The Wizard discussion

[Laddinfance]

We've rambled about the Wall of Force enough, it should probably have it's own thread.

[Kharhaz]

Yes. And you can run out of range 2 from the wizard tower. Then it is totally useless for attacking the enemy mage.
Good players will not be beaten by just using wizard tower, jinx and a random attack spell. This strategy exists since wizard tower was released and has seen many many counters. You just have to be prepared.

I think we need to play.

Time to chime in I suppose and bring this ship back on course.  

Sidenote:

The ability to lose means nothing in a game of random dice. I have seen Bloodwave warlord decimate Wizards from amazing rolls alone. Does not mean that BWW is OP or better than Wizard? No.

Great players lose from Wizards Tower all the time, to say otherwise would be to suggest that it only bad players will lose to Wizards tower, which is not true. Wizards tower can win games and other times it can be more trouble than it is worth; being destroyed in one quick action from a lucky roll. It is one card and Mage Wars is won over the course of multiple rounds. Wizard Tower is just a really really strong card, in an already potent school, that plays to the major strengths of the wizard's wheelhouse.

All that to say:

The complexity of this "issue" is two fold.

The wizard and the arcane school.

The wizard possesses a statistic advantage in mage wars. Not only does he receive zero spellbook restrictions, The wizards abilities are top tier; voltaric shield and arcane zap are both > tough, melee, curseweaving, treebond, deflect, veteran tokens, battle orders, wounded prey, archery, fast, plague master, or divine reward. That is why more often than not a wizard imitation can do what every other mage can do but better. At the end of the day there is only one way to win, excluding battlegrounds, destroy the other mage.

Then there is the arcane school. It's like a coworker who you don't really like, but gets his job done like no other. There are mechanics rooted in arcane that not only one card shutdown books, but do it without defense. Arcane has the best spawn point and arguably two of the top three familiars. It commands the tit for tat counter game and can not only out pace other schools, but also play attrition while it is doing it. No other school can switch gears or even has as many tools in their respective boxes. Unless there is a massive change in the way that mage wars is played this is unlikely to change in the near future.

Long story longer:
The reason that anti-conjuration is being chanted in the deep is that the wizard is dependent on conjurations for the majority of his mana boost / denial, and action efficiency. However you cannot give everyone a "destroy conjuration" spell. While that would indeed change mage wars, it would have some serious ramifications across most of the mages, some more than others.

[sIKE]

Long story longer:
The reason that anti-conjuration is being chanted in the deep is that the wizard is dependent on conjurations for the majority of his mana boost / denial, and action efficiency. However you cannot give everyone a "destroy conjuration" spell. While that would indeed change mage wars, it would have some serious ramifications across most of the mages, some more than others.

And if you made such a thing, unless you wanted to make one for each non-Arcane school/Mage and make it School/Mage Only it would just be added into his tool and kill the Lair/Ballista/Temples/Mana Crystals/Renewing Spring/Gate to Hell and so on and so forth. If we want to balance out mage with cards, we are going to need to make a butt load of them and we are going to have keep the Wizard from having access to them. With 30-40 per release this is going to take alot of time and really move us away from the mages being able to dip into other schools.

[Cnoedel]

Most of my thoughts have already been articulated and I agree on the theory that there is a "tier list of mages" and that in this list the wizard holds a very good spot with just a few others. Not that he is OP, he s just very good and takes up a lot of the meta right now.

Now I want to adress theories how to scale him down without hurting him too much:

1. Do nothing, meta will change against him: Easiest way, people expected the LairBM this GenCon, prepared  and were taken by surprise when Wizards showed up.

2. Give other schools possibilities like Dispel/Dissolve/Nullify but theme them well - like Corrosiv Orchid/Explode - and make them more viable.

3. Punish Arcane mages for using arcane spells by either releasing thinks like a "dark Conjuration: Whenerver a Mages plays an arcane spell he loses 1 life" (just out of the top of my head, don't get to judgy on me ) OR hardcounter the Wizard like the new Warlock hardcounters the druid. Maybe the Barbarian is super arcane resistent thus does not care about your wizardry.

