Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => Strategy and Tactics => Topic started by: Sailor Vulcan on December 03, 2016, 06:11:55 PM
-
Your playstyle is what kind of strategies you prefer.
Strategies in Mage Wars Arena are mostly defined by how offensive or defensive they are with what resources over time, as well as what sources of damage they use to kill the mage. That third defining feature of a strategy in Arena is determined by the two before it.
How "aggro" or "control" your strategy is depends on how early or late in the game you are going to kill the mage. If you kill the mage early in the game, that means that you are playing offensively earlier in the game. If you kill the mage late in the game, that means you are playing offensively later in the game.
An offensive tactic is one that lowers your opponent's resources. A defensive tactic is one that increases one's own resources. These resources are:
1) Mana
2) Options
3) Actions
4) Positioning
5) Life after Damage
1) Mana
Mana is one of the three costs for casting a spell. More powerful spells tend to cost more mana.
2) Options
Having more options gives you more freedom to respond to things your opponent does how you want to respond. It makes you more flexible and less predictable. Not to be confused with Actions. If you have a list of things you can do during each round, gaining an option is adding "OR (thing you can do)" to that list. While adding actions is adding "AND (thing you can do)" to that list.
3) Actions
Almost everything you do in the game has an action cost, including casting spells. The more actions you have, the more things you can do during the round. Not to be confused with Options. If you have a list of things you can do during each round, gaining an option is adding "OR (thing you can do)" to that list. While adding actions is adding "AND (thing you can do)" to that list. Actions are generated during the reset phase. Not to be confused with an "Action phase" which is the ability to generate actions during the reset phase, which a creature gains when it is summoned and lasts as long as that creature is in play.
4) Positioning
This is how far away things are from each other and whether they can see each other (range/los). It tends to be harder to target or affect objects in the arena if they are farther away. Most spells and attacks as well as many abilities have a maximum range of 2 or less. Some higher level spells have a range of 3. And there are also spells and abilities that target the whole arena, which tend to be things that scale in power with the quantity of a certain kind of object in play.
5) Life after Damage
If your damage becomes equal to or greater than your life, you lose the game. Having more life after damage means you have more time to do things in.
There is also a sixth resource, Spellpoints, which determines the number of copies of each of your spells that you are likely to have in your spellbook. However, this resource is even more relational/subjective than Positioning, since the number of copies of a spell that you include depends on how you want to manage the other five essential resources.
I did not include tempo, because tempo is special. Tempo, or momentum, or time, determines when you want to kill the enemy mage, when you are going to be more likely to be ahead of your opponent in resources and when your opponent is going to be ahead of you in resources. Tempo is how long you have left beore you die vs how long your opponent has left before they die, given the current board state. In other words, tempo can be described as thus: When your threat level against the enemy mage is higher and your life after damage is lower compared to your opponent's, you have more tempo. When your threat level against the enemy mage is lower and your life after damage is higher compared to your opponent's, you have less tempo.
(Mage1's life after damage) + (Mage2's threat level) - (Mage2's life after damage) + (Mage1's threat level). Threat level is the potential for damage to the enemy mage. It tends to be rather difficult to quantify precisely until the very end of the game, but it can be understood precisely enough for players to make meaningful tactical decisions about it.
Offense/defense exists on a continuum. For instance, a very offensive strategy might not use any burst healing at all, a very defensive strategy might use multiple burst healing spells, and a midgame strategy might use just one or two burst healing spells.
Early game=rounds 1-5
Late game=rounds 6-10
Early game win=~round 4 or 5
Late game win=~round 9 or 10
Offensive early game
1.) Increases own mana (discount rings tend to break even round 3)
2.) Increases own options (battle forge, familiars, mage wand/elemental wand, or a creature spawnpoint in the case of low level offensive creature swarms)
3.) Increases own actions (including pseudo-actions): cheetah speed, dancing scimitar, battle forge, ballista, wizard tower, buddy creature, etc.), a single copy of mind control.
4.) Getting closer to opponent: force push, lesser teleport, cheetah speed, force pull, tanglevine/force hold (so that your favorable positioning doesn't change once you have it), a single copy of enfeeble (same reason as vine/hold), teleport to get out of tanglevine quickly, etc.
5.) Life after Damage: attack spells, one-time swarm attack buffs (call of the wild, unholy blood ritual), reusable swarm attack buffs (rajan's fury, tooth and nail, marked for death, etc.)
Defensive early game
1.) Decreases opponent mana: (mana syphon, essence drain etc.)
2.) Decreases opponent options: disarm on equipments like galvitar or mage wand/elemental wand, putting a wall in front of a ballista or wizard tower, metamagic, things that prevent your opponent from making certain choices, rather than responding to whatever they choose to do after the fact. For instance, preemptively revealing poisoned blood to stop them from revealing healing charm or using hand of bim's effect to heal.
3.) Decreasing opponent actions: either by attacking and destroying creatures, or by devaluing of enemy actions, or both such as sleep, charm, multiple copies of enfeeble, lowering attack die rolls, daze/stun, etc. Mind control effectively lowers opponent's actions by at least 2 as soon as it is revealed. This is because mind control stuns the creature when it is revealed, and also when it is destroyed, costing the creature's original controller two actions.
4.) Getting farther away from opponent: force push, teleport (to get two zones away rather than just one), lesser teleport, cheetah speed+mongoose agility (helps you to run away from enemys), force wave (to push larger numbers of enemies away), repulse (same as force wave, but in multiple random directions when the enemy creatures are already in your zone), walls (to block movement and los), tanglevines to trap enemies before they get too close especially with etherian lifetree and/or astral anchor, etc.
5.) Increasing own life after damage: sunfire amulet, regrowth belt, armor, multiple healing spells.
Decreasing opponent's life after damage (slowly): ghoul rot, magebane, force crush, etc.
Defensive Late game
1.) Increasing own mana (mana crystal doesn't give you a net increase in mana until round 6.)
2.) Decreasing opponent's options: generally involves destroying spawnpoints and familiars or things with spellbind, or things that effectively increase the number of spells you can plan.
