The planning stage of Mage Wars can be terrifying for new Mage Wars players. Sometimes you face decision paralysis - there are so many choices that can't pick just one. I am by no means a Mage Wars pro or anything like that, but I can offer some advice to new players when it comes to the planning stage. For me it helped to ask myself the following four questions when it came to planning.
Questions to ask yourself when you are planning:
1. Initiative: Is there a way I can capitalize on having initiative?
2. Creatures: Should I summon a creature?
3. Mana: Is there a reason to keep spare mana open?
4. Trouble: What enemy “thing” is causing me the most trouble?
As you play more and more games these questions will become easier to answer.
Let us start with question #1. Initiative is extremely important. Whenever you have initiative, you should try to take advantage of it as much as possible. When you have initiative, you basically get two privileges: 1) You get to cast first; 2) You get to move first. Let us look at the first priviledge. Attack spells work well when you have initiative. Maybe you want to use a lightning spell to daze/stun a creature, throwing off whatever the opponent may have had planned. Healing spells works best when you have initiative. You never know when an enemy who has initiative will do something with their quickcast that makes the Minor Heal/Heal you planned useless. Anti-magic works best when you have initiative. Maybe you want to dispel an enemy enchantment or dissolve enemy equipment. If it isn’t your initiative, the opponent may slip a nullify/reverse magic under himself or one of his creatures. But when you do have initiative, you don’t have to worry about this. This leads into another point. Protection spells works best when you have initiative. You might want to take advantage of your initiative by slipping a damage barrier onto your mage or a nullify/block under one of your creatures before an opponent does something. Now for the second privilege. You get to move first. The placement of your mage is very important. When you have initiative and your mage isn’t in a terrific position, you should consider moving them. Turns when you don’t have initiative but want to move your mage can be scary; the enemy mage gets their quickcast and their full action to do something to prevent you from moving!
Now for question #2: Should I summon a creature? Answering this question comes with two other questions. Do I need to move my mage? Do I need additional creatures? If you need to move your mage, then summoning a creature won’t be possible. (The exception to this is special creatures that don’t require a full action to summon and the Beastmaster’s ability to summon level 1 creatures as a quick action). So how do you know if you need additional creatures? Ignoring attack spells (for simplicity’s sake), it isn’t too difficult to calculate how much average damage your opponent can do to you with their creatures and how much damage you can do with your creatures to your opponent. Keep in mind that when you/creatures roll X die, you will do, on average, X total damage. On average, half of this total damage will be normal damage and the other half will be critical damage. Rolls can be unexpectedly awesome or awful, but trusting averages is smart. If your opponent would do more damage (on average) to you than you would do to them, you need a way to generate more damage. For some mages this will mean casting more attack spells or attacking more with their mage. For other mages this will mean summoning more creatures. With the exception of a Forcemaster and a solo-rush-Warlock, it is hard to win without creatures to generate damage and take damage for you.
Question #3: Should I keep spare mana open? Look at any condition markers you may have on your mage or creatures. If you need to remove these conditions, don’t forget to take removal costs into account. Think about nasty condition marker you could get during the current round. Answering question #3 is complicated and will come with experience. Admittedly, there have been many times where I have used up all of my mana and regretted it! But if you see no reason to not use all of your mana, why not use it all? Don't be paranoid and hoard mana. If you aren't making the most of your mana then what is the point of having any?
Question #4: What enemy “thing” is causing me the most trouble? This depends on too many variables to mention. But usually it isn’t too hard to put your finger on the most “annoying” enemy spell. Conjurations with global effects, like Deathlock, can be annoying. Powerful enemy creatures are annoying. Crippling enchantments, like Ghoul Rot, are annoying. Wands are never not annoying! Get to the root of which enemy spell is causing you the most trouble. Once you have located the biggest problem, you should either attempt to remove the problem or work around the problem. For example, some creatures are so powerful that trying to kill them is just a waste of time.