[Hanma]

And if you made such a thing, unless you wanted to make one for each non-Arcane school/Mage and make it School/Mage Only it would just be added into his tool and kill the Lair/Ballista/Temples/Mana Crystals/Renewing Spring/Gate to Hell and so on and so forth. If we want to balance out mage with cards, we are going to need to make a butt load of them and we are going to have keep the Wizard from having access to them. With 30-40 per release this is going to take alot of time and really move us away from the mages being able to dip into other schools.

It should be War School only, let war mages focus on destroying conjurations. They already have awesome tools to do it and it suits their theme. Other mages could get reductions such as -1 cost rings but better, etc.

[zot]

.   there is no solution because there is no problem. what will happen is that the other mages will get stronger over time, and it will be done thematically for those mages. no hard counters to a specific mage. that will lead towards match loss just because of what mage someone is playing.

[Kharhaz]

.   there is no solution because there is no problem. what will happen is that the other mages will get stronger over time, and it will be done thematically for those mages. no hard counters to a specific mage. that will lead towards match loss just because of what mage someone is playing.

Unfortunately the extreme flexibility of the wizard allows him to cherry pick each and every meta. Unless you throw in a bunch of mage only cards; but each one of these that become mandatory for the mages to be competitive means less overall customization, which can be a bad thing as customization is big part of why mage wars is awesome.

[Halewijn]

Unfortunately the extreme flexibility of the wizard allows him to cherry pick each and every meta. Unless you throw in a bunch of mage only cards; but each one of these that become mandatory for the mages to be competitive means less overall customization, which can be a bad thing as customization is big part of why mage wars is awesome.

Then make him less flexible (spellbind, x3 for elements) and let's stop this discussion 

Even Hanma, Thé Wizard, seems to think he is overpowered, seeing his comments in this tread and the interview. (correct me if I'm wrong) https://youtu.be/4jH8kyWx0-Y?t=36

[zot]

.  and i have been playing for first place in three different major tourneys (2 gencon, 1 origins) and do not believe the wizard is op. nick is a very strong player. had i got one more damage, i would have won instead. then would you think my opinion would carry more value? his opinion is just that. an opinion. one of many of us. his opinion certainly carries more weight because he is a very strong player, and is among the top due to his win too. much more weight than a new player who doesn't have the same game understanding. which is why polls are not a good way to discuss things like this. not all votes are equal. i will be skipping the poll.

   even steve believes the wizard is not op. too bad he is not on the forum much or he could chime in himself.

   i think if nick or i wanted, we could field a priest (that we built) and beat enough wizards among the general players to throw off your thinking and this discussion. which could then imply it is more the player rather than the mage. still would not make the priest better or the wizard less.

    i will say that had i been involved with kumanjaro, i would have been against wt in its current configuration. it should have some cost with the spell swap at a minimum. but i also was against necro poison immunity. immunity is fine for non mages, but never on a mage. a whole class of spells and conditions are now useless against him. don't get me started on resilient. i still believe that a well crafted necro, or warlock can win against wizard enough that there is no clear best mage among them. and by well crafted i do not mean build to be anti wizard specifically. even if the wizard had some small statistical edge versus those others does that really matter? some change to him then elevates the edge to one of the others at that point, and then the clamor moves to that mage.

    at gencon a priestess went 5 and 0 during qualifiers. no wondering about that? i believe he faced at least 2 wizards. and one of those was nick. any analysis done to see why he was effective? he also did not build for a tie, but built to kill. realizing it was just one tourney. but it shows that any given game a wizard can lose. i caught the priestess off guard, or i would have had a much harder game against it.

[Halewijn]

not all votes are equal.

why not?

If you read this forum, litteraly no one is saying the wizard is unbeatable.
The things we ARE saying is that he has many different advantages and feels stronger than the other mages. And that maybe things should be done about it. A priestess winning is not something suprising.

I was also not claiming that the poll will give the "only and perfect truth". But it can give you information about the distribution of the opinions. (If analysed correctly and given there are at least 30+ votes)

[zot]

.  the why not, is because you are advocating making changes. and an uninformed vote skews the poll. not that their vote is unimportant, but for any change, it really needs to have some validity behind it. i am trying to convey there is not enough data for any changes.