3.) Decreasing opponent actions: destroying enemy creatures, or making them more permanently unusable in some other way (i.e. arcane ward on a turn to stone, putting them to sleep and behind walls, or arcane ward on a mind control. While mind control is good in the early game by lowering the opponent's actions by at least 2, it's also good for increasing your own actions if they leave it alone. Mind control is basically a spell that scales in power over the course of the game, just like magebane. You don't necessarily care that much if they get rid of it in early game because they paid about as much mana to get rid of it as you did to cast and reveal it, and they lost two actions while it only took you one quick cast. And if they leave it alone, it will just keep generating more and more actions for you and not for them.
4.) Getting closer to opponent. Oftentimes you don't have to get as close to opponent to kill them in the late game as the early game, because range 2 attacks tend to cost more mana/actions than range 1 attacks, and by the late game you have more mana. Oftentimes a more offensive opponent will already be closer from their failed attempt to kill you in the early game, if they were trying to rush you with their mage and a buddy creature rather than standing back and supporting a swarm. In any case, a lot of the time this involves using your superior board position that you've already accumulated to make it harder for the more aggressive mage to escape, recover and then try to finish you off. Use a combination of reusable positioning spells which you cast in the early game like cheetah speed, tanglevine/stranglevine/force hold/force crush/etc+astral anchor, teleport mage wand, enfeeble, etc. You could also use divine intervention if you already have a big threat on the board which you have been building up over the course of the game and all you have to do is bring the enemy mage in range of it (i.e. Disciples of Radiance).
5.) Life after damage: The game has gone on for long enough to build enough mana, actions and board advantage that it’s time for the finishers. Double fireball, Double Hurl Boulder, Double Forcehammer, drain soul, thunderbolt, Zombie Frenzy, Burst healing (if you have a lot of dot effects stacked on enemy mage), Drain Power, Teleport or Divine intervention on enemy mage (to bring them back to kill zone), wall of thorns push, etc.
-
One thing to consider when talking about playstyle and strategy preference is an honest self evaluation of skill strengths and weaknesses.
So, for example, I have some difficulty playing multiple long brain-burny games, one after the other. In tournaments, I prefer to play more agressive books so that my games are shorter and I have time to clear my mind inbetween.
On the other hand, I've got a good grasp of the rules and a fiendish design streak, so I'm likely to bring something unorthodox to try to catch my opponent by surprise.
When I'm practicing, I try to drill myself on memorizing proper procedure, so that it costs me less focus to play correctly and so that I can continue proper play even if I get fatigued. This means that I'm more likely to chose cards that can be learned like this, rather than cards that have many different applications and must be reevaluated continuously.
In practice, this means fewer upkeeps or complicated spells, so e.g. I rarely Forcemaster at tournaments.
-
One thing to consider when talking about playstyle and strategy preference is an honest self evaluation of skill strengths and weaknesses.
So, for example, I have some difficulty playing multiple long brain-burny games, one after the other. In tournaments, I prefer to play more agressive books so that my games are shorter and I have time to clear my mind inbetween.
On the other hand, I've got a good grasp of the rules and a fiendish design streak, so I'm likely to bring something unorthodox to try to catch my opponent by surprise.
When I'm practicing, I try to drill myself on memorizing proper procedure, so that it costs me less focus to play correctly and so that I can continue proper play even if I get fatigued. This means that I'm more likely to chose cards that can be learned like this, rather than cards that have many different applications and must be reevaluated continuously.
In practice, this means fewer upkeeps or complicated spells, so e.g. I rarely Forcemaster at tournaments.
I often have trouble coming up with creative rush builds that can catch opponents by surprise. I like cat and mouse strategies. Decks that want to chase the enemy or be chased by them. I first tried something like this with a forcemaster, but since then I have tried it with other mages and it works better. Namely Wizard, Druid and necromancer. I would like the forcemaster more if she wasn't so focused on attacking things most of the time.
Aside from that, I'm honestly not sure what kinds of strategies I enjoy most, and I've been playing for several years now.
-
Edited to fix some theory mistakes caused by my ignorance of aggro.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
I often have trouble coming up with creative rush builds that can catch opponents by surprise.
Surprise and creativity are both good things, but are generally not worth sacrificing much in the way of raw efficiency for.
In the case of any kind of rush build they are not worth sacrificing any efficiency whatsoever - you want the most brutal efficient sledgehammer possible, and you already plan on them playing the most effective countermeasures possible.
On the other hand, the longer and slower a book is, the more room there is for alternative strategies, things to surprise and trick an opponent, and indeed you are often trying to bait their countermeasures out with cards that are good enough to need answering, but not so good you are reliant on them.
Trying to be creative is probably where rush is not working for you.
-
I often have trouble coming up with creative rush builds that can catch opponents by surprise.
Surprise and creativity are both good things, but are generally not worth sacrificing much in the way of raw efficiency for.
In the case of any kind of rush build they are not worth sacrificing any efficiency whatsoever - you want the most brutal efficient sledgehammer possible, and you already plan on them playing the most effective countermeasures possible.
On the other hand, the longer and slower a book is, the more room there is for alternative strategies, things to surprise and trick an opponent, and indeed you are often trying to bait their countermeasures out with cards that are good enough to need answering, but not so good you are reliant on them.
Trying to be creative is probably where rush is not working for you.
In that case, how many unique rush builds is it possible to make, really?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
In that case, how many unique rush builds is it possible to make, really?
Less optimal ones than mid-game or control builds certainly.
A couple of mages might have two directions, but most one, and a lot of those will be suboptimal. In most cases the variation is part of your Plan B and Plan C for if/when the rush is stopped, which is what the other 100 sbp in your book are for. It doesn't take many for whatever the most efficient Plan A is.
There's an infinite number of books you can make in Mage Wars, but a fairly finite number of close to optimal books. That's a just a mathematical fact, and is the case in any game. It becomes very obvious in something like MtG with a userbase of millions, and collaboration on the internet. The answers are less obvious, or less quickly reached in MW (and arguably slower than the introduction of new sets), but the fundamental premise has to be the same, and is for any CCG/LCG/customisable game. It's even the same for a deckbuilder like Dominion, within any set of cards.
-
In that case, how many unique rush builds is it possible to make, really?
Less optimal ones than mid-game or control builds certainly.
A couple of mages might have two directions, but most one, and a lot of those will be suboptimal. In most cases the variation is part of your Plan B and Plan C for if/when the rush is stopped, which is what the other 100 sbp in your book are for. It doesn't take many for whatever the most efficient Plan A is.
