Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => General Discussion => Topic started by: Jock McFistpunch on December 29, 2017, 07:47:59 PM
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Hi everyone,
I am really excited to play mage wars and I just got academy. I haven't tried arena yet but I hope to get my friends playing both of them soon.
So, how do you guys track down players in your area? What about playing on OCTGN? I'm looking for ways to try and get started since I like to game as a social activity, even if it's online.
Any tips would be helpful, and hopefully we'll play some time soon.
:)
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Welcome Jock! Always glad to meet new Mage Warriors! What area are you in? There may be active communities we can point you towards. What mages have caught your eye?
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I'm located in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Mage wise, I think the priestess is going to be pretty cool. I've always liked playing cleric type characters in games for some reason.
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The Priestess is a cool mage, though you will find that you tend to devote more spell points for creatures and incantations than many other mages. If you end up playing Priestess, Battle for Kumanjaro is an essential expansion after the base set because of the Guardian Angels, which are still the best defensive units in the game (you will find that it usually takes four times their mana cost and their spell point cost in attack spells and conjuration spells to bring them down because of the combination of thei healing ability, dodge chance, and Aegis). After BfK, I would suggest getting Academy Priestess, Paladin v Siren, and then the Lost Grimoire 1 in that order (you will also be able to make a decent two more good spellbooks with that combination of cards), though you can take your time getting those, as I had a great Priestess spellbook years before they came out.
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So two questions:
What are some general book building guidelines? (I'm guessing there are some posts about this but I'm not sure where)
and
How do you connect with players in your area?
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I wish I knew that answer to the second one, I have not had much luck finding people since I left my old community (where I played an average of 8 games per week for 2 1/2 years). As for the first one, there are a few important spells that most of my spellbooks tend to have: 2 Dispels, 2 Dissolves, 2 Nullifies, and 2 Limited Teleport (or Teleport). I tend to favor books that have 8-12 creatures because I tend to cast 8-12 creatures, but everyone has their own preferences. I think that the best thing I can tell you is build a spellbook and play the heck out of it, either online or in reality.
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I wish I knew that answer to the second one, I have not had much luck finding people since I left my old community (where I played an average of 8 games per week for 2 1/2 years). As for the first one, there are a few important spells that most of my spellbooks tend to have: 2 Dispels, 2 Dissolves, 2 Nullifies, and 2 Limited Teleport (or Teleport). I tend to favor books that have 8-12 creatures because I tend to cast 8-12 creatures, but everyone has their own preferences. I think that the best thing I can tell you is build a spellbook and play the heck out of it, either online or in reality.
I'm pretty sure we live 5 hours away from each other, no? Rochester and New York aren't that far apart.
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So two questions:
What are some general book building guidelines? (I'm guessing there are some posts about this but I'm not sure where)
and
How do you connect with players in your area?
When it comes to building books my advice would be to try and come up with an overall gameplan on how you're supposed to beat your opponent. Also some sort of counter vs other types of decks: Aggro - Greed - Mass Creatures - Buddy builds - Beefy mage.
Try and think of how you can get answers to these different playstyles within your main school and try and go as little as possible outside your own school if it's not for something of great importance. Think of weaknesses with your deck and how you can work around it in different scenarios.
Another tip would be to look at a bunch of games on Arcane Duels youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJlTpUZS02GTO9rWXbR-jow), here you can see a ton of games from different players and get an overlook on what people like to play and how they deal with different situations.
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What are some general book building guidelines?
The first bit of advice that I got when I started was to not put too many of one thing in a book. My friend specifically told me to be careful how of many creatures and how many mana generators I put in. His general rule was about 1/4 of the book (30 points) in creatures max (more or less depending on how much I am depending on them), and about 15 mana cost in mana generators or less.
The concerns there were that I would have enough of other things to make the book viable in most situations, and that I wouldn't spend too much time and effort in setting up economy.
Other than that, you mostly want to focus on in-school spells (spells that match your training), since those spells are more cost efficient in terms of spellbook points. For example, a Dark mage needs healing... but the surcharge on Holy spells make taking a Heal less practical. Instead, you look at the Dark school and take a Drain Soul or somesuch instead. Also, remember that Novice spells can be effectively considered in school.
