I like that it is a) best of 7 and b) has no limitation on the mages. Sign me up!

holy crap... is this what future tournaments will all look like?

If Arcane Wonders doesn't do the balancing the duty falls to the tournament organizers.

*Message has been removed by moderators due to multiple reports of abusive behavior*

Sorry but that's impossible since Mage Wars is dead! Stop lying!

But in the end, it's not a good comparison: Age of Empires had a couple thousand players during it's peak, and according to Steam charts, the modern all-time peak is of 26 767 players. However, Mage Wars had a few hundred players at its peak, but the community is now basically small pockets of 5-10 players spread across the United States.

It is a good comparison because it exemplarily shows you that a game that was by all accounts dead made a comeback without the developer doing anything to promote it. On the contrary, Microsoft devoloped Age of Empires 3 and Age of Mythology and other Publishers threw dozens of similar games onto the market, making it that much harder for AoE2 to make a comeback.

And that is after all your exact and only point:
MW is dead and any talk about a possible positive future triggers you into oblivion because according to you there is none.


Your numbers are meaningless anyway because comparing absolute numbers from a board-game with a computer-game has zero significance.

You're right- community management can help revitalize the game and gain the interest of the odd board gamer or two. But considering how there are so little amount of people left in the community, what makes you think that most of the old players would want to come back just because of a few custom made cards?
 

I think an active community is the first and most important step to revitalize a game once its developer isn't investing any more time and money into the game. I agree with you that it's questionable if that really is making a difference, but one enthusiastic fan can make the difference:
Imagine a better platform is available and someone is investing the effort required to streamline MW for easier online access.
At the moment you need to download a program 99,9% of all gamers have never even heard of and then you have to download a map-pack and make an account and then on top many offline-players don't like the handling of OCTGN, they don't have the patience to learn how to chance phases and do stuff properly. And then half the players experience awful lags and sometimes the whole program freezes. In this time and age people are used to ... a better gameplay experience.


As I said before, imagine Mage Wars suddenly becomes available on Steam... I am sure even you agree that this would increase the popularity of the game a hundredfold, a thousandfold, a ten-thousandfold?

My point is, I guess, that I don't like how much satisfaction you get from bashing the (remaining) fans. If they still want to hope who are you to tell them that they "have to accept" anything?

and whenever someone brings up the question of this game's survival and the inevitable "they haven't announced anything, so we're still in luck !" pops up, I have to remind people that it's not all flowers and butterflies.

Ah, you "have the remind people" ... well ... how unfortunate for you that your nature forces you to regularly ruin someone's day. Heavy burden to bear I assume...

Third, you cannot compare chess to Mage Wars. One is nearly an icon of western culture, the other is a game that was popular in a small niche community for about 2 years before it lost relevance and is now a shadow of its former self.

I didn't compare Chess to Mage Wars, I showcased with an example that you don't necessarily need new content for a board-game to thrive. After all you were the one who made the argument that MW is dead because there hasn't be an expansion in a whole year.

Like a few other spells, the potency of Pillar is something that is determined by external factors, most importantly the timing, and cannot be the solo determiner of it's costs. The same argument of "imbalance" could be made for all the timing/skill cards like reverse attack, eye for an eye, mind control, and divine intervention.

You are right that there are some cards that can be very powerful in the right, specific circumstances. We all love those cards. Predicting that next turn your opponent might finally make a powerful long range (therefore not unavoidable) attack so that you can finally play your reverse attack and change everything, those cards are great and they are highly valued.
I myself won several games in the German Nationals because of reverse attack so be assured I am not someone who doesn't appreciate this card. If I remember correctly I was the only one from the top5 who included this card in his deck in the first place. So really, I do appreciate this card a lot and love it.
It needs a lot of experience and a good read on the game-state to really see the full potential of this card, hence why I like it so.

