Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => Strategy and Tactics => Topic started by: Sailor Vulcan on June 06, 2015, 07:31:01 AM
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So one of the staff members at origins told me that focusing solely on killing the enemy mage has a very low chance of winning compared to trying to achieve domination victory. He estimated that killing the mage tends to work around 35% of the time, and domination victory 65% of the time. And it's even worse on larger boards. From what I've seen, going for domination victory tends to be a late-game strategy in the format, while killing the enemy Mage is an early strategy. How might this affect the health and diversity of the domination metagame?
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In my first game of Domination, my opponent went for the throat and won (Adramelock vs Necromancer (me)), but it was an extremely close thing, and wound have turned out differently if I had focused more on the orbs.
In my second and third games, I exploited a flaw in the mechanics to virtually guarantee myself a victory using the orbs, denying my opponent any chance to win by aggression or domination. Needless to say, it is no longer possible to do this, and killing the enemy mage has become more difficult in the process.
I would say that domination is about the orbs, and you should build your deck around that. You will find it extremely hard to win by killing the enemy mage if they are focusing on the orbs; the only scenario in which a game has a reasonable likelihood of ending by mage death is if both mages ignore the orbs and just go for the throat.
As far as health and diversity goes, I wouldn't worry about it. Arena is about killing the enemy mage. Domination is about dominating the board. Different objectives, different metas.
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So one of the staff members at origins told me that focusing solely on killing the enemy mage has a very low chance of winning compared to trying to achieve domination victory. He estimated that killing the mage tends to work around 35% of the time, and domination victory 65% of the time. And it's even worse on larger boards. From what I've seen, going for domination victory tends to be a late-game strategy in the format, while killing the enemy Mage is an early strategy. How might this affect the health and diversity of the domination metagame?
I would actually say the opposite. I think that in a domination game, you should go for the v'tar first and shift to trying to kill the opposing mage as a back-up plan if you're losing the V'tar race.
The V'tar orbs are incrementally beneficial, since you gain 2 mana/heal 2 damage when you activates them, and then 1 for each V'tar you gain during the upkeep. On the other hand, killing the enemy mage is all or nothing. If you deal all but 1 damage to the enemy mage, you still haven't gained a concrete benefit from doing so. Worse, that work can be undone by healing. There doesn't seem to be any way to make the other player lose v'tar they'be gained, though.
Winning by killing an enemy mage is still possible, but it's difficult, because the pace of domination is so much faster than the core game alone. My deck that I played against Aaron yesterday was designed to make sure I could reliably get a v'tar orb and galaxxus out by turn 3, and it's actually possible to even get an orb by turn 2 (although I abandoned those lists because I wanted a little more staying power.) If domination becomes a standard tournament format, I think the metagame is going to evolve around taking those turn 2 and 3 orbs.
The real elephant in the room, though, is Galaxxus. That card is so good in the format that I can't see competitive teams NOT including it. If you have it as a prepared spell on the turn you take your first orb, you're doubling the amount of v'tar you would otherwise receive, and you're getting mana/health back from it, too. And since it can't switch control in the same way as the orbs, there's practically no risk involved, either. Much like dispel, dissolve, and teleport, it's going to be a staple card for the format that's practically an auto-include.
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I'm not interested in Domination at all and what I read here makes me back-off even more.
I don't understand why we needed this alternative in the first place.
My fear is that it will divide a player base that is already too small to begin with.
Academy I can understand and support. We need more players and making the entrance easier makes perfect sense but Domination ... ???
Too bad I'll probably just end up buying it for the cards only.
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I'm not interested in Domination at all and what I read here makes me back-off even more.
I don't understand why we needed this alternative in the first place.
My fear is that it will divide a player base that is already too small to begin with.
Academy I can understand and support. We need more players and making the entrance easier makes perfect sense but Domination ... ???
Too bad I'll probably just end up buying it for the cards only.
