This game is soooooo meta game dependent even more than many other games I've played. It reminds of magic and dominion in that way. If you play with people who buy $500 decks in magic or only buy 1 -2 actions and all money in dominion it will alter how you play and ultimately how you feel about the game.

In mage wars every game has so many possibilities depending on the skill and strategy of the player. In my experience (45 games) people don't guard enough. This would cause more creature deaths. It also increases the value of spells that give elusive and knockdown. If no one ever guards then creatures , elusive, incapacitate, etc seem to be useless. Once My opponents see how much I guard they start putting elusive and kncokdown in their books and guard more.

Also if your groups doesn't use a lot of dissolves the. Equipment seems more powerful than it is. Etc.   For every strategy there is a counter . (Maybe teleport is an exception although nullify is probably your best)


The problem with all this is that even a hardcore gamer may give up on this game after a few plays without really getting to discover all this awesome play/counter play. I would have given up after about 5 plays if I didn't love the theme so much. I had a lot of the same problems and had so much difficulty learning the rules to this game.  The game seemed very samey and luck dependent as we each pursued the same strategy every game  now I know better but a lot of people are not going to give a game 5 plays of 2+ hours of chance to impress.