There's an infinite number of books you can make in Mage Wars, but a fairly finite number of close to optimal books. That's a just a mathematical fact, and is the case in any game. It becomes very obvious in something like MtG with a userbase of millions, and collaboration on the internet. The answers are less obvious, or less quickly reached in MW (and arguably slower than the introduction of new sets), but the fundamental premise has to be the same, and is for any CCG/LCG/customisable game. It's even the same for a deckbuilder like Dominion, within any set of cards.
Well yes, when there are a finite number of cards in a game then there are a finite number of possible combinations of them, and even fewer combinations which are viable.
In modern MtG, the number of possible 60-card combinations is about 1.5*(10^156).
Meanwhile, the number of possible 60-card combinations that are tournament-viable decks is probably somewhere around 10.
However, I'm quite certain I've seen more than 10 tournament-viable spellbooks in Mage Wars Arena at any given time. There are currently 14 mages in Mage Wars Arena, and I'm quite certain that every single one of them has at least one viable spellbook.
Mage Wars Arena has 761 cards now. Each mage has 120 points to spend on cards to put in their spellbook, and the lowest spell point cost is 1 spell point. The highest spell cost currently in the game would be 24 points. 5 level 8 enemy school spells make 120 points, and so do 120 novice spells. So the maximum possible number of 120 pt combinations is less than:
6.57*(10^150)
-2,154,952,559,403
The -2154952559403 is negligible though. so let's approximate that to 6.57*(10^150).
Now let's take that number and divide it by the total size of the card pool. This will give us some idea of what the total number of possible 120 pt card combinations are given a certain sized cardpool. We will do the same for modern mtg.
6.57*(10^150) 120-pt card combinations/761 cards in cardpool=8.633377*(10^147)
1.5*(10^156) 60-card combinations/9271 cards in cardpool=1.617948*(10^152)
These are the rates at which the number of possible card combinations increases with the size of the card pool in each game.
Now, compare these to the number of tournament viable decks/spellbooks. In pretty much any year the number of viable decks doesn't change all that much. It's usually somewhere around 10.
So 10 tournament-viable decks divided by 1.5*(10^156) possible card combinations in the current card pool, and you get about 6.67/(10^156). In other words, the percentage of possible 60-card combinations in modern mtg which are tournament viable decks is 6.67/(10^154)%
In mage wars arena there are probably a lot more than 10 viable spellbooks. I would say each mage probably has around 2 or 3 main viable strategies on average, plus whatever rogue strategies they might be able to use in a given meta. So let's say 1 main viable spellbook plus 1 rogue viable spellbook for each mage as an extremely conservative estimate? That still gives us 28 viable spellbooks in Mage Wars Arena. 28 viable spellbooks is a lot more than 10 viable decks. And now consider that mage wars arena has a MUCH smaller cardpool than mtg.
Simply put, Mage Wars is not MtG, and is a lot better balanced than games like MtG. And while yes there are a finite number of tournament viable spellbooks, nobody actually knows what that number is, but my guess is that it could be anywhere between 28 and 100 or so.
Even if most mages only have 1 tournament viable spellbook, how can you know that if tournament viable spellbooks are discovered/created at a slower rate than new sets are introduced?
http://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1223622559
-
Meanwhile, the number of possible 60-card combinations that are tournament-viable decks is probably somewhere around 10.
However, I'm quite certain I've seen more than 10 tournament-viable spellbooks in Mage Wars Arena at any given time. There are currently 14 mages in Mage Wars Arena, and I'm quite certain that every single one of them has at least one viable spellbook.
Between players of equal skill, I'm quite sure you are wrong, and that number is around 4-6... And I'm 100% certain that half of those mages are incapable of being at the the top tier in the current cardpool.
I'm afraid those numbers are meaningless statistically, and actually the design of Mage Wars with picking your cards means the optimal builds differ LESS than MtG not more, because every book has a full clip of silver bullets to deploy at will.
Also you seem to switch between viable and competitive. There are reasonable books of all mages, that a skilled player can beat a less skilled one with the majority of the time. That's an order of magnitude or two broader than what top competitive players (if we had a playerbase and metagame to support them) would consider competitive. It's very rare for their to be more than 3 best builds out there, and maybe 6-8 in with a reasonable chance (the latter not being competitive enough) in any game.
-
ב"ה
In that case, how many unique rush builds is it possible to make, really?
Less optimal ones than mid-game or control builds certainly.
A couple of mages might have two directions, but most one, and a lot of those will be suboptimal. In most cases the variation is part of your Plan B and Plan C for if/when the rush is stopped, which is what the other 100 sbp in your book are for. It doesn't take many for whatever the most efficient Plan A is.
I strongly disagree. Even similar strategies could be both efficient but one is a little faster and the other build a little more economy. I'll try to explain with 2 famous rush builds, the Johktari Rushmaster and the Straywood Aviary:
1) Rushmaster-
The standard Rushmaster start with hawkeye and akiro's favor on the first round (his damage economy), then double hurl boulder on the second round and hurl rock+hurl boulder on the third round.
The faster version is lesser teleport+fireball on the first round (for the burn), double hurl boulder on the second round and double hurl rock on the third round.
Both of these options are optimal, it is just than one is a little faster than the other but less economical.
2) Straywood Aviary-
There are players that start with ring of beasts + falcon on the first turn, and those who move two zones and bring a falcon. The former strategy is bringing a bit of economy by making the Falcons cheaper, and the later strategy get closer to the opponent sooner.
Again, both of these options are optimal, it is just than one is a little faster than the other but less economical.
Many rush strategies still have several actions spent on economy, and modifying that amount of actions is just deciding whether to go a little faster giving opponent less space or to be in a better position in case the rush fails.
-
1) Rushmaster-
The standard Rushmaster start with hawkeye and akiro's favor on the first round (his damage economy), then double hurl boulder on the second round and hurl rock+hurl boulder on the third round.
The faster version is lesser teleport+fireball on the first round (for the burn), double hurl boulder on the second round and double hurl rock on the third round.
Both of these options are optimal, it is just than one is a little faster than the other but less economical.
If one is faster and you have the resources to do it, then it's better. The other being 'good' doesn't matter - it's not best.