I wouldn't worry too much about the Domination being impossible to kill the enemy mage. Poisoned blood and Deathlock are pretty solid to kill off the mage. I'm really interested to see what kinds of builds come out that focus on killing the enemy mage. I haven't seen anyone post the cards from the set yet, but there are some solid ways to lay on aggression with Domination.
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Just got home from Origins. I am going to jot down some notes tonight and attempt to write up a battle report from my game with Aaron. I will include the spell list I used. To answer the orginal quest. I beat Aaron by killing his mage. He was well on the path to victory by V'tar, it was a very close match. What really surprised me was this match took right around 30 mins from set up to victory.
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What really surprised me was this match took right around 30 mins from set up to victory.
And that's why I'll probably be playing Domination mode exclusively in the future and never look back.
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What really surprised me was this match took right around 30 mins from set up to victory.
And that's why I'll probably be playing Domination mode exclusively in the future and never look back.
That's what I was referring to when I wrote "My fear is that it will divide a player base that is already too small to begin with."
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From what I've seen of the Domination expansion (and my game against Aaron confirmed this), the coolest part is the potential to design your own arena. I'm also a big fan of additional win conditions, so the V'tar collection part of domination was an interesting dynamic as well.
Addressing the original post, I actually went for the kill instead of trying for the domination victory and lost. Having said that, I do think it's still a viable tactic and lost more because I messed up a move or two and not because Domination is the best way to win. They both seem pretty equal, in my first impression.
I do (somewhat) see Borg's concerns about splitting a player base. If the community can use Academy to expand, then I think the concerns will be mitigated.
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I like how V'tar puts a clock on the game. If you don't find a way to win quickly, the game will end when somebody achieves Domination. If you're playing an aggro "kill the mage" strategy, then you'd better not waste time and execute it in as few turns as possible.
Given the different recommended maps and V'tar objectives for Domination, I think balancing between Domination vs Destruction victory conditions is just a matter of tweaking the map and V'tar required to win. A small map and/or high V'tar value is going to favour destroying the enemy mage and encourage (force?) interaction between mages; a large map and/or low V'tar value is going to favour Domination and might lead to less interaction between mages.
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What really surprised me was this match took right around 30 mins from set up to victory.
And that's why I'll probably be playing Domination mode exclusively in the future and never look back.
That's what I was referring to when I wrote "My fear is that it will divide a player base that is already too small to begin with."
...or now I can actually get my friends to play since I have a faster, more multiplayer friendly version of the game. I'm anticipate being able to play Mage Wars at least twice as often now, probably more.
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Once I get my copies I will have to test out Domination mode. When I was playtesting I mostly focused on the cards and how they interacted in Arena. I will have to really test out Domination, but at the same time i need to get people who already play to test out Domination.
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What really surprised me was this match took right around 30 mins from set up to victory.
And that's why I'll probably be playing Domination mode exclusively in the future and never look back.
Our match was a bit crazy. You'll see when he posts the report, but suffice to say we started with an insane pace on that particular game. Most of the Domination games I play take about an hour +/- 15 minutes. The longest one I played was 2 hours approximately.
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What really surprised me was this match took right around 30 mins from set up to victory.
And that's why I'll probably be playing Domination mode exclusively in the future and never look back.
Our match was a bit crazy. You'll see when he posts the report, but suffice to say we started with an insane pace on that particular game. Most of the Domination games I play take about an hour +/- 15 minutes. The longest one I played was 2 hours approximately.
Did you finally get to use something other than druid? ;D
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...or now I can actually get my friends to play since I have a faster, more multiplayer friendly version of the game. I'm anticipate being able to play Mage Wars at least twice as often now, probably more.
Exactly. This is actually my final straw. If Domination mode doesn't grab my fellow players, I might as well sell my collection of Mage Wars products.
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...or now I can actually get my friends to play since I have a faster, more multiplayer friendly version of the game. I'm anticipate being able to play Mage Wars at least twice as often now, probably more.
Exactly. This is actually my final straw. If Domination mode doesn't grab my fellow players, I might as well sell my collection of Mage Wars products.
