There is only one way to gain tempo advantage in Mage Wars, and that is through forcing your opponent to react. A good way to gauge if you have tempo advantage is to see what spells the opponent is playing. If they are spending both their mage’s actions on dissolve/heal/ face down enchants on themselves, go on the attack! It is the only way to win.
But what is the best way to attack? Well, there is two true ways that I have found that have worked, and that is to damage and to choke. An efficient mage is doing both of these things at once in an effort to bottleneck enemy movement into a force that they cannot avoid. You can do 3 different things to bottleneck:
1. Walls
2. Creatures (preferably bigger)
3. Traps
Let’s look at an example:
The warlord has just spent his actions dispelling the wizard’s hawkeye and throwing a fireball in an attempt to force a retreat from the wizard. The warlock is in the upper left corner and the wizard is in the zone next to him. The wizard has both of his actions remaining. He uses the quickcast to cast a stone wall directly underneath the warlock, and then casts thunderbolt, stunning the Warlock, dealing six damage, and trapping him. While this is a simple example, it shows the power of choking out an opponent. If the mage does not have a free range of movement, that mage cannot efficiently attack without some consequence. This brings us to out topic of the day: Mobility.
Now, you may be thinking: “What the hell does mobility have to do with tempo?” And the answer is that to most efficiently use the spells you need to win, you must be able to use them in the zone that will get the most use and be able to to move that zone in the least amount of actions possible. This may seems like an obvious concept, bet it’s nuanced application is not so obvious. I have lost many games simply because I could not get to where I needed to go when I needed to get there. But, we will talk about about what you can do to mobilize you and your creatures in a moment. What we will talk about now is how to stop the opponent from moving. If they cannot move, it will be nigh impossible for them to gain tempo, much less tempo advantage.
The best way to do this is by stunning your opponent. This not only completely stops movement, but it also makes them lose all of their actions for a round. This gives you a full round to gain tempo advantage and is useful in aggressive, mid-range, and control strategies. For aggressive players, stun your opponent the round before you are going to deal the most damage as this dictates the moment you gain the tempo advantage. For midrange strategies, stun the opponent the round before you are going to move and attack with your biggest creatures and strongest spells. For control strategies, you want to stun your opponent as often as possible in order to build without consequence. Of course, you always want to stun your opponent AFTER they have acted for the turn. This provides the most efficiency for the mana you have used on the spell.
Another effective way to stop enemy movement, and one that occurs the most frequently is the hindrance keyword . Hindering enemy movement can set you up for massive turns, but there is, in fact, a most efficient way to hinder. You want your opponent to have to choose between a rock and a hard place: either stay and fight a difficult threat, or move and fight a potentially more difficult threat. For this reason, hindering is most effective in aggressive and midrange strategy. With aggressive strategies, you want to be able to lead them (through hindrance) into a bigger creature pack, or damage mass, than before. For midrange strategies, hindering them into traps is an awesome idea, as it will oft act as a wall to the opponent, as most of them do not want to waste a seeking dispel on it, nor do they want to trigger it’s potentially harmful effect.
The final way of slowing and stopping movement actually has two parts: enchantments, such as turn to stone and force hold, and walls. They are grouped this way because they are most effective in a control and midrange build. You can use these to stop movement, and allow you to build that engine that allows you to win the game. Using walls later as you start to gain the tempo edge will help you dominate the board, as well as using turn to stone and force hold to stop opposing midrange strategies from using big creatures while they, too, build.
Often I use creatures as sort of walls for my opponents. This the main use for huge fatties such as the hydra or the Earth Elemental. They are terrible for movement, but your opponent cannot rest in that zone any longer without much risk. Strategic placement of creatures to use as walls can be just as effective as the walls themselves.
But how can you maximize mobility for yourself and your creatures? Keywords. Flying, elusive, pest, fast. These are all great abilities that will allow you to move your creatures with as little trouble as possible. And for your mage? Teleport and elusive with fast will make your mage as slippery as a mongoose. Yes, that is a perfect scenario, but in it contains a point: any one of those are great abilities to give your mage. On a quick side note: most enemies will not use purge magic. It simply costs too much. Unless they are the wizard, of course. But to be certain, I usually beef up two creatures with a bunch of enchantments that will bait the mage into purging them. This may seem like a tempo loss, but removing that threat from their spellbook will allow you to beef your mage without consequence. This concept of baiting is still in it’s premature stages, but once I learn more, I will share. But, I digress. Destroy enemy walls. It is worth the mana spent to make them lose what could hinder you later in the game. Set a path through the arena and keep that path clear. IT doesn’t have to be the entire board, but it should lead from one side of the board to another, going through the middle. This will help in mobility for yourself and your creatures.
We have covers two incredible topics: Mobility and tempo. Next time I will cover the final piece to this puzzle….