2) Straywood Aviary-
There are players that start with ring of beasts + falcon on the first turn, and those who move two zones and bring a falcon. The former strategy is bringing a bit of economy by making the Falcons cheaper, and the later strategy get closer to the opponent sooner.
Again, both of these options are optimal, it is just than one is a little faster than the other but less economical.
Many rush strategies still have several actions spent on economy, and modifying that amount of actions is just deciding whether to go a little faster giving opponent less space or to be in a better position in case the rush fails.
Spending time on economy (certainly more than one action) would rule it out of being a rush book in my view. It's slowed down needlessly. Barring a 2pt ring, no economy can show a profit over the timescale a rush book is looking to win.
Note Straywood Aviary is not an all out rush book. It's a Kiting book.
But the nuances you are talking about (whilst definitely still able to be called good and better in any given circumstance) were not what I was talking about by a Plan A, B and C. That was a reference to say Sailor's recent blaster, that runs creatures as well, or a book that wants to be aggro and DOT, etc.
-
ב"ה
If one is faster and you have the resources to do it, then it's better. The other being 'good' doesn't matter - it's not best.
The faster one has a better chance to catch opponent unprepared, and the slower one has a better chance to handle an opponent prepared for the rush.
Since one strategy will do better against some opponent and the other against other opponent, neither could be named "best" out of these two.
Spending time on economy (certainly more than one action) would rule it out of being a rush book in my view. It's slowed down needlessly. Barring a 2pt ring, no economy can show a profit over the timescale a rush book is looking to win.
Usually I use the term "rush strategy" to describe any strategy that would destroy a training dummy with 40 life and no armor standing on the opponent starting zone by turn 6 with average rolls. Perhaps you use that term to describe a narrower set of strategies.
I have one rush book that use mana crystal+battleforge for round 1, and both times I played it the enemy mage was dead by turn 6. In both games the mana crystal was useless eventually, but just because a book bring a little economy doesn't prevent it from being a rush, and preparing for mid game in case the rush fails isn't necessarily "non-optimal".
-
The faster one has a better chance to catch opponent unprepared, and the slower one has a better chance to handle an opponent prepared for the rush.
Since one strategy will do better against some opponent and the other against other opponent, neither could be named "best" out of these two.
In my experience often new players are the ones unprepared, and the books you describe for rush are great for training so that you can become those that can handle the rush.
Good notes!
-
Usually I use the term "rush strategy" to describe any strategy that would destroy a training dummy with 40 life and no armor standing on the opponent starting zone by turn 6 with average rolls. Perhaps you use that term to describe a narrower set of strategies.
That's a reasonable definition, although it's worth noting that every mage can kill on Turn 5 in a Goldfish test, and many earlier. Some just do it for less spell points than others. Turn 6 is still reasonably fast (especially T6 Upkeep), but it's slowest you could possibly call a rush.
I have one rush book that use mana crystal+battleforge for round 1, and both times I played it the enemy mage was dead by turn 6. In both games the mana crystal was useless eventually, but just because a book bring a little economy doesn't prevent it from being a rush, and preparing for mid game in case the rush fails isn't necessarily "non-optimal".
Then we disagree on terms. The Battleforge might be a requirement (but I strongly suspect not, and it doesn't recoup necessary actions), but the mana crystal can't be optimal for rushing. In playing that and not an extra Flameblast, Acid Ball or Rust or similar you are reducing your chances of a quick kill, and increasing your chances of a mid-term win.
The faster one has a better chance to catch opponent unprepared, and the slower one has a better chance to handle an opponent prepared for the rush.
Since one strategy will do better against some opponent and the other against other opponent, neither could be named "best" out of these two.
Of course it can. You have probability A against one opponent, and B against the other. 1st opponent appears in the metagame with X probability, and the 2nd with Y. The chances of AX and BY being the same down to decimal places is infintessimally small, ergo one is better.
The same magnified up is what you do (whether by gut instinct or spreadsheet) when evaluating a whole metagame at Nationals/ProTour level, and working out the correct deck to play, and answers to put in it. No deck can do everything, but you are trying to make a judgement of doing the things that matter most to the opponents you are most likely to play.
Now is it difficult to evaluate this - of course it is. This is the entire skill of metagame evaluation. Just because it's difficult, doesn't mean it's not possible, and even if it's not possible to determine, one option will be better than another. It's an exercise in crystal balls and probability.
In Mage Wars, the difficulty (and also the reason the impact is much less) is that there is very little mature metagame existing, and the sample sizes are much too small. You can get a reasonable estimation within your own local metagame though.
In my experience often new players are the ones unprepared, and the books you describe for rush are great for training so that you can become those that can handle the rush.
Agreed. In a perfect world with a mature competitive metagame Rush should rarely work - there is no chance that you don't draw your Ring of Fire when you need it, only unprepared books and players. Because of the predictability of having cards when you want them, a Rush that dependably wins early into countermeasures would so most times against most books, which is a situation we'd hopefully not let happen.
That said, some Rush books can easily be held off their Turn 3-4 wins by the correct response, but having you fighting for life from such an early stage, and not developing your own game, often leads to them trading card for card, and winning on turn 6-9, being relatively untouched themselves. I never under estimate Adramelech Warlock especially - it's brutal.
-
Usually I use the term "rush strategy" to describe any strategy that would destroy a training dummy with 40 life and no armor standing on the opponent starting zone by turn 6 with average rolls. Perhaps you use that term to describe a narrower set of strategies.
That's a reasonable definition, although it's worth noting that every mage can kill on Turn 5 in a Goldfish test, and many earlier. Some just do it for less spell points than others. Turn 6 is still reasonably fast (especially T6 Upkeep), but it's slowest you could possibly call a rush.
I have one rush book that use mana crystal+battleforge for round 1, and both times I played it the enemy mage was dead by turn 6. In both games the mana crystal was useless eventually, but just because a book bring a little economy doesn't prevent it from being a rush, and preparing for mid game in case the rush fails isn't necessarily "non-optimal".
Then we disagree on terms. The Battleforge might be a requirement (but I strongly suspect not, and it doesn't recoup necessary actions), but the mana crystal can't be optimal for rushing. In playing that and not an extra Flameblast, Acid Ball or Rust or similar you are reducing your chances of a quick kill, and increasing your chances of a mid-term win.