But it is at least two magnitudes below the Pillar in terms of power-level. As you so rightly point out, it is a very situational card. But Pillar is not. It really is not. And that's exactly the problem. Even in the worst case, you have just begun to play the game and have no idea what you are doing, you still get at least 8 dice out of the pillar - for 9 mana and one quick cast.
You know what the worst case is with reverse attack. You invest 2 mana, a quick cast, and get ZERO because your opponent used an unavoidable attack. And this worst case happens significantly more often than worst case with the Pillar.
And if you start to compare their best case... oh boy. I'd say a realistic best case scenario with reverse attack would be playing against an Adramelech Warlock who is fully buffed and you KNOW that he cannot play fireblast because he already used up 6 of them. At this point it's not such a gamble any more to play the RA. And because it is best case, your opponent doesn't have any armor, so you deal 9 dmg and 2 burns.
Additionally, because we are talking best case here, you yourself didn't wear any armor either so you prevented 9 dmg.
If I have to place a mana-cost on this, I'd go with 2 times drain life or more generic 9dice dmg are 9mana and 9 heal are 9 mana, so roughly 18 mana worth out of those 7 we invested.
e4e has a far worse efficiency-coefficient. Realistic best case would probably be that you again have 0 armor and someone attacks you with a pumped FB, so you might get 9 mana out of the 4 you invested. Roughly speaking.


Let's just take the example from the DM (german championship) as a "realistic best case example" since we have actually seen it happening - probably in contrast to my very favourable theoretic RA example.
9+5 mana generated 42 dice. So investment is 14 mana and you have gotten out of it an attack spell worth 42 mana.

Another example that comes to mind, again a real example not a theoretical one as used for RA:
In my ADMW2 tournament game vs. Jacksmack - sadly coshade and puddn haven't uploaded that game - I placed one or two lasher next to his graveyard and whenever he summoned a creature from the yard I snatched it into the zone with the Pillar. And since brutes are bloodthirsty to begin with, they never leave the zone anyway. Until they are dead again. I don't know how many rolls I have gotten out of the Pillar, I played the game maybe 8 month ago, but I guess..  7? Maybe 8?


I'd love to look for some more examples, I remember a Tsunami by juli which "accidentally" pushed someone in a pillar, than through a wall of thorns than back through the wall of thorns and into the pillar again. And the Pillar was played x turns ago for something entirely different. And Tsunami or the WoT don't have 50% of the players nagging how unbalanced those cards are.

Because, and that's what I was trying to show from my first post on, Pillar is not in the same sense situational like the other cards you have mentioned.
I'd go so far and say Pillar might be one of the most versatile cards in the whole game, which is exactly the problem. There are so countless situations in which you can beneficially use it compared to e4e or RA or WoT or whatever.




Two more points I want to stress once again, because nobody has said anything to them yet:

Firstly:
If two necromancer play against each other, and are roughly at the same skill level, the necro with Pillar will win. Thus forcing necros to include a pillar in case of a mirror match.


Secondly:
Apart from being so very good against undeads, the Pillar (obviously) is also the perfect weapon against ANY incorporeal creature, making incorporeal play styles virtually non-existent because you have to expect at least every second book to have a hard-counter against you in their arsenal.

and last but definitely the least important, and has never come up in a game of MW ever, Pillar cannot target a creature that is currently invisible.

I would not be surprised if AW comes up with a rule that changes the targeting system of ranged attacks itself.
So that indestructible, epic light-conjurations now can target invisible creatures in the same zone.

And I expect people would still defend it because there are so few instances in which it matters, so why fuss about it! :p

Pillar of Righteous Flame. Arguably the most powerful legal MW card since the expansion Paladin vs. Siren. Or is it?


First of all, how do we even judge the strength of a card? We look at one card and experienced players can immediately assess if this card is strong or not. How do they do this? They compare it with similar, known cards!

For example:
We see a lvl 2 creature with 8 life, 2 armor and 3 dice attack. Nothing else. No effect. And it's an animal.
So how much mana would you estimate for this creature? Certainly not 9 mana, because for 9 mana you get 10 life, 2 armor, 4 dice.
And 8 mana? On that slot this unit would compete with the Silverclaw Ratel (8 mana, 8 life, 1 armor, 3dice piercing 1, when it is damaged, the Ratel has doublestrike)
No need to tell you, if that thing would cost 8 mana, noone would ever play this theoretical card.
So what if it cost 7 mana? Is it a good card now? "Good" as in, does it get played with a manacost of 7? Probably not because for one mana more you can get far more "dmg output" with the Ratel on the board.

Now imagine it is a knight. Suddenly all I wrote up there isn't relevant any more. Now your point of comparison immediately changes to the little Asyrian Defender. 8mana, 8 life, 2 armor, 3dice, def 9+ is now the point of reference. Again it is obvious that 9 or 8 mana is too much for my vanilla creature that I described. Considering that even the Asyrian Defender is very very seldom played, we can infer that the defender is too weak for its mana-cost.