I understand, but in that case I think your friends would be even better served by having Academy at their disposal, not, as an introduction to the real game ? Now, you're just going to show them a different game.
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...or now I can actually get my friends to play since I have a faster, more multiplayer friendly version of the game. I'm anticipate being able to play Mage Wars at least twice as often now, probably more.
Exactly. This is actually my final straw. If Domination mode doesn't grab my fellow players, I might as well sell my collection of Mage Wars products.
I understand, but in that case I think your friends would be even better served by having Academy at their disposal, not, as an introduction to the real game ? Now, you're just going to show them a different game.
Does not computer. How is academy more the "real" game than domination? I would say the exact opposite. Domination uses the exact same rules as the base game, then expands upon them by including the v'tar orbs and speial map tiles. Academy uses a separate rules set that changes how guards work, doesn't even use a map, etc. Even the branding on the products itself disagrees with you by branding Domination as an Arena product, while Academy is its own, separate brand.
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...or now I can actually get my friends to play since I have a faster, more multiplayer friendly version of the game. I'm anticipate being able to play Mage Wars at least twice as often now, probably more.
Exactly. This is actually my final straw. If Domination mode doesn't grab my fellow players, I might as well sell my collection of Mage Wars products.
I understand, but in that case I think your friends would be even better served by having Academy at their disposal, not, as an introduction to the real game ? Now, you're just going to show them a different game.
Does not computer. How is academy more the "real" game than domination? I would say the exact opposite. Domination uses the exact same rules as the base game, then expands upon them by including the v'tar orbs and speial map tiles. Academy uses a separate rules set that changes how guards work, doesn't even use a map, etc. Even the branding on the products itself disagrees with you by branding Domination as an Arena product, while Academy is its own, separate brand.
The purpose of Academy is to generate new players by offering them a MW-like game with a lower learning curve.
So, yes, it is its own brand, but the idea behind it is to prepare players for the "full" game, thus trying to build a larger player base. I definitely consider this a good idea that will strengthen the game.
Domination, on the other hand is more like Arena MW, I agree, but that is exactly the reason why I doubt that players who find Arena MW " too difficult" to get into will all of a sudden pick up Domination because it's still the same difficulty level, if not harder.
I fear that Domination will generate very few new players and will split up the current player base, thus weakening the game.
Using special map tiles and different arena lay outs simply means we'll all be playing a different version of MW in a short while.
As a comparison, suppose Chess used special tiles and other victory conditions ...
I'm sure a lot of players would like that as well and play it. The end result would simply be a player base split up over different playing modes and a weaker game overall. Just my humble opinion.
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What really surprised me was this match took right around 30 mins from set up to victory.
And that's why I'll probably be playing Domination mode exclusively in the future and never look back.
Our match was a bit crazy. You'll see when he posts the report, but suffice to say we started with an insane pace on that particular game. Most of the Domination games I play take about an hour +/- 15 minutes. The longest one I played was 2 hours approximately.
Did you finally get to use something other than druid? ;D
Of the four books I made, at the end of the weekend I got to play all of them but the Anvil Throne Warlord. It was a good time.
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...or now I can actually get my friends to play since I have a faster, more multiplayer friendly version of the game. I'm anticipate being able to play Mage Wars at least twice as often now, probably more.
Exactly. This is actually my final straw. If Domination mode doesn't grab my fellow players, I might as well sell my collection of Mage Wars products.
I understand, but in that case I think your friends would be even better served by having Academy at their disposal, not, as an introduction to the real game ? Now, you're just going to show them a different game.
Does not computer. How is academy more the "real" game than domination? I would say the exact opposite. Domination uses the exact same rules as the base game, then expands upon them by including the v'tar orbs and speial map tiles. Academy uses a separate rules set that changes how guards work, doesn't even use a map, etc. Even the branding on the products itself disagrees with you by branding Domination as an Arena product, while Academy is its own, separate brand.