The faster one has a better chance to catch opponent unprepared, and the slower one has a better chance to handle an opponent prepared for the rush.
Since one strategy will do better against some opponent and the other against other opponent, neither could be named "best" out of these two.
Of course it can. You have probability A against one opponent, and B against the other. 1st opponent appears in the metagame with X probability, and the 2nd with Y. The chances of AX and BY being the same down to decimal places is infintessimally small, ergo one is better.
The same magnified up is what you do (whether by gut instinct or spreadsheet) when evaluating a whole metagame at Nationals/ProTour level, and working out the correct deck to play, and answers to put in it. No deck can do everything, but you are trying to make a judgement of doing the things that matter most to the opponents you are most likely to play.
Now is it difficult to evaluate this - of course it is. This is the entire skill of metagame evaluation. Just because it's difficult, doesn't mean it's not possible, and even if it's not possible to determine, one option will be better than another. It's an exercise in crystal balls and probability.
In Mage Wars, the difficulty (and also the reason the impact is much less) is that there is very little mature metagame existing, and the sample sizes are much too small. You can get a reasonable estimation within your own local metagame though.
In my experience often new players are the ones unprepared, and the books you describe for rush are great for training so that you can become those that can handle the rush.
Agreed. In a perfect world with a mature competitive metagame Rush should rarely work - there is no chance that you don't draw your Ring of Fire when you need it, only unprepared books and players. Because of the predictability of having cards when you want them, a Rush that dependably wins early into countermeasures would so most times against most books, which is a situation we'd hopefully not let happen.
That said, some Rush books can easily be held off their Turn 3-4 wins by the correct response, but having you fighting for life from such an early stage, and not developing your own game, often leads to them trading card for card, and winning on turn 6-9, being relatively untouched themselves. I never under estimate Adramelech Warlock especially - it's brutal.
I'm not sure I'm following your logic. If being able to have access to all the cards in your deck each round made control more powerful than aggro, wouldn't it do that regardless? The sample size of competitive Mage Wars play is not that big, but it's not so tiny as to be completely insignificant. Sure, there's no chance that you don't draw your ring of fire when you need it. There's also no chance you don't draw Etherian lifetree or Slavorg when you need it. And as it was said earlier, straywood aviary is not really a rush deck. It's an aggressive swarm deck, which is not as aggro as rushing.
-
I'm not sure I'm following your logic. If being able to have access to all the cards in your deck each round made control more powerful than aggro, wouldn't it do that regardless? The sample size of competitive Mage Wars play is not that big, but it's not so tiny as to be completely insignificant. Sure, there's no chance that you don't draw your ring of fire when you need it. There's also no chance you don't draw Etherian lifetree or Slavorg when you need it.
Take a hypothetical MtG environment where the best control and aggro decks are 50/50. Aggro decks are always highly redundant, with 4x all the most efficient creatures and spells, whilst control decks tend to be more nuanced, trying to fit more answers in by dropping the card counts, of some, and using their increased longevity to draw more cards, and usually some library manipulation or card draw, to increase the chances of getting to the right answer at the right time. So the aggro deck will generally have enough redundant pieces that it will fill it's mana curve efficiently for the first 3-4 turns, and whilst some cards will be slightly better than others, there is a high degree of interchangeability, and thus it stalls less often. The control deck in such an environment may be relying on it's Wrath of God effect top reset on turn 4, and the 50/50 win rate could largely come down to do they draw it or not.
MW has no such parallel, and that's one of the things that's great about it (full disclosure - I'm biased; I'm a control player at heart). You will get your Ring of Fire on turn 4, and if you put a 2nd in there, you'll get that when you need it too. The random element added into MW is via the Attack dice, but they create a very shallow bell-curve probabilitywise, and although confirmation bias makes us remember those zero/max damages, it all averages out over a pretty short number of iterations.
What I'm saying is that there isn't nearly the random factor in MW that there is in MtG (which is in turn much less random than your average FNM player will tell you). An aggro deck that could consistently win into the right responses would do so 90% of the time, not 50%, so the game is necessarily tilted away from that, and towards a more controlled environment.
Put another way, when you lose early to an aggro book in MW, you can't blame mana screw or bad draws, or your opponent getting a god hand. It happens because you made a mistake, probably several. Some will have been in book building, and some in play (moving too close, not armouring up early enough, not predicting your opponents actions correctly, and far enough in advance). This is why Coshade talks about Rush books as being good training books - they are precisely that; a very unforgiving tutor. They can absolutely be beaten, but they can also lay you out cold several times in a row whilst you work out how...
This is what I love about MW - there's nowhere to hide, blaming card draws. Even MtG those bad draws are probably mistakes - not enough land in the deck, not mulliganing aggressively enough, risking an extra round of damage before sweeping, etc), but it's easy to convince ourselves that we played well, and 'luck' screwed us. We play well when we win, but we are unlucky when we lose... (there's a whole psychology article just in that). What makes MW so good is it removes most of the real luck, as well as the bad excuses - when someone beats you, it means some combination of their book and their play was superior to yours. Then you get to analyse why and improve on it...
And as it was said earlier, straywood aviary is not really a rush deck. It's an aggressive swarm deck, which is not as aggro as rushing.
Agreed - it's an aggressive book, more than a controlling one, but it's not a Rush book.
-
I'm not sure I'm following your logic. If being able to have access to all the cards in your deck each round made control more powerful than aggro, wouldn't it do that regardless? The sample size of competitive Mage Wars play is not that big, but it's not so tiny as to be completely insignificant. Sure, there's no chance that you don't draw your ring of fire when you need it. There's also no chance you don't draw Etherian lifetree or Slavorg when you need it.
Take a hypothetical MtG environment where the best control and aggro decks are 50/50. Aggro decks are always highly redundant, with 4x all the most efficient creatures and spells, whilst control decks tend to be more nuanced, trying to fit more answers in by dropping the card counts, of some, and using their increased longevity to draw more cards, and usually some library manipulation or card draw, to increase the chances of getting to the right answer at the right time. So the aggro deck will generally have enough redundant pieces that it will fill it's mana curve efficiently for the first 3-4 turns, and whilst some cards will be slightly better than others, there is a high degree of interchangeability, and thus it stalls less often. The control deck in such an environment may be relying on it's Wrath of God effect top reset on turn 4, and the 50/50 win rate could largely come down to do they draw it or not.
