Survey made.

What you think about the Diamond Golem i find him useless, 9 mana for him is to much.

He would have to negate at least the first 5 damage at his 3 live.

Here is one of the areas where MW differs from MtG the most in my opinion. In MtG you have room for less good/efficient creature or spells. This because you have drafts and other formats that let's you use these. But in MW this type of game styles are none existant thus requires all cards to be really equal/balanced or fit a very certain purpose. Otherwise they will never see sun light. I bet the Diamond golem will never see any good decks.

It seems like Incorporeal isn't a part of Acadamy, thus the effect of Incorporeal is instead written on every card. How will this play out towards Etheraeal (which of some reason is in this Acadamy set)? I assume it won't work?

Can someone please give the rules for Melting?

I rarely write anything in here anymore. But this time I have to.

I will try to not point my finger at anyone, but don't you guys see how you reacts to Borgs well formulated analysis? He (she?) presents a theory based on objective numbers where he asks about the community opinion. No where I can't see he throwing any bad words about the game I'm sure he would love to see flourish. And in return you give him over exaggerated feelings as a reply, instead of constructive feedback. That is not a welcoming community. Improve! You don't have many more in here to loose.

The question Borg has is very valid, and where to discuss it if not here?

Regarding play time, it is most likely possible to trim it down to an hour or so. But this takes time to master and experience from the player. They should know thier book very well, and also what thier opponent book might contain. And for this to work, both player must have this knowlege...

@Jacksmack:
Thanks! Glad you also can see all this. Regarding the creature abilities you are probably right too. I just stated a couple of isssue that together makes the game hard for a new player to like it. I would guess if all other bullets were fixed the creature ability issue would instead turn into a good flavour in the game.

I think you miss the point.

I have no problem with English cards, but there are younger players or people who just do not understand english well enough!

In some countries it is more normal than in others without translations, television, movies, books and everything else.
I've lived in a russian country for some time and 80% of the population speak no English.

It's hard enough to teach the game to new players.

If it were up to you, there would not be any translations, not even for books? :-)

And on the other hand AW did not have much to do with the translation, pegasus games was responsible for that.
In my opinion it would be better there would be more translations no less it just scares some people off.

There were no games in Swedish when I was young either... I had to learn in order to play.
If it were up to me I would say that all games should be made in/translated to English only. Then it wouldn't be a problem. This applies even for books, if you like.
(I don't think I own a Swedish book, and I haven't read one since the end of high school. At the university everything is in English, what else should it be?)

Even if AW didn't do the translation themselves partners had to be found and maintained. Contracts had to be made and intellectual properties carefully exchange. These things takes time. More time and resources then most people realize (even the involved parties). On top of this the translating side now have an extra expense they need to cover. Someone has to pay for this, at the end the customer obviously. What I have seen the cost for an German copy isn't more expensive compared to a English version, which means we all pay for this cost collectively (I doubt the German publishers accept lower margins for their versions).
Anyhow, Pegasus realized it wasn't something to invest in any more at the same time as AW will, which prove my thesis some.
Sorry, I didn't want this discussion to end up in translation issue. Please comment me, but I won't reply to this segment any more. 

Translation services are not that expensive and Arcane Wonders could always use automatic translation services if they are willing to accept some oddities (Hydro would probably translate to 水力発電 in Japanses, and that took me five seconds to find on Google).

Yes! If any translation, this is the way to go.

Hello (again) everyone!
Long time since I posted here too. I just want to add my 2 cents to this discussion.

I have been Ambassador in Sweden since the program started. At first it was quite ok. I had several matched face to face each week. Tom Vassel had the game at his top 10 games of all times. And people felt an urge to try it out.

But when time went by things started to slow down. People at conventions were not as interested anymore. Less buzz around the game. And the forum got less and less attention, and became a...ghost town. Today I haven't played a game for over a year, even if I really would like to. But I'm still looking at all videos from Arcane Duels (Awesome guys!) to keep up with the meta and news of my favorite game.

So why has it turned out this way? Here are a few bullets I'm thinking of:

- The game is to long
This I think scare new players off. It looks and feels like a 45 min to 1h game. At least that is what people expect it to be based on their inner comparison with MtG. Now an average game is more like 2h, and that is way to long for this format. At least to attract a larger player pool. Same thing with Academy in fact. It is to long for what it gives. And to be honest MtG does this format much better, why Arena is the way to go for Mage Wars.

- Armor issue
This bullet is very connected to the first one. In my mind armor and defense are two functions that prolong the game in a less desired way. Thematic it is great. But it is frequently seen that both mages and creatures stack a lot of armor which basically neglects 1/3 of all die rolls. This isn't very inspiring for an opponent. On top this is armor stacking very efficient and a good strategy as well. I would say most Armor spells should have been much more expensive.

- Destructive spells.
Same thinking as with the Armor issue. Every time you design a card that makes something destructive, and removes something from your opponent, you should think twice before releasing it or determine a cost for it because it will only prolong the game in an unfun manner. Spells like: Dispel, Siphone, Mana worm, Enfeeble, etc. These cards should also had been much more expensive.

- Effect issue
There are too many effects! For new people this is a jungle. In one game I tried to explain the difference of Rot and Bleed. They are basically the same, so why make a new version of it? All these tiny rules will act as a huge barrier for new player to get into the game.

- Ability issue
Wow, look at all these cool creature and conjurations abilities! Well, for new players this can be overwhelming. When each creature has its unique ability and none are just vanilla. Sometimes I play with the thought that what if most creatures were standard creatures and abilities came from the Conjurations, Enchantment and Mages?

- Card pool count
In revers to several others in here I think the card pool is too large. That is at least the impression I get talking to "mugglers". There is no life cycle of cards. The pool just grow and grow and grow. It is even hard for me to keep track of all cards. Maybe a better format how to use the cards is needed?

- Critical player count
I hope this isn't too late. But one big reason the game doesn't take off more, at least not in my area, is that a game needs a certain player count to grow from. MW had the chance when it was released but never really came up to that critical level when the crowd could bring in new players by itself. Now head hunting for new players are down to just a few dedicated persons globally, which is not enough. I bet one reason AW don't release new content as often for Arena is that for each release the sells figures has gone down down down.


I'm not too concerned about the release schedule. Actually I think it is just fine. What is missing is a clear well communicated plan for it though. Like: "Every year there will be one Arena release in April and one Academy release in November". Here AW must improve.
I guess it all boils down to what type of game and community we would like to have. Are we and AW looking for a prospering community I think the game needs a remake of some sort. Otherwise it will be you guys who are currently playing the game who will keep doing it, no one else unfortunately.