War for example should be the school for Artifice (the opposite of Nature), hence prevalent in Equipment and Structures. I don't actually like the Fire in Battle Forge because Fire is destructive, not constructive in theme, and it does not synergise with Equipment. I would have made Battle Forge War 1 Arcane 1 because it makes magic items.
I'm glad they didn't make it 1 War/1 Arcane: it would have been yet another slap in the face to the Warlord.
Though I think they made it 1 War/1 Fire since the forge itself requires fire to make the equipment, so mastering the fire aspect of it would be essential to make the shape of the object, with the actual item enchantment being done by the mage and not by the forge.
Incredibly I did read the whole of your post even if I only quoted part of it.
Fire is the school of wanton destruction. Not construction. The fact there is fire in the picture is irrelevant. Why not Earth for the steel that you shape with a Forge. It should be Fire because anyone who builds a Forge will be more likely to cast Fireball or Ring of Fire or Fireblast or Flamestorm?
I have always (until now) been in agreement with what you have written. Don't mix the fact that they don't have a Common school for all the utility spells with the totally separate fact that making a constructive card Fire is not conducive to strong theme.
Take Magic Red colour. There is nothing constructive in it. You may diss magic colours but at least it's consistent.
My argument isn't that someone using a Battle Forge is more likely to cast a Fire spell, or that it would make the Warlord even worse (simply because I expressed that I was glad this isn't so doesn't mean that I'm arguing from that position).
I think that the Battleforge is part fire because actual forges
use fire, extensively. (I've been working with a group of blacksmiths for the past few months). Having it be Earth for the iron used in making items wouldn't make sense to me since those are things used by the forge, not what the forge
is. The materials for the forging are supplied by the mage, and the forge works with them (using fire as appropriate for metalworking) to produce the finished product.
Also, from the spells we have available so far,
every elemental school could be described at destructive. In the water school we have water attacks, dissolve, and Renewing Rain. Aside from that card, it's all destruction and offense, for example. I'm sure that the spells we see in the game will never be fully representative of all of the schools of magic, simply because this game is about defeating the other mage. Fire magic used in cooking, for example, isn't destructive (at least not any more destructive than the fire in a forge), yet we'll never see it because it doesn't help you defeat your opponent in some way. Fire has more uses than just blowing things up or setting things on fire to watch them burn, and I think that should be embraced. Using fire in the game in a way that mirrors how fire is used in real life (and would be used in daily life in Etheria) is, to me, entirely consistent with what fire is. I've always thought that games that view fire as only destructive are selling fire short of all of the awesome things it can do.
As for red in Magic not containing anything constructive, what would you call Agility, Arcane Teachings, Awaken the Ancient, Blood Moon, Braid of Fire, Bravado, Burrowing, Captive Flame, Cave Sense, Chance Encounter, Claws of Valakut, Clout of Dominus, Conquer, Crown of Flames, Crucible of Fire, etc, etc, etc?
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I haven't seen the Hydro +3 come into play yet, but that's probably just because no one I play with currently uses a water wizard/Druid. I really should start playing a water wizard; Battleforge builds are fairly common with my group.
