Koz more or less has the right of this discussion, as it was originally presented. Everyone immediately took a rabbit hole to discuss how the Warlock is good, but that was not what this thread is about.

The Warlock has a weaker inbuilt support system, by far. His spawnpoint is terrible. His Bloodreaper ability is more dangerous for him than useful.

-nihil

Um, no.

One word:

Highlander.

The quickening system, while cool, fun, and interesting, utterly ruined organized play. Organized Play, itself, became much more complicated than it ever needed to be, because from inception any tournament had to have special stipulations re: whether quickenings were allowed, if so; how many, which ones, etc. Furthermore, it almost immediately became a game of haves vs. have-nots, because Quickenings were either prizes at tournaments, or limited edition cards. The Secondary Market was uproarious. It was a nightmare, and because of that nightmare the game tanked harder than Bell Bottoms.

The only way something like this could work, in my opinion, is if a mini-expansion was done exclusively tailored to this, and it was released broad-spectrum. The second caveat would be that these attachments would cost points from your spellbook.

But my reaction is still "no. Highlander proved this is a bad idea."

-nihil

There is a simpler, and much more grounded reason that the Mages should have names:

Expansion.

The ability to create multiple different Mages that are the same "class" (i.e. "Priestess" or "Wizard") is a powerful opportunity to grow this game toward customization options that are currently unrealistic.

For example:

The current Priestess does X and Y. X= the ability to remove condition markers from characters. Y= gaining 1 life every time a holy incantation or enchantment is revealed. It would be so much...richer...for the game, if there were multiple kinds of Priestess who each did something just a little bit differently, but still were all in the Holy School.

Design = easier when you don't work your way into a corner from inception.

-nihil

To further clarify:

If you go to the back of the rulebook, and check the index for "Upkeep" you'll see this:

Upkeep +X
This object’s controller pays X mana during each Upkeep Phase or this
object is destroyed.

The key word in this description is "Object."

Looking up the word "Object" you'll see this:

Object
Enchantments, equipment, creatures, and conjurations are spells which
become objects in the game, remaining in play after they are cast. The
Mage is also considered an object. Incantation and attack spells do not
become objects.


So, "Objects" can have an upkeep cost. Your enchantment is an Object. The creature to which it is attached is also an Object, but unless your enchantment, by its text, confers an upkeep cost to the creature, it is the enchantment that has the upkeep cost.

So, yeah, everything that's already been said, but with more layout for clarity's sake....and perhaps I'm the only one who wanted that, but there it is, and I'm sleepy, so I'm going to take a nap, now.

...

/end ramble

-nihil

Thanks for your time. I'm always interested to see how my competi..., erm, eh, friends in the industry, handle their business models.  

j/k

-nihil

I read (have read) those, thank you.

I'll express myself more bluntly, I think:

I think there is an intrinsic flaw in a system that says "this Mage wins by stalling out the game until the last few minutes, then heals to win on a technicality of the tiebreaker system"

...

And I think it's especially telling when design/playtest points to that as "viable."

Actually, I think the word for which I'm searching is "tragic."

I'm pretty much done with this, I think. I appreciate the perspectives you've given, and the time you've taken. At this point, however, I see a flaw that you perhaps do not see, and so we are at an impasse. Obviously Mage Wars is still a young game, and most young games are flawed in some respect. What I would like to see is an effort by design to blur the lines and create viable options for players beyond blitz and swarm as approachable tactics in an organized play setting. Right now there is at least one Mage that can do neither, and at least one other that does neither particularly well. That doesn't speak well to the overall health of the organized play environment. More Mages, and more options for current mages are, IMO, necessary to see a healthy, flourishing OP environment take form.

-nihil

As someone who designs games as a hobby, I'm always curious to know about the production methods that go into a game. In looking at Mage Wars, I'm simply flabbergasted at the seemingly endless nuances of production that have gone into making this game so exceptional "out of the box."


[ul]
  [li]Cards[/li]
  [li]Punch-Boards[/li]
  [li]Dice[/li]
  [li]Wooden Tokens[/li]
  [li]Binders[/li]
  [li]Foldout Board[/li]
[/ul]

In doing my own production analysis, I was unable to find a production house that could incorporate all of these different elements into a single box. Not talking prices, here, just...unable to find a house that could do it all.

I'm curious how difficult it was to get this game produced.

1) Was a production house found that "did it all?"
2) If not, how many separate production houses manufactured how many different components?
3) If following 2, how were the separate components brought together? Was this done in-house, or was there a primary producer who coordinated the various elements into one box, then shrinkwrapped it?
4) (touchy subject) -> Price point? Obviously I could reverse engineer a projection on how much it costs this company to produce a single copy of Mage Wars...that's not my question. How, erm, compromising did this company have to be in regard to getting everything done at a reasonable price per unit? I'll explain: Typically, with any sort of mass production, PPU goes down at rough margins per 1k units (somewhere in the neighborhood of a 10% reduction per unit per 1k units produced, to a cap). Without knowing anything about the funding potentials for Mage Wars, this is an impossible guessing game for an outsider. When looking at all the fundamental elements, how much did this company have to "work with" the primary production house to get the overall pricetag down in relation to PPU?
5) (open-ended) -> How would things have been done differently assuming there were no limitations on options or funding? That is to say; would MW look significantly different if money had been no issue, and there was a magical production house out there that could literally do "anything" you wanted done?

Thanks for the insight!  

-nihil

When it comes down to it the OP very vague almost asking is it even possible to play in an hour. Therefore one of the first things I used as an example was OP. Due to the fact in a tourney format you need rounds to run in a reasonable and timely manner this was a good place to explain the basics of how such a format would work. When I did this I knew I would have to give examples of tiebreaker rules and how an end of round would work also.

And you have been most gracious with your information.

I disagree with you on certain principles of how Organized Play will work, but I do believe, now, that it is not something that can actually be fixed unless the game itself begins to allow more varied playstyles and archetypes to be competitive. I'm wanting things for the game now that cannot probably exist now.

This game is very well designed and playtested, obviously, but as things are I feel a lot of what this game offers in terms of strategy and gameplay is hampered and unduly limited by slapping a time limit on it, which, as you said, is a necessity for Organized Play at any level. That isn't a problem unique to Mage Wars, however.

Mage Wars, then, is just another game on the totem pole where being reasonably informed about tournament structure includes the fact that certain decks and/or playstyles are not globally viable in a tournament setting, where outside of a tournament setting they can be exceptional. Nothing new. Unwelcome, but not new. I sincerely hope that future expansions and releases can help mitigate the disparity of viability between mages.

-nihil