Now ... imagine it is a demon. With what do you compare my vanilla 8life, 2armor, 3dice demon now? Either with Afflicted Demon or the Scourger I presume. Or you go with the Firebrand Imp..  And actually compared to the Firebrand Imp which is 5 mana, 6life, 2dice (fire) + flame immunity my vanilla demon suddenly doesn't look that bad. For 2 more mana you get +2 life, +2 armor and roughly the same attack.

And now imagine I say it is a shark. Again ...  I guess by now I have made my point clear. We use known, similar cards as reference if we judge how strong a card is.
If I ask you how good a creature is, you won't reference "Wall of Steel" in your reply and tell me that I only need 6 turns to get through that wall. You'll look for a similar creature to compare it with!


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So let's face the question you have all been thinking about. If you have to judge how "good" Pillar is, with what do you compare it? I think there are 3/4 different card types you can compare it with.
First of all.. the most obvious one, we compare it with other conjurations that trigger an attack when someone enters the zone:
Apart from Manglers Caltrops and Bed of Urchins ... there are none to compare it with. I think it goes without saying that next to Pillar those two cards look... underwhelming. See for yourself:
Manglers: https://gyazo.com/07987c65d4121f0a8221a5918ba4387c
Urchins: https://gyazo.com/15e66df60ed823caab814d4379154b02
Pillar: https://i.gyazo.com/a91fa452eb00561b01e5d34ed3a1772e.png

We could also compare it with another card that is .. hmm.. apart from one effect very very similar:
Thunderstorm: https://gyazo.com/14108c1e6004008c2a70ecda5f611e35
Have you ever seen this card in a game? Probably not. Even though it's 3 mana cheaper and only has 1 attack-die less.
Well.. let's compare those two cards. Thunderstorm costs 3 mana less, as I said. But it doesn't attack when you cast it, only when a dissipate is removed. So that's a guaranteed 4 dice attack less than Pillar has. A simple 4 dice attack is worth 4 mana. That alone makes the Pillar superior. But the strongest feature of the pillar, the attack on entry and the +2 vs non-living is not even included yet in the manacost. Well, it feels wasted to compare those two cards, we all know that Pillar is way way better than Thunderstorm.

Now we could compare the Pillar with traps but let's come to the interesting comparison. In essence the Pillar is an attack spell, even though it's technically a conjuration. So let's compare it with attack spells. I guess it's best to compare it with Hurl Boulder. Finally a card that gets _frequently_ played in tournaments. A card that has many equal alternatives:
Fireball, Force Hammer, Lightning Bolt - they are all rather close together in terms of strength / mana efficiency.

Hurl Boulder, the classic attack spell. Frequently used to kill conjurations or to deal the last needed damage to finish the opponent: https://gyazo.com/0576b810f65381bd0e617e840c2cd6a7

8 mana, 7 dice, range 0-2

Finally a card we can really measure the Pillar against. But considering that the Pillar is ethereal maybe we should take the ethereal counterpart to the Boulder? That would be the Lightning Bolt. Also 8 mana but only 5 dice. So they subtracted 2 whole dice because its attack is ethereal? Well, and because it can roll a better effect. Let's say the ethereal was one dice and the better effect the other dice.
Here is the Lightning Bolt, maybe the closest attack spell we can compare the Pillar to:
https://gyazo.com/10e4c480e0adc1a8857bab1fbdc6c4da

You can draw your own conclusions, the post is getting to lengthy as it is.


---

I want to take a stance against three main arguments I have heard so far:
"Pillar is not too strong because ...  ['insert card' is better] dissolve and dispel are better"
First of all as you have seen in the beginning, I reject the whole premise of taking completely unrelated cards which have a fundamental different application as reference for a comparison.
But even IF I were to compare those cards with the Pillar I have to answer:
Dispel and Dissolve are zero-sum cards. You destroy something for exactly the same cost that your opponent paid for it. To destroy a 5 mana enchantment, you have to pay 5 mana. You win nothing in terms of mana.
Yes, it might be crucially important to dispel that enchantment and I'd rather not have a Pillar in my book than no Dispel or Dissolve, but that's not how the value of any card is determined, as we have discussed in the beginning.

Second argument goes like that:
"I have seen many games in which Pillar only gets 2 attacks out and then it's 9 mana for 2*4 dice ethereal with  daze/burn chance, that's not broken."