The purpose of Academy is to generate new players by offering them a MW-like game with a lower learning curve.
So, yes, it is its own brand, but the idea behind it is to prepare players for the "full" game, thus trying to build a larger player base. I definitely consider this a good idea that will strengthen the game.
Domination, on the other hand is more like Arena MW, I agree, but that is exactly the reason why I doubt that players who find Arena MW " too difficult" to get into will all of a sudden pick up Domination because it's still the same difficulty level, if not harder.
I fear that Domination will generate very few new players and will split up the current player base, thus weakening the game.
Using special map tiles and different arena lay outs simply means we'll all be playing a different version of MW in a short while.
As a comparison, suppose Chess used special tiles and other victory conditions ...
I'm sure a lot of players would like that as well and play it. The end result would simply be a player base split up over different playing modes and a weaker game overall. Just my humble opinion.
Except there are a LOT more people who play chess than mage wars. And there is customizable strategy chess. It's called fairy chess. Playing it is one of the things I would put on my bucket list if I thought bucket lists were actually worth anything. But no one really plays fairy chess.
I seem to have a track record of finding and getting hooked on awesome games that barely anyone plays.
Sometimes I wonder if the problem that causes our small player base isn't that mage wars is "too difficult or complex" since there are likely a lot of very brainy people who play games like mtg (whose most popular alternate variant takes abut an hour to play), strategic minis games, like chess and hero clix, and yet still shy away from mage wars.
From what I understand people seem to have one of these attitudes:
1. A complicated game that everyone already knows is simple and easy. A complicated game that is unfamiliar to most people is HARD. After all it must be since so few people play it.
2. More rules = less fun. It's not the quality of the rule set that's important so much as the quantity of them. More rules equals more complexity equals more difficulty equals more frustration. People don't like to try games with lots of rules because they think they have to memorize everything before they start, since they don't want to break the rules. It doesn't occur to people that they can learn the rules gradually over time as they play, or that it's okay to break the rules by accident when you're just a beginner.
People just don't understand games. The reason games have rules is because they would have no shape or any sort of distinct gameplay without rules. In a very real sense, games ARE their rules, brought to life by the players.
Or maybe most people when they play games prioritize social signaling over fun. Or something like that.
I am not an expert in social psychology or game theory, so take what I say with a grain of salt. :P
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I like to think of it as a progression, even in apprentice mode Mage Wars has a fairly steep learning curve. There are still a lot of conditions, actions, spells, different types of spells, order of casting, revealing enchantments, etc. A full game of Mage Wars is more of apprentice mode + added depth and difficulty. Domination is a twist on the full game of Mage Wars that shakes up the general premise of enter the arena kill the mage, to one with different shapes and terrain and the possibility of winning with out having to engage only the opponent mage.
On the other side of the spectrum is Academy, familiar to players of other card games yet introduces some of the staples of MW like spell books, the type of spells, enchantments, equipment, etc. I enjoyed academy, but would not want a steady diet of just that game, but it facilitates two things. First is portability, If Academy was released at Origins I could imagine many people dueling in the open gaming area because all I need is table space, my spell book, and some dice. The second and in my humble opinion it provides a great introduction to the full MW game.
What is particularly thematic is the progression of the spells and mages.
Academy mages are young and use mostly level one spells, their spell books contain about 40 spell book points, and they duel in a small one room training hall. Apprentice mages are fully grown, have a wider variety of spells, books contain about 60 spell points, and duel in a larger venue. Full mages have all the items of the full game and 120 spell points. Domination is a battle in a unusual arena with a native population of terrain, conjurations and terrain.
Bottom Line: There is room for all three, Mage Wars will gain players, those playing academy may or may not move on but they are still playing mage wars. Just as Mage Wars Arena players may or may not play domination. It expanse the player base and, I believe, will lead to a healthier meta for all.
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I understand, but in that case I think your friends would be even better served by having Academy at their disposal, not, as an introduction to the real game ? Now, you're just going to show them a different game.