Once you find a core set of spells that you want to use, figure out two things: 1) How you are going to kill the enemy as quickly as possible which keeping yourself from being killed (a.k.a. how are you going to win), and 2) What are some opening sequences that you can use to set yourself up to accomplish #1.
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Like Obsidian Soul my best advice is always "play the living crap out of your book and take out what doesn't work." Other than that though here's what I got: Make your mage do what your mage is suppose to do. It's fun to go with wacky strategies, and sometimes they work, but learn what each mage is good at and go do that. Warlord is it? Start piling on the damage man. Necromancer you say? Start chipping away at their life until you can hit em with the big guns. Don't set fires with a Druid, and don't try to turtle with a Force Master for example.
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when playing arena play the apprentice mode and set up the apprentice books first.
I recommend the warlock and beastmaster for your first game. you could set all four up just in case a friend wants to try out the other two. Just go through the phases and play and learn as you go. you may realize especially in arena a rule may of been played wrong. But the key is to just have fun. for rules question check the forums and if you cant find an answer ask and someone will respond rather quickly.
Also there is a discord channel for mage wars where players will look for games to play on OCTGN or ask rules questions or simply discuss books and strats.
If you are looking for players i recommend setting up your local game store and seeing if you can teach people the game. if you have a buddy you both could go.
Good luck.
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Thanks for the help everyone. I've been meaning to check out a local shop by me and I'm trying to get my friends into it. So far so good on the friend front. 2 people really liked it and I'm sure after the other has had another chance at it it would make more sense.
I've got all the current Academy expansions now so I will try building a few decks with that and then see how many fireballs I can throw at people in arena.
And quick question, are spawn points worth it? 15 mana for the Beastmaster some seems a bit overpriced since I usually die in like 9 turns, that only nets me 5 mana in the long run and my dead mage can't use it. :(
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Well, it depends on your play style. You could just bring out the Ring of Beasts and a Steelclaw Grizzly your first turn, two Mana Flowers on your second turn, and then start buffing and supporting your Steelclaw with Enchantments and level one animals (I would suggest Falcons). With the arena and academy enchantments, the Beastmaster is capable of having Grizzlies deal 14 dice of unavoidable damage without difficulty.
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Spawn points are still good. That being said their main benefit is action advantage not mana. A lair takes about 8 rounds to pay itself back in mana, but in actions it already pays itself back in two deployments. If you consider a full action in Arena to be twice the value of a quick action (approximately), then it cost one converted quick action to cast lair, and then it effectively gives you +2 converted quick actions per round to be used on action generators (in this case creatures) which in turn each give you +2 converted quick actions every reset phase to use during the action stage. This, as the amount of time lair is in play increases, the net increase in its controller' s actions per round increase exponentially.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using Tapatalk
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It is not that straightforward, as you still have to have mana to use the actions. In general, I find that a spawnpoint saves an action every other turn, but at the cost of the summoned creature being deployed away from your Mage (with the exception of the Necromancer, since he carries his spawnpoint). It really depends on your opponent. If you are against a Warlock, forget about the spawnpoint, as he will destroy it with the ballista and the trebuchet. The same applies for the Forcemaster, though she will just use Force Hammer.
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In my experience, destroying spawnpoints is a risky maneuver. They are worth it if you can get a critical mass of dice and actions on the table before your opponent is able to perforate you beyond healing.
It generally comes down to what style of book you want to play. If you're interested in level 1 and level 2 creatures and only a couple of level 3s then spawnpoint is something to consider. If you are primarily interested in fielding an elite squad of level 3-4 creatures then you should replace the spawnpoint with some mana generation and hard cast your team and keep them supported.
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I agree. With my books, I tend to run 8-12 level 3-4 creatures (the Necromancer and the Druid being the exceptions), so I just hardcast them. With 13-14 Channeling, you can usually get a large creature out every other turn.