MW has no such parallel, and that's one of the things that's great about it (full disclosure - I'm biased; I'm a control player at heart). You will get your Ring of Fire on turn 4, and if you put a 2nd in there, you'll get that when you need it too. The random element added into MW is via the Attack dice, but they create a very shallow bell-curve probabilitywise, and although confirmation bias makes us remember those zero/max damages, it all averages out over a pretty short number of iterations.
What I'm saying is that there isn't nearly the random factor in MW that there is in MtG (which is in turn much less random than your average FNM player will tell you). An aggro deck that could consistently win into the right responses would do so 90% of the time, not 50%, so the game is necessarily tilted away from that, and towards a more controlled environment.
Put another way, when you lose early to an aggro book in MW, you can't blame mana screw or bad draws, or your opponent getting a god hand. It happens because you made a mistake, probably several. Some will have been in book building, and some in play (moving too close, not armouring up early enough, not predicting your opponents actions correctly, and far enough in advance). This is why Coshade talks about Rush books as being good training books - they are precisely that; a very unforgiving tutor. They can absolutely be beaten, but they can also lay you out cold several times in a row whilst you work out how...
This is what I love about MW - there's nowhere to hide, blaming card draws. Even MtG those bad draws are probably mistakes - not enough land in the deck, not mulliganing aggressively enough, risking an extra round of damage before sweeping, etc), but it's easy to convince ourselves that we played well, and 'luck' screwed us. We play well when we win, but we are unlucky when we lose... (there's a whole psychology article just in that). What makes MW so good is it removes most of the real luck, as well as the bad excuses - when someone beats you, it means some combination of their book and their play was superior to yours. Then you get to analyse why and improve on it...
And as it was said earlier, straywood aviary is not really a rush deck. It's an aggressive swarm deck, which is not as aggro as rushing.
Agreed - it's an aggressive book, more than a controlling one, but it's not a Rush book.
Well, play skill is still fairly important in mtg, but it's generally one of the least important factors in game outcomes.
In mtg, deck building skill>card access>play skill<>luck. (whether luck or play skill is more important depends on the game. Mana screw/flood happens about a third of the time even at high competitive levels. And when it does happen player skill is much less likely to make any difference. But when neither player is mana screwed, luck is probably less of a factor then play skill.)
In mw, play skill>deckbuilding skill>card access>luck
While Mage Wars strategies do exist in a continuum, they seem like they tend to fall into clusters depending on how many actions and pseudo actions they generate per round and how offensive/defensive they are: aggro swarm, control swarm, turtle, few big, rush, tank
I probably should have elaborated on that in the OP.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
Well, play skill is still fairly important in mtg, but it's generally one of the least important factors in game outcomes.
In mtg, deck building skill>card access>play skill<>luck.
In mw, play skill>deckbuilding skill>card access>luck
I'm afraid I disagree with all of that!
-
Well, play skill is still fairly important in mtg, but it's generally one of the least important factors in game outcomes.
In mtg, deck building skill>card access>play skill<>luck.
In mw, play skill>deckbuilding skill>card access>luck
I'm afraid I disagree with all of that!
It might seem to differ based on your experiences. The way to judge this isn't based on merely asking yourself what made the biggest difference in the games of mtg which you have played. The question is to ask how much of a difference these things would make relative to each other.
In mtg, if one players deck is better built than the other's chances are more likely that the first player will win, even if the worse deck is used by the better player or is used by a player who got luckier draws or if the worse player had better card access. A well built budget mtg deck usually wins against a poorly built expensive mtg deck.
If both players have equally well built decks but one of them has better card access, the player with better card access is more likely to win, because a lot of cards that are staples are hella expensive, and without them any remotely skilled player will shut you out on turn 1 no matter how skilled you are at mtg gameplay and no matter how well you built your deck with the cards you have access to. A pro level champion using a well built budget deck is unlikely to win against a regional or local champion who uses an expensive well built deck. Because they will be shut out on turn one unless they fork out the cash for more expensive cards.
And if both players have equally well built decks and have equal card access, then the game will be decided by some combination of luck and skill. Unless it's a match, in which case sideboarding becomes much more important than player skill. Because sideboarding is deckbuilding skill, not play skill.
In Mage Wars, if two players have equally well built decks, and get about just as lucky during the game, the more skilled player will usually win even if they have a smaller card collection. And if two mw players have about equal luck during the game and equal card access, the more skilled player will usually win even if they have a worse built deck than their opponent (unless their deck is completely trash). And a mw deck that uses fewer sets but is better built will tend to win against a deck that uses more sets but is not as well built.
-
Firstly MtG has a completely different order in say Sealed deck vs Constructed.
Secondly, whilst play skill in MW is more important, I think play skill plateaus more quickly than deckbuilding. I definitely beat most of my opponents at deckbuilding I think.
Also, I think card access is INCREDIBLY important in MW, or at least the right cards.
I do agree luck is at the bottom for both.
I think there is more nuance and variation in this than can be easily compared, let alone usefully however.
-
Firstly MtG has a completely different order in say Sealed deck vs Constructed.
Secondly, whilst play skill in MW is more important, I think play skill plateaus more quickly than deckbuilding. I definitely beat most of my opponents at deckbuilding I think.
Also, I think card access is INCREDIBLY important in MW, or at least the right cards.
I do agree luck is at the bottom for both.
I think there is more nuance and variation in this than can be easily compared, let alone usefully however.
Eh, maybe you're right that card access is incredibly important. If so, the fact that the Mage Wars card pool is still fairly small might have something to do with why core set only books can still be viable.
It's also possible that card access plateaus too. Maybe there are only a few expansions that a Mage needs to be viable in a competitive format at the minimum, and anything beyond that isn't strictly necessary from a competitive standpoint?
-
Eh, maybe you're right that card access is incredibly important. If so, the fact that the Mage Wars card pool is still fairly small might have something to do with why core set only books can still be viable.
I don't think they are. If viable means a reasonable competitive book, or a good causal one, then sure. But no Acid Ball, Disperse, Crumble, Disarm, Leather Chausses, Lesser Teleport or Rust? Each of those is a pretty big hit against 80-90% of books, without considering anything mage or book specific.
