120 points

[Donovan]

Sometimes I think it is sad that you can only have 120 spell points.

Especially with the warlords who pay triple for the necessary base spells like Seeking Dispel etc..

There are so many great cards in the warlord expansions, but really you cannot use them most of the times, because you'd have to ditch important base spells.

Perhaps I should suggest my opponents and I can both use 150 points...

[Sailor Vulcan]

Sometimes I think it is sad that you can only have 120 spell points.

Especially with the warlords who pay triple for the necessary base spells like Seeking Dispel etc..

There are so many great cards in the warlord expansions, but really you cannot use them most of the times, because you'd have to ditch important base spells.

Perhaps I should suggest my opponents and I can both use 150 points...

The warlord is a good Mage, he's just somewhat disadvantaged in the current metagame. You need to learn how to play the warlord better, and I would recommend buying PvS because there are cards in there that are absolutely essential for many warlord strategies to work well. For instance, that hill terrain will be wonderful for soldier swarms. Since soldier swarms are currently too slow in most matchups, but the hill will probably fix that. Also those boots that give him anchored and unmovable (so he won't need teleport) plus minor teleport will be an arcane novice spell that will be good enough for a warlord. And I'm sure there are more.

[Donovan]

Yeah I know what you mean and you can get it to work, but when I see a card like Otto Kronig, I envision a group of builders repairing walls and conjurations while Otto increases armor... But... that is just not a winning spellbook.

Or Talos, for which you need at least 3 outposts for 4 turns... Not a winning book...

Or a camp defended by spike pits. Not winning...

Or the Helm of Command, I think one should be able to attach 2 or 3 Command Incantations to it...

[zot]

i think one of the most brilliant decisions in creating the awesomeness that is mage wars is the 120sb limit. however it was decided it is the sweet spot for book building. you can do an incredible amount of things, but not everything. opportunity cost and agonizing over what goes in and what to take out is a lot of fun. welcome to the endless obsession and debate.

sure some mages are more challenging than others. warlord is one of those. when lost grimoire comes out, there are some toys in it to help the warlord. the recent modification to the wizard helps all the mages stand out that have any elemental training. they all seem more unique including the warlord. but you can build a strong relatively competitive warlord. it takes some time to field it against various mages to see what works overall and tune it.

a suggestion for your desire to build a fun yet less competitive book would be to ask your group or opponent to play a slower book against you. that way for a casual fun contest you both get to play a fun themed game. one of the things i used to do when playing magic was to ask my opponent how fast they thought their deck was so i could play a similar speed deck. that way we were on an even field for a casual match. i had a collection that was breathtaking. i had the lotus, moxes and all that. but what fun is it when the person imam playing is trying to get out large cast cost creatures that cost 7 mana and i kill him on turn two or three. so matching relative speed allowed both of us to play a fun match with cards that we owned but did not play often. it allowed for some great fun matches that werent decided by who went first. perhaps you could do something similar with your group. however if you have any aspirations for tournament play, i would suggest you also build and play a fine tuned book some too. more play against different mages will help you tune those books. and the causal matches allows folks to use more of their sets, like a talos, or bunch of outposts.


i think another thought would be no spell limit. but that will make your group lazy on stronger book building as you may come to rely on being able to do anything you want. it will in the long run make you weaker players against folks outside of your local group. but for a few casual matches could be a fun experience. just dont do it often is my recommendation. better approach it to try to match speeds.

either way good luck and happy gaming....

[Halewijn]

I agree with zot. The 120 limit is perfect.  One possibility to save spellbookpoints is to agree in advance which mage you will be playing. Then you can take a decent guess which cards you will not need during this game.

I love the warlord and I don't think he is much weaker than the other mages. (maybe a little) The ability cards are  pretty bad (runesmithing is decent) but they have a huge cardpool to choose from. Also, I think people really underrate talos. Just play a book where you want the conjurations and add talos as a bonus. Talos only costs 2 sbp to include. If you don't get the time to cast him, you play something else and if the opponent gives you some time you can cast it for 9 mana or less with the construction yard. More often than not, you will have talos 4 rounds later. If they focus on stopping talos from getting out, you can progress your game or (simply summon another outpost). I don't say its a top tier strategy, but it's far better than most people on this forum think. In my experience, my opponents almost never stop Talos from getting out. Most people ignore him, or fail trying.

The helm of command is a very decent card already.

I agree on Otto though, he is not worth the manacost. Spiked pit and building you camp is possible on a small scale. But this game is an Arena fight, not Age of Empires.  If you think about it, it's not that weird that building a castle in an arena while the opponent is charging at you is not viable. And that's a good thing, or games would take 4-6 hours.

[bigfatchef]

... Also, I think people really underrate talos. Just play a book where you want the conjurations and add talos as a bonus. Talos only costs 2 sbp to include. ...

THAT is exactly what I wanted to answer! And that rule applies to many other cards and is generally a point to always have in mind!

I completely agree with zot and halewijn. 120 is exactly the point where you have to make hard decisions what to cut. You have to focus your gameplay.

Honestly I am having a hard time very often on that and then I miss the 4th dispel that got cut during the game. But without that restriction games would take too long and several mages would profit much more by having a better toolkit. 120 sbp is just perfect.

[Donovan]

Conjurations are slow in my experience. It takes quite some rounds to profit from them.

If your opponent has an agro build, you will not win if the trick of your book is based on conjurations.

[Halewijn]

How I calculate my profit:
Mana = 1 point
Quick cast = 1 point
Full cast = 2 points

Of course this is very subjective, but I use it to see how long it takes before I profit. So, applying this on a classic conjuration opening:

I stands for "invested", p stands for "profit"

T1 19 barracks + construction yard 0, i = 21, p=0
T2 9+2+1 garrison post + soldier ring 3+2, i = 9, p=3
T3 12+5+1 ... spawn creature every round. i=0, p=7

From here on, I gain 7 points per round. (3 mana on barracks, 1 mana on yard, 2 points on creature spawning, 1 mana from ring) So this means I'll hit break even by round 6. From round 7 on, you will really start to have an advantage. Granted, thats not short, but for average games taking 12-15 rounds it is a very big deal. You need to make sure you dont die early on then. You can start concentrating on not dying from round 3 onwards.