@Coshade - I'm a little confused by your comment.  If you don't think you could win 1 on 1 why on earth would you suggest 2 or 3 vs. him?  I agree that summoning an Elder Being without getting yourself killed in the process would be quite a challenge and I can't see any way that you could stand up to 2 or 3 people all focused on stopping you.  I do think it'd work quite well in a 2 v 2 game where you had an ally that could play offense while you played defense; but, if everybody wants you dead, you're pretty well dead.

I know the balancing will be hard.  I'm going to try and convince one of my friends to let me play a Voidbringer next time we play and report back on how that goes.  I don't think the discussion can really move forward until I've got some actual play experience with these ideas, more hypothetical guesswork isn't really going to show whether it's viable or not. 

That said, I think you should be able to win a game with the Voidbringer even without summoning an Elder Being.  If the entire concept for the mage depends on that specific strategy then it's kind of broken.  It needs to be able to be played a couple of different ways.  The special abilities of the Voidbringer lend themselves to direct attacks and being a front-line fighter and that's a viable way to play it.  The Blood Frenzy ability combined with the Bloodthirsty Sword would be a real bitch to take down.

I do think that with the 2 different types of cultist that it's possible to win a game while trying to summon an Elder Being; but, it is (and really needs to be) incredibly difficult.  Elder Beings are crazy powerful and if they are too easy to summon it breaks the game.  But, especially the Elder Beings that only require 1 Sacrifice Token shouldn't be all that hard to summon.  You may be able to do it 5 or 6 turns into the game if things go your way.  The Mad Cultists I just proposed should make it very difficult to actually get to the Elder Gate to destroy it and should buy you plenty of time to work with if you're trying to summon one.  I really get a kick out of the fact that trying to summon the Elder Beings would have to be one of the most defensive ways that you could play the Voidbringer.

The Dark Cultists and Cult Leader should really give you a bunch of mana to work with and it's important to remember that this mana can still be used to summon other things and cast attack spells (though obviously it will slow down the summoning of the Elder Being.)  With the flow of mana you should be able to mount a pretty effective offense or defense (again meaning that the game may be won regardless of the Elder Gate.)  I'm honestly a little worried that the Dark Cultists and Cult Leader make generating mana too easy and may be too powerful as I've currently got them statted out.


@Laddinfance - I'm really unsure about the cost on the Mad Cultist.

There is a fair amount of power in the ability to some more than 1 at a time and never really run out of expendable units, but at the same time I noticed that a Goblin Grunt has 4 Life and 3 Attack has a cost of 4 mana.  The Mad Cultists are clearly weaker with 3 Life and 1 Attack.  It'd be ridiculously easy to take out a whole swarm of cultists with a sweeping attack or an attack spell that targets everything in the zone. 

A cost of 3 or 4 may be more balanced in terms of what you're getting, but makes them much more powerful.  As currently written you could bring out 3 of them in the first round. At a cost of 5 you could summon 4 in the 1st round and easily 2 per round after that.  A cost of 3 or 4 becomes even more ridiculous.   They may not be able to deal much damage, but they are far from useless.  I honestly see them as having the most value in guarding and hindering the enemies movements.

What do you think?

Here are my ideas so far for Elder Beings.  They are not really complete or balanced at this time (I feel particularly bad about the terrible names); but, I figure it's a decent start and may get others brainstorming so...

Malefic Magebane - Cost: 30 mana (plus 2 Sacrifice tokens), Upkeep 3, Attack 5 with Mana Drain +2, Armor 3, Health 20, Regen 2.

Malefic Magebane is a powerful being who's presence disrupts the flow of magical energy in the world.  ALL spells have their cost increased by 2.  All spells targeting Malefic Magebane have their cost doubled.  No spells can be cast in the same zone as Malefic Magebane.

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Tentacled Horror - Cost: 30 mana (plus 1 Sacrifice Tokens), Upkeep 4, Defense 11+ (infinite), Slow. Regen 4.  Armor 3, Health 25.

Quick Attack 4 (reach), Full attack 5 plus d12 to see if target is Incapacitated.

Tentacled Horror has an automatic melee attack against all creatures within 1 zone radius during the upkeep phase. Whenever a creature is killed by Tentacled Horror it gains a +1 Attack token.
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Goddess of Dark Beauty - Cost: 35 Mana (plus 3 Sacrifice Tokens), Upkeep 2, Regen 2, Armor 2, Health 20

All living creatures in zone with Goddess of Dark Beauty must roll 10+ or be incapacitated.

Quick Attack - 4, vampiric

Full Action - Goddess of Dark Beauty takes control of 1 incapacitated creature. That creature can and will attack it's friends and allies if directed to. Every controlled creature gains the Upkeep +2 trait and you maintain control of them so long as that upkeep is paid.
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Brutus Bloodlust - Cost: 30 Mana (plus 1 Sacrifice Token), Upkeep 3, Regen 3, Armor 4, Health 30

Brutus Bloodlust has the Fast and Charge +2 traits.

All Dark Living Creatures gain Bloodlust +2, Armor +1 and Life +3 so long as Brutus Bloodlust is in play.

Full Action - Sweeping attack for 5.

Quick Action - Attack for 6


I rather like the idea that if someone is playing the Voidbringer you have no idea which of the 4 (or more) Elder Beings they are planning on summoning.  All the costs and stats are just a rough estimate, playtesting will be needed to keep these at all balanced (as much as summoned Elder Beings can be balanced.)

The real idea is that opposing players need to destroy the Elder Gate before they are summoned and the most powerful take the longest to summon.  So long as they are difficult enough to summon they shouldn't be gamebreaking and I rather think that the new dynamic of attack/defend the Elder Gate would make for an interesting game.