A lot of books easily run 6-8 Armour and Vet Belts, and you need Corrode to deal with that. 5.5 of the choices are about mana/effect efficiency and if you are paying an extra couple of mana every round or two, then that's enough to take you out of viable.
It's also possible that card access plateaus too. Maybe there are only a few expansions that a Mage needs to be viable in a competitive format at the minimum, and anything beyond that isn't strictly necessary from a competitive standpoint?
Definitely not all mages need access to all sets. In fact I've often opined to new players that you can actually get in striking distance of an optimal book with a core set, the mage's 'home' set (if not core) and one expansion. The Academy Base Set (ABS) really needs adding onto that though, more than the extra expansion in most cases...
Beastmaster, Jokhtari - Core, ABS, CoK/DvN?
Beastmaster, Straywood - Core, ABS, CoK/DvN?
Druid - Core, ABS, DvN
Forcemaster - Core, ABS, FvW
Necromancer - Core, ABS, DvN
Paladin - Core, ABS, PvS
Priest - Core, ABS, PvS
Priestess - Core, ABS, PvS
Siren - Core, ABS, PvS
Warlock, Adramelech - Core, ABS, FiF
Warlock, Arraxian - Core, ABS, FiF
Warlord, Anvil Throne - Core, ABS, FiF,
Warlord, BloodwaveCore, Core, FvW, FiF
Wizard - Core, ABS, CoK/DvN?
CoK is a good set for everyone, but not unmissable for anyone.
That list makes everyone pretty good on a Core and 2 expansions. The key things you are missing are Acid Balls and to a lesser extent Disarms almost everywhere, and Guardian Angel from all Holy books and a few others.
I wouldn't call them tournament viable, but more than casual viable...
-
Eh, maybe you're right that card access is incredibly important. If so, the fact that the Mage Wars card pool is still fairly small might have something to do with why core set only books can still be viable.
I don't think they are. If viable means a reasonable competitive book, or a good causal one, then sure. But no Acid Ball, Disperse, Crumble, Disarm, Leather Chausses, Lesser Teleport or Rust? Each of those is a pretty big hit against 80-90% of books, without considering anything mage or book specific.
A lot of books easily run 6-8 Armour and Vet Belts, and you need Corrode to deal with that. 5.5 of the choices are about mana/effect efficiency and if you are paying an extra couple of mana every round or two, then that's enough to take you out of viable.
It's also possible that card access plateaus too. Maybe there are only a few expansions that a Mage needs to be viable in a competitive format at the minimum, and anything beyond that isn't strictly necessary from a competitive standpoint?
Definitely not all mages need access to all sets. In fact I've often opined to new players that you can actually get in striking distance of an optimal book with a core set, the mage's 'home' set (if not core) and one expansion. The Academy Base Set (ABS) really needs adding onto that though, more than the extra expansion in most cases...
Beastmaster, Jokhtari - Core, ABS, CoK/DvN?
Beastmaster, Straywood - Core, ABS, CoK/DvN?
Druid - Core, ABS, DvN
Forcemaster - Core, ABS, FvW
Necromancer - Core, ABS, DvN
Paladin - Core, ABS, PvS
Priest - Core, ABS, PvS
Priestess - Core, ABS, PvS
Siren - Core, ABS, PvS
Warlock, Adramelech - Core, ABS, FiF
Warlock, Arraxian - Core, ABS, FiF
Warlord, Anvil Throne - Core, ABS, FiF,
Warlord, BloodwaveCore, Core, FvW, FiF
Wizard - Core, ABS, CoK/DvN?
CoK is a good set for everyone, but not unmissable for anyone.
That list makes everyone pretty good on a Core and 2 expansions. The key things you are missing are Acid Balls and to a lesser extent Disarms almost everywhere, and Guardian Angel from all Holy books and a few others.
I wouldn't call them tournament viable, but more than casual viable...
I don't think the lack of acid ball, disperse, crumble, disarm, chauses, lesser teleport or rust makes such a big difference to whether it's possible for any book in general to be competitive. Just maybe some strategies that don't work as well without more sets.
Let's break this down a bit.
Acid ball corrodes to remove armor, and rust just removed two armor. But you can just dissolve/dispel/pierce their armor. This means that you have to either run a book with some piercing, or you have to be able to dissolve/dispel armor, or some combination of the two.
Basically the amount of dissolves/dispels you need to reserve for armor depends on how much piercing or dot you have.
The lack of crumble/disperse means that you need to use dissolve/dispel. To leverage dissolve/dispel properly you need a Mage that wants to move around. If your sitting in one place all the time then disperse/crumble would be better of course, but dissolve and dispel cost an extra 2 mana and cost a quick action rather than a full action like disperse/crumble. That means you don't want to turtle with a core only deck.
Without disarm or a good way to protect your familiars, you need to get up close to the enemy Mage to deal with their equipments or if they are obscured--if you care about their equipments/enchantments that much that you would want to destroy/disable them rather than deal with them some other way, anyways. For instance, if they put on regrowth belt, just put poisoned blood on them, and have an extra copy if they destroy it.
Decoys also are a good way to bluff arcane wards, reinforce, traps, etc. Opponents will try to seeking dispel it or something, and that will cost them an extra quick action. Or they'll call your bluff, in which case you just reveal decoy and get two mana back.
Dissolve is 2 more net mana than crumble, but a revealed decoy is 2 less net mana than an arcane ward or reinforce etc. dissolve and decoy is two quick actions, while crumble and arcane ward is one full action and one quick action. Plus, arcane ward refunds enemy mana while decoy does not. While in theory they could just ignore your facedown decoy, *they don't actually know that it's a decoy* so they'll have to treat it like it's something else, just in case because they might be wrong.
Lesser teleport only works on friendly creatures and doesn't free them from tanglevines or stuck or grapple. Why not just use force push and teleport? Sure it costs more mana and spell points, but it gets the job done just fine. You don't need to teleport things through walls in every spellbook. Just use eagle wings if it's a big creature, or destroy the wall if you have lots of little creatures. Or if the wall blocks los but not passage, just push it through if you think it won't kill the creature. Or you can use your own wall to put there first instead and prevent your opponent from putting a wall there.