And I agree. In the worst case scenario the Pillar is not broken. In the utterly worst case scenario Pillar is like two a mixture of those two attack spells:
Arc Lightning: https://gyazo.com/2bc601d803d6342a6533360bac110f0f
Firestream: https://gyazo.com/8019d88a6a86096697383f3330a91691
And I admit, very few people would play those spells without hawkeye and other buffs. So you basically cast 2 spells with one action, but yeah... I agree that in the worst case scenario Pillar is not very impressive.
But highly situational cards are not judged by their worst case, but by their best case.
You don't look at Purify and say "well, if I neither have poison conditions nor poison enchantments, that card is utterly useless" when you build a deck. You think about prior games and on that basis you decide how likely it is that a situation arises in which Purify would be the best option in your entire book. And how dearly you'd miss it if you had to choose another option. Dispel for example. And most here would probably go for a Dispel instead of Purify even though in a best case scenario Purify is way way better. But how likely is said case to actually appear..


I have seen many many games in which Pillar was the sole pivotal card of the entire game.
Keejchen vs. markus at the German Championship this year. I've forgotten how many dice he has gotten out of the pillar.. The whole skeleton army forcewaved into that pillar.. Game over, in one move. From "he has no chance" to "he has won" in a single turn. Yes, he needed another card to pull that off, does that make force wave the second best card? Nope :p


The damage potential this card has is insane. Against every necro you have with minimal effort at least 4*6 dice, if you play against bloodthirsty zombies regularly 6*6 dice and more. And they don't even have armor! And the daze/burn chance is also increased against undeads.

Also, necro is one of the top mages. Having a card that obliterates undeads is very beneficial. Imagine two necro players, one has the pillar in his book, the other doesn't. The necro who has Pillar will probably win 10/10 games, that's how much impact this single card has.
And this is my problem with the card. You are practically forced to include it because it gives you such an insane advantage against every mage who uses non-living creatures. And accidentally, if you meet a Fire Elemental or a Whirling Spirit or an Invisible Stalker or a Gray Wraith ... You can trade very very favourably. 9 mana for 20/12/15/10 and you still have some attacks left for other targets.

The third aspect that makes this card so strong, apart from its undead and incorporeal kill mechanism, is whenever both sides play with creature spawnpoints. Imagine it's the turn in which you engage, both sides have 5 lvl 2 creatures. Your opponent attacks your field with 2 creatures, after that you play the Pillar in your zone. Now either he takes 4 dice for every additional creature he sends into this zone or he "surrenders" his investment and will lose the 2 creatures he has send into your zone. Also, next turn you play chant of rage and take is best remaining creature into your killing zone. Or you forcepush a creature that already moved. Or or or or.
This card has so many applications, you can even use it for dealing dmg to the enemy mage, if you prepare accordingly. I sometimes see the enemy mage keep standing in the same zone with the Pillar, because they expect me to forcepush/teleport them back into the zone anyway and then they used mana and actions to get away but because I am prepared they are in a worse position than before.



This card is well above the powerlevel of any comparable card. What are my suggestions to fix it? I don't mind that this card is insanely powerful in the right circumstances. I mind that it comes so cheaply to have such a powerful tool with you.
- First of all: Make it more expensive, so that you really have to sacrifice other tools if you want to include the Pillar into your book. I suggest lvl 4 holy.
- Secondly, remove the ethereal. Incorporeal creatures already don't see any arenas from the inside.
- Bump it up to 13 mana, that way you have at least to plan ahead if you want to use that card and cannot decide at the beginning of every turn if you want to use it now.
- Remove "non epic" from "Siphon Energy" target bar.




How do you judge how strong a card is?
What are your craziest Pillar-moments?
Do you think the card needs to be re-balanced? Why, why not?

I hope we see a civilized, fruitful discussion here and feel free to rip my text apart

Yeah, I think banning a gigantic, random number of cards will solve no problems. And nobody seriously advocates for that.

I am still curious to hear what decks "are dead and will never recover [...]" - how he defines a fast/rush deck. Because if he uses the same definition as someone in Discord "Either you have won in T5 or you will definitely lose the game" then imho it's no loss that this kind of deck is not viable any longer.
If he was referring to something else, please let us know what deck exactly you mean. Every deck that doesn't use 3 spawnpoints + mediation amulet + Ritual? Hardly... so what are we talking about!?