Nope. They already know how to play the regular game. they neither need nor want or a dumbed-down version (and I don't either, since I feel it's too close to what existing CCG/LCG have to offer).
The most important issue for them is how long the game takes (although we've finished games in under one hour...) and multiplayer support. And I think (hope!) that Domination mode will help in both regards. I also feel that it's more interesting than simple player eliminiation.
There's a separate issue, and that's buy-in: I don't see that happening, no matter how well Domination will be received. However, we're playing other games (e.g. several of FFG's LCGs) where we also have the situation that there's a single player who owns all the cards. It's not a problem, though, because online deckbuilders are available, so they can still design their own decks. So it could work the same way for Mage Wars using OCTGN or this site's spellbook builder.
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I understand, but in that case I think your friends would be even better served by having Academy at their disposal, not, as an introduction to the real game ? Now, you're just going to show them a different game.
Nope. They already know how to play the regular game. they neither need nor want or a dumbed-down version (and I don't either, since I feel it's too close to what existing CCG/LCG have to offer).
The most important issue for them is how long the game takes (although we've finished games in under one hour...) and multiplayer support. And I think (hope!) that Domination mode will help in both regards. I also feel that it's more interesting than simple player eliminiation.
There's a separate issue, and that's buy-in: I don't see that happening, no matter how well Domination will be received. However, we're playing other games (e.g. several of FFG's LCGs) where we also have the situation that there's a single player who owns all the cards. It's not a problem, though, because online deckbuilders are available, so they can still design their own decks. So it could work the same way for Mage Wars using OCTGN or this site's spellbook builder.
That's my situation with mage wars. I'm the one that provides cards for everybody in my group, but if somebody wants to play a particular deck, they just have to let me know what cards they want. That arrangement has worked fine so far.
If I might attempt to steer the topic back more in the original direction, I think that effective use of the map itself is going to be important. The secret passages are a great way to get a surprise attack in on the other player, or run away if things aren't going your way. Using the Path of War scenario as an example, the map has the same number of zones as the standard arena, but the corners with the secret passages allow you to threaten zones on the other end of the map, making it FEEL smaller and more aggressive than the standard arena.
And the hazardous zones have a lot of potential for shenanigans. Pushing or teleporting an enemy into the molten lava tile, and then trapping them there with a tanglevine or wall placement could be hilarious. And since the tile only places conditions on creatures, your tanglevine (or whatever you use) is unaffected. I feel like there's a great build out there that uses the map as one of its main weapons.
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Absolutely agree, effective use of the map was important to my match with Laddinfance. He had early in the game pushed me through his wall of thorns to a corner of the map with a secret passage. I was able to use that passage to get back into the fray much quicker by jumping to the other side and regaining my line of sight/fire. Additionally at one point he used a wand with Windstorm attached to push my gremlins into the lava square.
In a separate match, while Laddinfance was dueling a Necromancer, a wall of bone cut the arena in half with a single cast and extension of the spell. There are a lot of new tricks to discover.
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Absolutely agree, effective use of the map was important to my match with Laddinfance. He had early in the game pushed me through his wall of thorns to a corner of the map with a secret passage. I was able to use that passage to get back into the fray much quicker by jumping to the other side and regaining my line of sight/fire. Additionally at one point he used a wand with Windstorm attached to push my gremlins into the lava square.
In a separate match, while Laddinfance was dueling a Necromancer, a wall of bone cut the arena in half with a single cast and extension of the spell. There are a lot of new tricks to discover.
I was the necromancer. ;D
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Congratz!
Laddinfance talked to me about your match, the third wall was inspired.
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Congratz!
Laddinfance talked to me about your match, the third wall was inspired.
Or cheaty... but seriously, it was a great call.
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Congratz!
Laddinfance talked to me about your match, the third wall was inspired.
I totally owe my friend for suggesting that one. As soon as the game ended, I texted him to tell him that the 3rd wall was a brilliant idea.