As we got more expansions, mages got more options and more ways to play, and yet the total variety of the metagame doesn't feel like it's increased all that much correspondingly. Somehow as more tools became available to our toolboxes, the total number and uniqueness of the different possible toolboxes we could make went down.

I agree completely.

The reason for this negative development is 120 starting sbp's. 120 sbp's is simply too much as it leaves far too many sbp's to work with after you've chosen your base strategy cards.
Result : every new "power card" that gets released simply finds its way into nearly every competitive spellbook.

I also tried to explain this in "The book" thread.
I'll copy/paste my post from that threat :

The point of releasing new expansions is, among other things:
- fleshing out certain schools
- balancing out schools
- providing new strategies for different mages.
- other goals ...

HOWEVER, if the starting sbp's total is so high that EVERY mage can simply afford to include every power card, no matter what school it comes from and how much the cost then these expansions increase a certain problem : the new cards then don't simply strengthen a certain school type but rather strengthen EVERY mage from ANY SCHOOL.
Thus the number of staples for every mage simply increases with every expansion which is a bad effect imo.

This is a clear indication imo that there is a balance issue between individual card sbp cost and total sbp's available.
The school cost ( single/double/triple) is not impactful enough and does not work as restricting as it should imo.
The result is : every spellbook looks mostly the same and there's actually only 1 type of book successful : the "toolbox" book. There should be more viable archetypes than that ( cfr aggro vs control vs combo in MtG ).

With 160 points we could make some even crazier books

The problem with 160 sbp's is that now each spellpoint represents only 0.625% of your total spellpoints.
In other words : sbp's are seriously reduced in value and as a consequence you have seriously reduced the impact of single, double and triple cost of a spell which in turn leads to different schools having even less impact in spell choices than they already have.

At 160 sbp's a Pillar of Righteous Flame at triple cost would still only take up 3.75% ( 6 of 160 ) of your sbp total.
If the absolute best cards, at the costliest rate cost you no more than that to include in your book it should be glaring obvious that there is a problem with the single/double/triple cost implementation element in this game because it's reduced to a non-factor.

Think of it like this : if a kid has 1 dollar and he wants a candy he has to make choices.
Does he take a Mars, or a Snicker. A pack of Lays chips or something else ?
If you give that kid 100 dollars. He simply takes the Mars AND the Snickers AND the pack of Lays chips AND a whole lot more. There are no choices to make anymore. Just take all the goodies.

I fail to see how releasing more expansions with good cards are a problem.

The point of releasing new expansions is, among other things:
- fleshing out certain schools
- balancing out schools
- providing new strategies for different mages.
- other goals ...

HOWEVER, if the starting sbp's total is so high that EVERY mage can simply afford to include every power card, no matter what school it comes from and how much the cost then these expansions increase a certain problem : the new cards then don't simply strengthen a certain school type but rather strengthen EVERY mage from ANY SCHOOL.
Thus the number of staples for every mage simply increases with every expansion which is a bad effect imo.

This is a clear indication imo that there is a balance issue between individual card sbp cost and total sbp's available.
The school cost ( single/double/triple) is not impactful enough and does not work as restricting as it should imo.
The result is : every spellbook looks mostly the same and there's actually only 1 type of book successful : the "toolbox" book. There should be more viable archetypes than that ( cfr aggro vs control vs combo in MtG ).
Every healthy game needs a competitive "aggro" variant. MW does not have that.

Therefore, solution : reduce the number of starting sbp's to like 100, let players really make choices about what to put in their book instead of just putting in every power card.

I would still find room for it at 80 points in every book, a single heal can turn the tide of the match from a loss and make it into a win. Lower SBP would not solve this problem, it would change the game.

I understand your argument but it is a personal preference / playing style of yours as other players ( myself included ) find this much less of a "must have" card.
In a fitting book, I may go for a Heal as well but in general I'd rather play a damage spell on the opponent for the same mana.

If anything at double figures we run the risk of having auto-building books, as a single strategy will emerge as optimal for each mage, with a toolbox. 

I think it's much too soon to draw that conclusion. It might be just the other way around as far as I'm concerned. I would rather expect to see much more variety than we have now because people would have to build more "focused" books.

there's always bound to be staples in games.

Yes, but do you find it a good thing that EVERY book can afford ALL the staples ?
I don't.