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Creature Spawnpoints are very helpful if you have another use for your full action. Things like meditating using the Meditation Amulet, attacking using the full action, or even moving will keep the Mage from hard-casting Creatures in most circumstances. Also, you can potentially cast a second Creature if you also use a Creature Spawnpoint (main candidates here include Straywood Beastmaster and Necromancer).
If your book uses any of these ideas as major parts of its strategy, and includes more than just a few Creatures, you should consider whether you will want to use a Creature Spawnpoint.
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I agree. With my books, I tend to run 8-12 level 3-4 creatures (the Necromancer and the Druid being the exceptions), so I just hardcast them. With 13-14 Channeling, you can usually get a large creature out every other turn.
Well that's interesting.
I really am thinking that you will be at a big disadvantage vs books that have the same amount of creatures except they have a spawnpoint to cast their creatures for them.
Temple Priestess vs Hardcasting Priestess comes to mind, but Warlord, Johktari, Necro, Wizard, Siren, and Pally also come to mind.
It all comes down to personal playstyle and card choices though. Test your books out a lot and make play changes/change the book depending on how it is doing in testing.
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Honestly obsidian soul, when was your last mage wars match? Im not being mean or anything but I'm insanely curious as to what meta you were involved in. When exactly was the last time you played mage wars arena?
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I've focused on the Straywood since I got into MW. My books good enough to win any fight against any mage, and can lose to any mage as well. That being said I'll do my best to answer the Lair question.
Short answer: I haven't cast it in over a year.
Longer explanation: It's incredibly useful if you can use it to bring in some mid to late game back up. You can cast it early, then do a turn of or two of enchanting yourself/level 1 creatures/cheap equipment while you build up your mana. The main issue is to make sure the enemy doesn't focus on it, if you can do that then it'll be a huge help to you. That in mind be prepared to cast a big hitter like a Pet Timber Wolf or even a grizzly yourself. The main thing with a Beast Master is you want to have enough "fires on the burner" so to speak that your opponent can't focus on just one.
Also to answer for Obsidian Soul: He fought me about a week or so ago.
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I love me some spwnpoints. It just depends on playstyle and what you want to be doing during your match. My super swarmaster build requires a lair so I can cast three creature a turn. The lair is by far my favorite spawnpoint, I may be a little biased but it's super strong can take a beating and if it saves you a few attacks and cast one or two creatures it is totally still worth it. The vine tree is also really good. Spawnpoints save your Mage actions and/or allow your Mage to do other things or cast a bonus action.
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Honestly obsidian soul, when was your last mage wars match? Im not being mean or anything but I'm insanely curious as to what meta you were involved in. When exactly was the last time you played mage wars arena?
I went 2-1 with steelclawgrizzly using a zombie Necromancer I was experimenting with (though he was experimenting with three new books, so it was not representative of our usual matches), and 0-1 with a Forcemaster that I stripped apart after the game for deck sleeves for two academy mages because it did so badly. Of course, I used the equipment spawnpoint in the Necromancer, what is there not to like, but I would never bother with the Graveyard.
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As a counter point to the Carolina Crew, the winner of GenCon 2016 used Graveyard to great effect. I would say that, as spawnpoints go, you see battleforge all the time, Lair and Graveyard are very good, Temple of Asyra almost always costs your opponent more to destroy than they think it will and pentagram is almost never used.
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Haha so many flavours and oppinions in book building. Thats why I love mage wars, everyone can have their completely personalised style with every mage.
Personally on spawnpoints:
I love the graveyard in my zombie necre
Never use the lair in my straywood
Bloodwave has the forge, baracks and even a builder (not truly a spawnpoint but still)
Warlock has the forge
And priestess has the temple
Those are my most used books currently.
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Hehehe the winner of Gen Con 2016 didn't use Graveyard in his finals match much lol. Friggin Littlenog killed it on Turn 3 with the bear of doom.
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Mace 2016 winner used graveyard in every match! 8)
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Okay, so I tried out my first book and got schooled by Romeoxero as Reddicediaries looked on. It was still fun. They gave me a lot of good tips when it came to building, but I'm still having trouble narrowing my focus. I have a few ideas for books, but I don't know which mages would work best for the strategies I want to try since I only have the core Arena set ( I have all of the Academy ones though) and I don't know if these would even be possible.
