How are you guys / girls building your decks?

[Sailor Vulcan]

I would suggest building balanced books and I would avoid thinking of Mage Wars in terms of TCG terms, like aggro/control/rush/etc.  It's better to go into the game with a mind that is clear of the baggage of other games.

Basically, as long as you are generating lots of actions and lots of dice, you're doing well.  Regardless of which mage you're playing, creatures are very important for that reason; they guard things, attack things, and aren't very easy to solve (except with other creatures).  I always put a moderate to large number of creatures in my books and never regret doing so.  Think of a pyramid when it comes to including creatures too; several level 1 and 2 creatures, a few level 3 and 4 creatures, and one or two level 5 and higher creatures.   

Figuring out card amounts is not something you can determine through thinking/theorycraft; you have to just play and see what you need.  If you really can't decide at all when building a deck, just put in 1 copy of whatever you're agonizing about; you can always add more later.

What's important isn't how many actions and dice you're generating in total. It's how much *more* actions and dice you're generating than your opponent. Instead of summoning a ton of smaller creatures you could also try summoning one or two bigger creatures and destroy any creatures your opponent tries to threaten you with. Or you could just kill the enemy Mage as fast as possible before they have the time to build up too many creature actions.

Having a spread of creatures keeps your options flexible, that was the point I was making, not the particular strategy involved.  I wouldn't advise the solo approach, though, if that's what you mean by "kill as fast as possible."  It's not hard to deal with a solo build once you learn to prepare armor on your mage, and you can do that while summoning creatures (that can guard), which are easily the most efficient cardtype in the game, in my experience.

Attack spell rushes and buddy rushes can and do still work. Just putting on armor does not hard counter a rush by itself. There are plenty of ways to deal with armor and a good rush deck will use them.

[Pritoos]

I keep all the cards in three big binders.

I think the best way to build a deck is taking the three huge albums that feel actually like ancient tomes, turn on some fantasy soundtrack from carmina burana to the 13th warrior and light a pipe.

Then, wear a gown, sit down with crossed legs and go from one tome to the next searching for something that tinkles your head while you keep murmuring surrounded by smoke.

That´s my way. You may not create a great deck...  maybe you will not even build one after a couple of hours. But it´s definitely nice.

Also, keeping the decklists in excel is a good option. You can easily create rules to keep track of the costs and change whatever you like on time. You can add different versions of the deck in the sheets, and you can keep record of the deck´s performance. This would be easier if the tool in AW was fully operational, as it can be easily exported.

I presume OTCGN cannot be exported to excel, but it does look like the best tool right now.

[Beldin]

Id spend 20 spell points on a single card if it was a win card.

[Iudicium86]

For holding my collection, I have a binders, with divisions by school. And within each of those they are divided by type. However, I only keep one copy of each card in the binder pages, with a small post-it note on the back of the card (visible also through back of page) with how many more copies are available. The real collection I keep in very same order, but packed into regular card storage boxes you can get from comic shops.


For building my book, I have my own Excel Spreadsheet I use. It's not a fancy SP builder with an archive of all cards, but it is very handy anyways. It does track number of cards and SB points as I enter the data, as well as also tracking the same statistic through each type spell, easily seeing I'm too Enchantment heavy, etc.

[Clobber in time]

I just posted an update of my spellbook builder that includes PvS and LG, read more at http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=17116.30

Cheers

Dude this helps so much!
This is amazing - thank you for all the hard work and effort. I will use this from now on - works perfectly!

Direct link:
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/spell-book-builder/sbb.html

Thx again
Cheers

Clobber

[grga.curkovic]

Thanks, glad you like it. Spread the word!

[Fly Molo]

This builder looks really good!

What type of files does it export to?
What type of file can you import from?