I decided to go with Magic for the third God, as the first two were great for starter Midrange and Aggro decks (Nature and War), with Magic probably being the best starter Control God. If you’ve never played card games before, it might feel quite a bit different than playing the other aforementioned styles which are mostly based on having a better board than your opponent. When you’re Control, you either win by running your opponent out of gas (creatures and cards) or with your high mana cards which can close out the game.
Here are some strengths and weaknesses of the Magic God:
Strengths
-Lots of card draw options
-Plenty of Direct damage, to your opponent and/or their creatures
-Great Area of Effect (AOE) spells and Roars to gain card advantage/tempo
-Good frontline creatures to save damage
-Warded minions give good defense against spells
-Probably the widest set of deck types of all Gods, from Aggro to Control to Combo and in various forms
Weaknesses
-Creatures are usually under-stated
-Opponent’s Ward and Protected creatures are tough to deal with in a mana-efficient manner
In terms of deck types, as stated, Magic can do almost everything. The most common these days are Control, but there are various Aggro (Card Draw Magic) and Combo decks out there. For the Core and Welcome set though, Magic is limited to mostly Control and Midrange.
The most popular God Power for Magic is Magebolt, and for good reason. It is very versatile, as you can target creatures and your opponent’s God for more direct damage. It’s also handy for popping Ward and Protect which may give you trouble. Clear Mind is mostly used for Combo decks to find your combo pieces faster. Pallas’ Genius isn’t really used in its current state.
As you finish the tutorial and level up, you’ll start collecting Core cards; Magic has a vast selection of good to great spells that should go into Arsenal regardless if you’re starting Midrange or Control.
The trio of Bolts are great tools that provide efficient removal, doing 3-4 damage to a creature or 1 damage to all creatures. Wyrmbreath is even more versatile in that you can target your opponent’s God with it, providing good direct damage. Ratify can turn your opponent’s biggest threat into a 1/1 rat, without triggering its Afterlife. Crystal Rain and Inferno are decent AOE spells that can often trade for multiple creatures, although better spells will come in the expansions for this purpose.
Providing more oomph to your spells is Street Conjuror, which gives all your spells +1 damage. Works great with AOE spells too. Time-Bomb is aggressively stated and provides control as well with its Afterlife. Oni Spellsword is a snowball machine and works best with low mana cost creatures and spells. Stormstress is a very good creature that does AOE damage (helps pop Ward and Protect!) and provides solid Frontline defense. Leyhoard Hatchling is a great tempo tool, but you should make sure your deck has enough card draw/generation to lower its mana cost.
If you luck into one of the Core Legendaries, a couple of them are great but for specific decks (and unfortunately not for Control). Choralis Rune Moth gives you free runes at the end of your turn and goes great with Card Draw Magic decks. Dralamar is the cornerstone of a Combo deck which can bring your opponent from full health to 0 in one turn, but you need expansion cards to make it work. Frey unfortunately does not see play at all, which is sad because he’s the first Legendary I ever opened haha. It’s just too slow.
I’ll go over some of the cheaper expansion cards which are good value for your deck, but note that while there are a few common cards between Magic decks, the deck types are so varied that there are not as many general cards that could be included compared to other Gods.
The two aforementioned AOE spells are Unbound Flames (~4.5 GODS) and Shaped Blast (3 GODS); the former can be used as face damage as well while the latter is lower mana. Another versatile spell found in various Magic decks is Safeguard Incantation (2), which protects your face while drawing you a card. Finally at a higher price point is Pyrrhic Knowledge (53) which is amazing as you can bring back an AOE spell or a direct damage spell from your void and cast it for free to clear the board again or finish off your opponent. Magic has a lot of other cool spells but they are not as general purpose as the ones already discussed, so I won’t go over any more here.
Mortal Judgement brought a bunch of great Echo cards which enhanced many varieties of Magic decks. Academy Apprentice (0.25 GODS) gave more spell boost, Frenetic Bibliomaniac (0.5) provided more card draw, and Crystaltech Scholar (2) ramped up your unlocked mana.
But wait, Magic has relics too! Although you won’t be attacking with them. Pallas’ Wand is a staple for Card Draw Magic (CDM) decks, though it’s a little expensive at 230 GODS. Scepter of Artistry (8 GODS) is a bit slow but could be a substitute in CDM to do huge face damage. Finally, Lightning Talisman (0.7) is a decent defensive tool against Aggro decks and can disrupt some Combo decks as well.
I’ve provided some example decks here for Control Magic, from a Welcome and Core deck as you’re first starting out to build towards, then budget Control and CDM decks with some expansion cards, then finally more expensive Control and CDM decks. I want to note here that the playstyle of CDM isn’t as straight forward as other decks; you want to keep the board clear while doing a bit of face damage, but also shift gears when you can to focus on burning down your opponent when you have enough reach. These cards and decks aren’t set in stone; feel free to experiment and check out GUDecks.com for more! There are a lot of cards that can do well which aren’t mentioned here.
This is the 4th part of the series. For War, click here. For Nature, click here. For the Introduction and Neutral Cards, click here