Here are some of the ideas I would like to try:
Kill the enemy by poison and creature swarm
Weaken enemy creatures and and beat them up with my buff mage
Try to control the enemy's movement through spells like Push and then sling attack spells like I have a fireball throwing machine gun
Oh, and winning. That sounds like fun. :)
Any tips are appreciated.
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Here are some of the ideas I would like to try:
Kill the enemy by poison and creature swarm
Weaken enemy creatures and and beat them up with my buff mage
Try to control the enemy's movement through spells like Push and then sling attack spells like I have a fireball throwing machine gun
Oh, and winning. That sounds like fun. :)
Any tips are appreciated.
I can recommend winning. It's really good!
Also, the best tip for this entire game, which I always try to adhere to myself (not always successfully):
ROLL WELL
Seriously, the best designed book in the world, handled perfectly, can still lose to a piece of rubbish if it rolls badly and the rubbish rolls well. Getting 3 damage from your 13-dice attack? Lose the game. Opponent gets 15 damage back from an 8-dice Heal? It happens.
(This comment may sound trite and may be a bitter reaction to what happened to me in a game recently)
Seriously, though:
Step one for designing any book: Consider how you are going to get those attack dice onto your opponent (lots of little creatures? a few big creatures? attack spells? pushing them through walls? buff your mage and charge?)
Step two: Consider how you are usually going to avoid having your opponent's attack dice getting to you (armour? defences? enchantments like Block? using creatures to guard? hiding behind walls?)
Step three: Consider whether there are any types of Mage that your choices in Steps one and two will be weak against, and what options you may need to include for those situations.
Step four: The metamagic game. How are you going to get rid of the opponent's enchantments and equipment. How are you going to ensure they don't get rid of yours? (nullifys, dispels, dissolves and so on)
Step five: Are you going to assert any board control and have freedom of movement (pushes, teleports, walls, tanglevines)
Now just try to stuff all that into 120sbp in a way that your expected mana supply can maintain turn on turn. :)
Oh, and practice, practice, practice...
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Okay, so I tried out my first book and got schooled by Romeoxero as Reddicediaries looked on. It was still fun. They gave me a lot of good tips when it came to building, but I'm still having trouble narrowing my focus. I have a few ideas for books, but I don't know which mages would work best for the strategies I want to try since I only have the core Arena set ( I have all of the Academy ones though) and I don't know if these would even be possible.
Here are some of the ideas I would like to try:
Kill the enemy by poison and creature swarm
Weaken enemy creatures and and beat them up with my buff mage
Try to control the enemy's movement through spells like Push and then sling attack spells like I have a fireball throwing machine gun
Oh, and winning. That sounds like fun. :)
Any tips are appreciated.
There's an old Go proverb that applies to Mage Wars quite well: "Lose your first 50 games as fast as you can."
It pretty much boils down to the more you encounter the more you learn. The more mistakes you make the more you can correct them.
I would try for ONE thing in your book. For instance, I have a Straywood book that's only goal is to grapple the enemy mage (or their biggest threat) with a Colossal Crab. I've built that entire book around having a crab that survives crushing things to death. Is it the best book in the world? Absolutely not. Is it fun and can it win? Absolutely yes! More importantly, I have a clear goal in mind at the beginning of the game and I can evaluate how well I achieved that goal at the end of the game which results in adding or removing cards and trying again.
Another example is an Adramelech Warlock book where I wanted to summon a bunch of little imps and buff them all with Etherian Life Tree, Marked for Death and Bloodfire Helmet. Has it ever won a game? I don't think so. So maybe that idea doesn't work :)
Like a few people have said, the best thing you can do is practice. Lose your first 50 games as fast as you can.
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and above all enjoy the games. of course winning is great, but you can have an awesome time and still lose. learn from mistakes made during the game on both sides. if you are really new to mw, focus on one book for a while. once you are comfortable with it. try playing a few more different mages. you will find that by playing other mages you will get a feel for what to expect from them when you face them with your primary mage. welcome to the community.
there are a lot of great people playing that you can meet. and good luck. we will see you in the arena.