Organized Play

[silverclawgrizzly]

I think I've a good idea of everyone's views. I thank you all for your input. I've got some implention to test.

Also Red as a final snark: I can put 80 damage on Obsidian Soul in that time limit

[Beldin]

Timed versus non timed books are completely different animals. They could even share the same spells but be played using different beats. In a timed game there is always that sword of Damocles hanging over you that you must finish in a set time or risk losing to a time decision.

In my experience these books do not hang about and follow a pattern of Setup/Mana, creatures, kill/mitigate problems. Huge swings of damage are important as, even if they do not kill the opponent then it will affect their ability to win during a "to time" decision. This is why I would say that Restore should be banned in competitive play it focuses a win at timed. Sure I mistyped a value, but the core of the argument is still there. The Priestess can easily swing 19 (10 + 8 dice (avg) + 1) damage on average with a heal and restore. No other mage can do this and thus it is an unfair advantage.

In untimed games then I have no time limit to worry about and my focus shifts so I can get my manas worth out of a spell. Over 4-5 hours you can easily just build an armored shell, where corrode and rust does not affect you greatly. Sure you want to go to the kill but it is at your speed and it becomes a game of poker and chess to outfox the opponent at a leisurely speed.

[Kelanen]

I've heard you speak a lot about the books that you run. Could you post in the spellbook section your best book? If there is a tie just post them all? I would really like to check it out.

I'm not a fan of revealing my books to anyone (a book is MUCH easier to play against once you know how many dissolves/jinxes/wands/etc are in it). It's for that reason when I was playing CCG's to national and ProTour level, I rarely went back to a book for high level play once it's been published as a Top 8 decklist.  As such, I never post any of my books - I much more interested in preserving my win percentages than helping anyone else!

That said, the aforementioned Druid is never going to be tournament viable for the reasons named, so what the hell I'll post it. That said, we are all working from the same fairly small card pool, so I doubt it will be too revolutionary - it's more about playstyle and metagame I suspect. But sure, give me a few and I'll revert it to it's last non-playtest version and post it.

[Reddicediaries]

I've heard you speak a lot about the books that you run. Could you post in the spellbook section your best book? If there is a tie just post them all? I would really like to check it out.

I'm not a fan of revealing my books to anyone (a book is MUCH easier to play against once you know how many dissolves/jinxes/wands/etc are in it). It's for that reason when I was playing CCG's to national and ProTour level, I rarely went back to a book for high level play once it's been published as a Top 8 decklist.  As such, I never post any of my books - I much more interested in preserving my win percentages than helping anyone else!

That said, the aforementioned Druid is never going to be tournament viable for the reasons named, so what the hell I'll post it. That said, we are all working from the same fairly small card pool, so I doubt it will be too revolutionary - it's more about playstyle and metagame I suspect. But sure, give me a few and I'll revert it to it's last non-playtest version and post it.

Well I understand you're not a fan of revealing books but realistically who on this forum is going to play them?
Most of the ones asking are North American players and will likely never face you unless you join ADMW.
Can't hurt that much, can it?

[Kelanen]

Well I understand you're not a fan of revealing books but realistically who on this forum is going to play them?
Most of the ones asking are North American players and will likely never face you unless you join ADMW.
Can't hurt that much, can it?

Well it reveals cards and counts to my regular play partner - that's the big hit!

All that work, starting with high counts of duplicates, that I slow tune down as he gives up on destroying them all. Clearly I'll need to rework it after. But yeah, I agree it doesn't matter much, if it did, I wouldn't be posting it!

I'm catching up on lost of playtesting posts in the other forum atm, but I'll get it reverted and posted at the weekend I'd think.

[magerunner]

So I am very late to this conversation but I would like to put my thoughts out there and a Mage Wars event runner at Conventions (Con Carolina and Mace here in NC).  Warning this is a bit long, but please read it all if you are so inclined.

Overall Mage Wars objective is to take out the other mage.  That said the only hic-up that we come across are games that go to the time limit.  I am in the camp that games that go to time are a draw, whit no winner or loser, and should be scored as such.  Either marked at a draw/tie or if going by point then award both mages the equal points.  I also believe that a points-based system would be the best for tracking standings and not worry about Win/Loss/Tie.  If we would do that at time limit draw, and we would give as much time as we can to players to allow a conclusion (75-80-90 minute games). 

While most games do not go to the time limit, there are some who build does more to keep their mage alive than to take out the other mage.  What makes this hard is a couple of things.
1. The player who may be expecting to go to the time limit, and win this way, is prepared.  The other player may not be and this can be very tiring physically and mentally, as you do not get a break between matches.
2. This is a stress on the Event Runners trying to get the next set of matches going in a timely manner without allowing too much time between the matches.

Not all endings can have a clear winner/loser and Mage Wars matches going to time are that way.  I have seen matches if Time would be called like normal then one player would be the loser when compared to the way things are wanting to be done, but as the play goes a bit longer this same player will easily win.  I am a big supporter of an even draw.  Some might think well then the player who went to time 3 time and draw won't get a chance to get to finals.  This may be true, and that is something that I am ok with.  Will they have more points than a mage who lost 3 times, yeah.  Will they have more points than a  mage that won twice and lost one, likely not.  Three draws should be equal to 1.5 wins.  So they would be ranked higher than any 1 win 2 loss players, but not above 2 wins. 

Some might think this is penalizing players that have their match go to the time limit.  You can look at it that way, but only if you compare it to how it is being done now.  What I am looking at is a forward facing idea on how to make the idea of the timed game (no matter what the time limit is) be scorable and easy not only to the players but to the Event Runners as well.  So, as an example, You make Wins 2 points, Loss 0, Draw game 1 point for each mage. 