Off the top of my head I can't think of any innately unmovable creatures in the core set, nor any that aren't big enough to be worth normal teleporting or giving cheetah speed/eagle wings too. And of the smaller ones I can't think of any that would need to be teleported individually. Of the ways of giving unmovable to creatures: steadfast boots, eagleclaw boots, tanglevines, stranglevine, force crush, force hold, and stuck conditions, the only ones that would be worth using against smaller creatures are stuck conditions. Of course, steadfast boots can be equipped to the enemy Mage to prevent them from pushing or teleporting themselves for a round if they don't already have boots on, but if they already have leather boots on then this trick won't work. Although I suppose someone can just dissolve leather boots first. Or they could tanglevine me and then put steadfast boots on me and jinx me. That would buy them two rounds in which I couldn't push or teleport my Mage instead of just one, but then why wouldn't they just use astral anchor? Not to mention steadfast boots is a war mage only spell and most war Mages will not include it for use on enemy Mages. And there are no war mages in the core set, so they can't cast steadfast boots on a core only deck anyway.
So basically, a core only deck will probably tend to be more aggressive than one that uses a larger card pool. Not because you have to always catch your opponents by surprise and beat them before they realize you're playing a core only deck. But rather because by themselves the cards in the core set tend to lend themselves more to aggressive styles of play.
-
Yes, you can do all of those things, but less efficiently - if you don't think 1-2 mana or an action here or there, then we are talking different levels of play, and distinctions of what matters.
I think they are huge. I also think changing a win rate by 5% is huge.
-
Yes, you can do all of those things, but less efficiently - if you don't think 1-2 mana or an action here or there, then we are talking different levels of play, and distinctions of what matters.
I think they are huge. I also think changing a win rate by 5% is huge.
I think you just ignored or skimmed over everything specific I just said up to and including "core only decks probably tend to be more aggressive". Also I am skeptical that the difference in win rates is as large as 5%. I wish there was some way to test the win rate of well designed core only decks, but unfortunately I'm the only one who seems to be making any.
Then again, it could also be that in Mage Wars there are almost never two players who are perfectly equally skilled at the game. So maybe the difference in win rates would be as large as 5% if Mage Wars playing skill were less variable.
Maybe I'm just unusually good at this game and that gives me the illusion that core only is reasonably competitive if built right--because a less skilled player who was equally familiar with a core only deck might still have a much harder time winning with that core only deck than another well built deck they were just as familiar with. I don't know. But I'm not sure you do either.
-
I'm off to bed now, but I'll write a point by point rebuttal tomorrow. But honestly I think most of those core suggestions are pretty awful. I also don't often see people caring about face-down enchantments much.
-
I'd use another method to determine if a magebook is aggro/midgame/control.
By looking how much mana he or she invests into mana-generation.
The less mana he invests the more aggro he is. (And if he is not playing aggro and is not investing in mana either, the player is just a newbie, but talking about people who know what they're doing - generally speaking.)
For example the most aggressive move is to run 2 fields and play an enchantment on yourself. If someone opens like that, you have to bring out an armor immediately. Even delaying it for 1 round could prove fatal.
Then there is the ordinary midgame opening. 1 spawnpoint and 1-3 spells to boost your mana.
And finally the control build.. I'd say it starts when the enemy mage uses more than 4 actions to increase his mana base.
Spawnpoint, amulet, 2x manaflower. That is still a slow midgame strategy. But any additional mana investment - then it is control (lategame) from my point of view.
What do you say? Obviously the borders are not exactly determined, it's only a rule of thumb classification if you want to label your builds.
-
Im having trouble with some of the terms in this tread and im not sure we are on the same page.
World Pro Tour is something we don´t have in Mage Wars - a big MW tourney would be something like 12-16 players.
To win an event like that you probably "only" have to win 4 out of 5 matches.
I think a core set book could have a chance of winning something like GenCon. So it could be both viable and competitive. However i can´t see a book like that being "best" and most certainly suppar to the book you could build if you used all the allowed cards.
And i don´t understand why you would do that?
Let say you up against a flying book. Having Gravikor would be really good, but if you don´t face any flyers your book would be "better" without it.
Trying to guess what other players are going to bring is tuff and uncertain anyway. Best chance would be if you know some of the participants really well. Like your training buddy or regular opponents.
-
Im having trouble with some of the terms in this tread and im not sure we are on the same page.
World Pro Tour is something we don´t have in Mage Wars - a big MW tourney would be something like 12-16 players.
To win an event like that you probably "only" have to win 4 out of 5 matches.
I think a core set book could have a chance of winning something like GenCon. So it could be both viable and competitive. However i can´t see a book like that being "best" and most certainly suppar to the book you could build if you used all the allowed cards.
And i don´t understand why you would do that?
Let say you up against a flying book. Having Gravikor would be really good, but if you don´t face any flyers your book would be "better" without it.
Trying to guess what other players are going to bring is tuff and uncertain anyway. Best chance would be if you know some of the participants really well. Like your training buddy or regular opponents.
Maim wings is in the core set. So is knockdown. So is flameblast. So is the wizard with arcane zap.
Also, no one is arguing that the core set only builds are just as good as non-core set only builds. Just saying that a well-built core only deck can still be reasonably viable/competitive. At least in the current meta. Maybe it won't be when the card pool gets too big, but I don't think we've gotten to that point yet. I have noticed that turtling or using a one-buddy build with core only might not work so well any more because of disperse/crumble being better for turtling than dissolve/dispel, as well as siren's call and the fact that the only psychic immune creatures in the core set are skeletal sentries.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
ב"ה
In mw, play skill>deckbuilding skill>card access>luck
Actually, I disagree for the other side.
Let's say we have dice with a little modification, the d12 will have a chance of 10% for the 9-12 results and only 7.5% for the rest of the results, and the attack dice will have 20% for 1crit and 2crit and only 15% for non-crit results. A noob would still most likely lose against a skilled player even if the noob would use the modified dice. However, I would definitely rather have the modified dice and use only the core set without any expansions rather than getting access to all spells but using standard dice.
For comparison-
In MtG, even if a player is allowed to separate his deck into lands and non-land, and on each draw he choose whether to draw a land or a non-land (which is a far greater boost to luck than the one I suggested for mage wars), he could still do almost nothing with a core set against a deck that has access to all cards.