Magic the Gathering Interactive Encyclopedia

Rating:
Summary: Flawed, but a must for every 'Expert' player
Review: With the number of unique magic cards getting big enough to stretch to the moon and back, I was pretty excited when I first read about Encyclopedia. "Spoiler" lists have long been available from the web, but not with illustrations. Encyclopedia is true to its name, containing pictures of every card in existence--even the oddities and "lost" cards. I was a little disappointed, though not too surprised, to discover that the "play" feature isn't an AI-controlled game like Duels of the Plansewalkers. Instead, it's just a virtual card table to play virtual decks against virtual friends online. As such, not really my cup of tea--it's the encyclopedia and deck analysis that interested me. That's right, not only can you keep track of your decks, but you can get charts of every conceivable statistic--ratios of spell types is only the begining.

It all sounds a litte too good to be true, and without a doubt, there are some significant shortcomings of this program. It's quite slow and resource-heavy, and the sloppy programming goes beyond that--you need a patch (available free online) just to get accurate deck analysis.

Another major problem lies in the fact that your collection as a whole can't be managed with nearly the same flexibility as your decks. You can't see how much your whole collection is worth, for instance--you can only view the price of one card a time. (Price lists are available for free download from the web.) And to see any other important stats of your entire collection, you'd have to create a giant "deck" using all your cards! Ridiculous.

Buy this program for what its title suggests; it works best as a visual encyclopedia of every card in existence. The bells and whistles need some serious work.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed, but a must for every 'Expert' player
Review: With the number of unique magic cards getting big enough to stretch to the moon and back, I was pretty excited when I first read about Encyclopedia. "Spoiler" lists have long been available from the web, but not with illustrations. Encyclopedia is true to its name, containing pictures of every card in existence--even the oddities and "lost" cards. I was a little disappointed, though not too surprised, to discover that the "play" feature isn't an AI-controlled game like Duels of the Plansewalkers. Instead, it's just a virtual card table to play virtual decks against virtual friends online. As such, not really my cup of tea--it's the encyclopedia and deck analysis that interested me. That's right, not only can you keep track of your decks, but you can get charts of every conceivable statistic--ratios of spell types is only the begining.

It all sounds a litte too good to be true, and without a doubt, there are some significant shortcomings of this program. It's quite slow and resource-heavy, and the sloppy programming goes beyond that--you need a patch (available free online) just to get accurate deck analysis.

Another major problem lies in the fact that your collection as a whole can't be managed with nearly the same flexibility as your decks. You can't see how much your whole collection is worth, for instance--you can only view the price of one card a time. (Price lists are available for free download from the web.) And to see any other important stats of your entire collection, you'd have to create a giant "deck" using all your cards! Ridiculous.

Buy this program for what its title suggests; it works best as a visual encyclopedia of every card in existence. The bells and whistles need some serious work.