[Halewijn]

.  the why not, is because you are advocating making changes. and an uninformed vote skews the poll. not that their vote is unimportant, but for any change, it really needs to have some validity behind it. i am trying to convey there is not enough data for any changes.

If you have a profile on this website, you probably know a thing or 2 about mage wars. Wouldn't call that uninformed.

If not done already, maybe read the other tread about the wizard to read pro's and con's of different oppinions.

I did also suggest reading this tread before voting.Yes, I do think changes are a better option, but after 10 times people saying the same pro's and con's a poll might give you a good view about how many people have a certain opinion.

How would you collect data then? Besides the experiences of players?

Just vote that you like the wizard how he is already. Arcane Wonders doesn't like errata, which I fully understand. So unless a huge amount of people want errata it's probably not happening. After that Arcane wonders can officially say that they won't change him and the matter could be settled then.

[sIKE]

My problem is that clear as day the Wizard has many many advantages that no amount of cards can fix without breaking the gameH The card in question needs a slight modification for balance sakes much less severe than what was done to ToL, HoB, and BF. I don't get why people pull out pitchforks when errata is talked about. He's broken....

[Nealo]

.  the why not, is because you are advocating making changes. and an uninformed vote skews the poll. not that their vote is unimportant, but for any change, it really needs to have some validity behind it. i am trying to convey there is not enough data for any changes.

I am under the impression that the poll will not be taken into account by anyone who actually has the power to errata a card. I think that the forums exist for discussion and this is one issue that is interesting to discuss. I don't know if the card needs to be changed, yet I did put in my two cents about which change made the most since to me assuming it is considered to be too strong. I definitely see where you're coming from: a wizard wins GenCon and there is a fear that this will lead to a wizard nerf. Obviously that should not be cause for errata. That said, I trust that Arcane Wonders will make an informed decision based on many playtests and the opinions of those players that have proven themselves to be the strongest about the card and not defer to the forums.

Seems like HoB and ToL was a fairly clear case and BF was not working as intended by the designers, so I'm not surprised that they changed it. I figure that if the designers find that this card is working just fine, they won't change it just because people are saying it's OP on the forums.

So, all that said, what's the problem with discussing it on the forums? If you believe that it is not overpowered (and I would not be at all surprised to find out that it is not), then wouldn't it be best to just work on the next killer spellbook and bring it to a tournament full of wizards to take advantage of this misconception by the wider community? I'm just saying: so what if everyone is overreacting? That's why there is a group of people who design the game to make the final call about this (or any) card.

EDIT: I read your response to my post on the other thread, and you do make a good point about new players. These kinds of threads can be confusing for new players, especially if they feel like a certain strategy is just unbeatable. As a newer player, I know how confusing it can be to figure out how to create a decent spellbook and what strategies are viable. I think you're 100% right though that ultimately the skill of the player can get overlooked in the discussion of the strength of a card or mage. I do think that the discussion about the Wizard is an interesting and thought-provoking one, despite all of that.

[zot]

.  the why not, is because you are advocating making changes. and an uninformed vote skews the poll. not that their vote is unimportant, but for any change, it really needs to have some validity behind it. i am trying to convey there is not enough data for any changes.

Seems like HoB and ToL was a fairly clear case and BF was not working as intended by the designers, so I'm not surprised that they changed it. I figure that if the designers find that this card is working just fine, they won't change it just because people are saying it's OP on the forums.

So, all that said, what's the problem with discussing it on the forums? If you believe that it is not overpowered (and I would not be at all surprised to find out that it is not), then wouldn't it be best to just work on the next killer spellbook and bring it to a tournament full of wizards to take advantage of this misconception by the wider community? I'm just saying: so what if everyone is overreacting? That's why there is a group of people who design the game to make the final call about this (or any) card.

  There is no problem discussing it of course. But do note that the designers do pay attention to these forums and take it all very seriously. That is a good thing to a point. Once the complaining gets to a critical mass they feel they have to do something even if it may be wrong to do anything.

  Interesting that you mentioned the tournament nonwizard, I already planned on bringing a not wizard to next gencon. No idea what mage it will be yet, but definitely something else.