These are my thoughts, I have had them for a while and I just wanted to put them out.

[zot]

Well I understand you're not a fan of revealing books but realistically who on this forum is going to play them?
Most of the ones asking are North American players and will likely never face you unless you join ADMW.
Can't hurt that much, can it?

Well it reveals cards and counts to my regular play partner - that's the big hit!

All that work, starting with high counts of duplicates, that I slow tune down as he gives up on destroying them all. Clearly I'll need to rework it after. But yeah, I agree it doesn't matter much, if it did, I wouldn't be posting it!

I'm catching up on lost of playtesting posts in the other forum atm, but I'll get it reverted and posted at the weekend I'd think.

I am also in the no deck posting group. i always had a negative view of netdecking by folks back in my mtg days. i wanted to be more unique, and never bothered looking at such things. i expected opponents to do the same. build your own stuff.

however some people just are not able to wrap their minds around how to build a tuned book. they hate that part of the game and just want to play. i don't get that, but some are that way. they are just different than me and that is fine. however, that said one of my peeves is that i do not want to face my books. i want to face an opponents book based on their own strategy or tactics. not a mirror of how i think.

for me, my books(competitive) represent many, many (in some cases - another many) hours of thought and obsessing over what makes it in. even a small change requires more agonizing over what to cut. for me that is part of the fun of mw, that deck building aspect. so for someone to just get a copy of my book obscenely short changes that process. why should they benefit from so much of my time spent on tuning and tuning something? it is sort of like looking up cheat codes for a game. so i never post books.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Well I understand you're not a fan of revealing books but realistically who on this forum is going to play them?
Most of the ones asking are North American players and will likely never face you unless you join ADMW.
Can't hurt that much, can it?

Well it reveals cards and counts to my regular play partner - that's the big hit!

All that work, starting with high counts of duplicates, that I slow tune down as he gives up on destroying them all. Clearly I'll need to rework it after. But yeah, I agree it doesn't matter much, if it did, I wouldn't be posting it!

I'm catching up on lost of playtesting posts in the other forum atm, but I'll get it reverted and posted at the weekend I'd think.

I am also in the no deck posting group. i always had a negative view of netdecking by folks back in my mtg days. i wanted to be more unique, and never bothered looking at such things. i expected opponents to do the same. build your own stuff.

however some people just are not able to wrap their minds around how to build a tuned book. they hate that part of the game and just want to play. i don't get that, but some are that way. they are just different than me and that is fine. however, that said one of my peeves is that i do not want to face my books. i want to face an opponents book based on their own strategy or tactics. not a mirror of how i think.

for me, my books(competitive) represent many, many (in some cases - another many) hours of thought and obsessing over what makes it in. even a small change requires more agonizing over what to cut. for me that is part of the fun of mw, that deck building aspect. so for someone to just get a copy of my book obscenely short changes that process. why should they benefit from so much of my time spent on tuning and tuning something? it is sort of like looking up cheat codes for a game. so i never post books.

Because it's nothing like looking up cheat codes for a game? If this were MTG where deck building skill was a lot more important than play skill, I would say you have a point. But this isnt mtg. Why does it matter to you so much which decks other people use? Who cares if they use the same deck as you? If they win against you using the same deck that you are playing that means they had more skill with that deck than you, regardless of who designed the deck originally.

If anything it's harder to win using someone else's deck when you first pick it up because you're not as familiar with it as someone who actually designed it. It can take a lot of practice and trial and error to figure out how to play someone else's deck well. It only makes things easier AFTER you've practiced with the deck enough, or if your own deck building skills are bad enough that the trade off between familiarity and good deck design is worth it. I suspect that it's the latter situation that you're worried about. But there are also highly skilled deckbuilders who like to try different things that other players came up with too in addition to their own.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using Tapatalk

[silverclawgrizzly]

As this is getting into a rather rude off topic debate I'm gonna ask that the topic of posting your book be taken else where.

For the record: Any request from a player that I not share their book is respected at any event I run.

[Obsidian Soul]

I agree that is appropriate.  In my case, it does not matter if my books are posted because they change with each iteration (though some cards always stay the same).

[RomeoXero]

I kinda agree with Zot here. Even in my mtg days i used to hate it when someone borrowed one of my decks and then beat me with it. I get that the shared books here are usually about getting feedback and looking for tweaks to make it better, and most of the edits and finished products don't make it to the boards.
I can see the draw if a sort of plug and play variety where you can just grab a book and go,  but literally half of the game is in the book building. If you can't make one yourself you can't win. I imagine its a bit like what am actual mage might be like with his own crafted arena strategies. Jealously guarded I'm sure.

[Obsidian Soul]

I tend to disagree.  The game is strategy, then spellbooks, then luck.  While every spellbook has its own particularities, you start noticing enough similarities to play even a strange spellbook well after you play 500 or 600 matches.  While you will always be best with a spellbook you designed, you should be able to win with any decent spellbook.

[zot]

romeo, that is why i had a well known rule. i never lent my mtg decks to anyone.

[silverclawgrizzly]

I have made a separate post so that you may discuss net building there.

[Biblofilter]

Current Gen-Con layout:

~4 rounds of qualifying. 0 points for a timed win? *

Semifinals. If those goes to time, how will you determine a winner?

Finals. No timelimit.


*The 0 points for a timed win might create problems. What do we do if there is a group of players with 2 kills and 2 losses? (If we can´t tell who is in top 4)

And a few ideas/thoughts:

Id like 90 min matches - fewer matches should go to time.

Let all the matches run with a timelimit of 2 hours. "Winner" advances. With 16 mages that would mean we would only play 1-4 matches. If your dead your out

Have anyone tried or considering letting the mages start in the middle of the arena instead? It should speed things up.