Fire, Water, Nature, Light, and Darkness. Do those sound just a bit too familiar to you? To take it a step further, they call the mana of the game mana. Did they honestly think their fan-base would be this stupid? I mean come on; the game even has tap abilities and summoning sickness. The VS System at least changed these two names to “exhaust” for tapping and “resources” for mana. Just because Wizards owns the licensing to those names, doesn’t mean they have to shove them in our face because Magic did so well.

When a game is released with flashy art, cute creatures, and even a cartoon to go with the show then the first thought is often that this game is for kids. To my belief, that is what I think Wizards did with Duel Masters so that they someday find an interest in Magic or their other products; and frankly I find it insulting to today’s youth. When this game released I was in sixth grade, I had already known how to play Magic and had a deck built. Sure, I didn’t know how to combo stuff or any of that business; but I had fun with it. I picked up Duel Masters wanting to try something new, and my first thought was how stupid the game itself was; sure I like how the robot cards looked, but just the rules of the game seemed way too complicated. Having to use specifically a “blocker” to defend yourself and then “evolving” creatures into bigger ones (I’m sure no one thought of Pokémon right there). It all just seemed too overdone and then too complicated to function together into one game. Defenders worked in Magic and evolution worked in Pokémon, and it should stay that way. If Wizards truly wanted to bring kids into this game, then they should’ve shown them the one thing they want to see; something they have never seen.

Overall, Duel Masters just came off as a bad game to me through my experiences. It was lacking originality, was very boring, and felt too directed towards kids. Sure the game is still going on in Japan, which honestly shocks me. It just goes to prove that a company that pushes its game and promotes it will see a successful product.

-That TCG Blogger-

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