Here are some of the other thoughts that I've had bouncing around in my head for the last couple of days:

I think the Dark Cultist may work best if instead of extra mana for dying they just have the option to use Self-Flagellation (Full action - attack self and gain mana equal to damage) or Devotion (Full action to gain 1 mana.) This way your mana production doesn't have to shut down if they are seriously damaged and you don't want to kill them.  Also, it would give time for Regrowth to work if you wanted to put that on them.

The Dark Cultist is a nifty idea and suggests a couple of other things.  The first one is a Cult Leader/Dark Priest - 12 or 13 Mana to summon (obviously that number may need to be adjusted based on playtesting.) Lvl 3 Dark. Unique.  Dark Priest has Channeling 1 and can summon lvl 1 Dark Creatures. All Dark Cultists in zone produce 1 additional mana when using Self-Flagellation. All friendly living creatures gain Regen 1 while in zone with Dark Priest.

All this thinking about Dark Cults brought my mind to the Cthulhu mythos and I wonder if there might be some value in including a couple of ridiculously expensive Elder Beings which can only be summoned at a special spawnpoint - an Elder Gate (obviously wording can be changed as appropriate for the Mage Wars universe.) While your mage is standing at the Elder Gate he may sacrifice a friendly living creature he controls as a full action to place a Sacrifice Token on the Elder Gate.  All Elder Beings require a sacrifice token in addition to any mana cost (maybe some of the more powerful require 2, but I think anything more than that become unwieldy and infeasible.)

Perhaps all these cards would work best in an expansion with a new mage: the Voidbringer.  The Voidbringer gains 2 mana whenever a melee attack against a living creature deals damage as the Elder Beings they worship delight in bloodshed and chaos.  The Voidbringer has an ability called Blood Frenzy and may pay 5 mana to gain a 2nd quick attack against any target that they have damaged with a melee action that round. The Voidbringer is unnaturally charismatic and may summon Dark Cultists as a Quick Cast Spell.  The Bloodthirsty Sword we've been discussing would go delightfully well with this mage.  Obviously this may take a little work to get balanced, but it seems pretty neat to me. 

Thoughts?

Yes, it would be a big negative; but, that may be for the best in order to keep it balanced.

A sword that is vampiric which grants bloodthirsty does make quite a bit of sense.  Heck, I'd even be up for adding a trait which gives a +1 to attack (or maybe even better to Bloodthirsty) every time a creature is killed by the Bloodthirsty Sword.  (I'm not sure how this would/should affect cost.) I kind of like the idea of a powerful, yet highly addictive, dark artifact.

Here's a question: Does Bloodthirsty mean you have to attack your own creatures if there are no wounded enemy creatures in zone?  The wording in the rules is kind of vague on that point. I'd always assumed "no"; but now I'm wondering.

Regardless of what Bloodthirsty does normally, I think that it would be kind of great if the Bloodthirsty Sword made you attack even your own units if they are wounded.  Maybe roll 8+ on a D12 to successfully resist the blood craving and actually attack an unwounded enemy instead of your own wounded creatures. Every additional point of Bloodthirsty would make the roll harder to reflect the degeneration of the mage.

Even if it ends up not being the best thing tactically it tells a pretty great story.  You get to watch as your mage is slowly driven deeper into madness by the dark power of the Bloodthirsty Sword.  Win or lose it would definitely be entertaining and make for a memorable game.

The Elemental Circle certainly would be.  Sorry about that, I don't own all the expansions yet and while I've gone over the spell lists for the other expansions yet they're far from set in my mind. 

There may be some value still in the same way that Mana Crystal and Mana Flower both have their niche.  If it has a higher initial cost and a higher amount of channeling I think it could justify itself, especially since Wizard's Tower is unique and for Arcane mage only.  I'm thinking that while these are Arcane spells they really are broadly applicable just like the wands.

The Magic Circle has even more merit in that the Wizard's Tower can only cast attack spells and not incantations.

I'm actually quite surprised at the low cost and versatility of the Wizard's Tower.  It's not much more expensive than the Elemental Wand; but it doesn't have the 3 pt. cost to swap out spells.

Sorry if I've been getting the school wrong on some of these.  I was just figuring that for metamagic/mana that Arcane was the right school.

Since as I've envisioned it now it's useful not just against spawnpoints, but for slowing down enemy mages I do think it has value to the game.  As things sit you can destroy spawnpoints easily enough with fire and lightning spells so it's not like they're inviolate.

I'd say playtest it and play with the variables to see how it affects the game.  Does it work better with a range of 0-1 instead of 0-2? Mana Drain could be 1 die or just set at 2.  I figure cost should be 10-15, but it's hard to be sure without seeing it in action.

Sanctum - Conjuration - When your mage is standing in the zone with Sanctum all spell costs are reduced by 1 to a minimum of 1.  While in the zone with Sanctum you may pay X mana as a full action to return any card from your discard pile to your spellbook.

Meditation - Novice spell - Incantation - Cost 2 - Gain mana equal to the amount rolled on 2 attack die.

Mana Sink - Conjuration (Zone Exclusive) - Range 0-2 - Once per round Mana Sink may drain Mana equal to the amount rolled on 2 attack die from any creature or conjuration.

Portal - Conjuration - Portal has a Channeling of 1 or 2 - Portal may teleport any friendly creature.  Cost is 3 mana per zone teleported as the teleport spell.

Disruptive Attack - Enchantment - This creatures attacks gain Mana Drain +1.