I have no problem with expecting a Pillar of Righteous Flame in EVERY Holy mage's spellbook but when it starts showing up in just every book, no matter what school, tbere is a problem imo.

The reason for this overpresentation of staples is : too many sbp's to build a book.

Think of it, the game is (theoretically) trying to restrict your spellbookbuilding options by charging double sbp's for out-of-school spells and even triple cost in some instances.

Do you honestly have the impression that these extra costs are effectively preve ting you from building your book optimally ? I don't.
120 sbp's is far too much. It takes the effectiveness out of the double/triple cost.

Lower the starting sbp's and force each mage to find in-school answers to situations and you'll get far more diverse books.

Every book boils down to a toolbox of winning. The main goal is to win or you might as well play something else. So this boils down into offensive, defensive, and solutions to specific problems.

I agree, but does every toolbox have to be nearly identical to your opponent's ?
You might as well play chess then.

New Upkeep Phase:
1) Pay all costs.
     This includes life (sardonyx), Seal tokens (need reword), Upkeep +X
2) Trigger all effects
     All of the triggered effects go on a "stack" per creature. At this time your Deathlink triggers 2 damage on an enemy creature and 2 healing on your mage, you whirlpool triggers damage and your pillar triggers an attack. Here we follow the rule that all effects triggered on your own creatures are resolved in whatever order you choose
3) Remove Dissipates
     This is when Pillar, lullaby, madrigal, etc are destroyed.

This is clear, effective and as simple as possible.
I'd be definitely in favor of this suggestion.

Other ideas/opinions on keeping the game alive.

1. I think we need to go back to 1 format. Arena and Arena only. There is no player base for Arena + Academy + Domination. All the energy and resources have to go to 1 product : the best = Arena.

2. MW is actually a pretty simple game with simple base rules. Generate mana, choose 2 cards, play tnem and activate. Nothing difficult at all. What makes the game very hard for beginners though is that they don't know a single card at the outset. Every single card in their spellbook is completely knew to them and that is overwhelming. Since MW uses a lot of 1-offs in its books we're often looking at books that contain 30 to 40 different cards. That's just a gigantic hurdle to take for a non-devoted or casual player. That leads me to my third point.

3. I'd like to know if a MW format of 60 SBP's instead of 120 SBP's would improve the game.
This would make new entries easier imo - less new cards to digest at the outset.
Spellbooks would likely be much more focused on a certain strategy and less cookie cutter.
Games could be finished much faster, allowing you to play more games in the same time span and potentially opening the door to a real (Swiss) tournament format that can be played in 1 day without putting time restrictions on the games.
I have personally always felt that 120 SBP's were too much because nearly every book has counters to almost every possible threat. Make books focus more on their strategy by taking away all those bonus SBP's and hoser cards and you might be surprised how entertaining the format could be with all kinds of different strategies clashing with each other and not with a hoser card.

By Guarding with a Fire Immune creature in Mage Wars you have basically 'blocked' the entire zone from a fire creature.  Seems pretty similar.  The difference being in Magic you'd also get to deal your damage to the fire creature.  The system of guarding vs blocking is what's causing the mismatch, I think.

Correct, 1 pro fire guard in MW can technically block 1000 potential fire attackers.
That's also why I think it should be possible to attack a pro fire creature with a fire creature. It will deal no damage but it might trigger an effect and can take away a guard marker.

That would be different than mtg alright but there's a significant difference here between MW and mtg :
In mtg you always attack your opponent ( or a planeswalker ) . Creatures can block.
In MW you cannot melee attack your opponent if he has guards.

It has been 6 years since the 2012 release and we have 6 expansions for the Core Set along with a 4th edition of rules. On average this is one expansion per year. This is incredible support for a boardgame, especially from a small publishing company.

It sounds great if you put it that way but you have to take a somewhat closer look imo :
2012 core game
2013 kumanjaro, FvW, DvN that's the base game with three expansions within the first 1-2 years.
2014 FiF
2016 SvP

Since 2014 we've only had one real Arena expansion ( not counting the promo's release as a real expansion )
That's 1 real expansion in 4 years.

I agree that the average looks ok. I'd settle for 1 expansion per year.
But the last 4 years paint another picture imo.


Of course I'm also for more streamlined and intuitive rules.
Not being able to even target a creature with protection from fire with a fire attack never made sense imo.
The protection should minimize effect or damage, not prevent targeting.

Making currently unplayable cards playable could also be within the realms of the possible.