Does the wizard have to reveal elemental training.

[krj]

all other mages have known school at the beginning of the game, why Wizard would be different? not fair. if you playing against Warlock you will rather prepare Dragonscale Hauberk, if you play agianst Wizard you should have same information.

and of course case connected with school exclusive spell's which maybe will be in the future.  yesterday i played against beastmaster and my friend put Divine Intervention into his spellbook and try to used it during the game. he had prepared 2 spellbooks (second one with Priestess) and made mistake which i could immediately  see. if similar situation would happen with some elemental spell and Wizard i wouldn't know is it is mistake or no. We never check our spellbooks after the game so that mistake could be unnoticeable.

[Zuberi]

So just like when I first brought up Flying vs. Guarded Conjurations, I will fold to peer pressure like a wuss.

I think you may be handing in the towel a bit prematurely. Given what Shadow says, they do not have a hard rule on this as of yet, so it could go either way. I might not always admit it when arguing my own point of view (afterall I want to appear confident in what I'm saying) but the opposition has made valid arguments. I'm not sure if there's any new information we can provide to Shad0w's call for reasoning, but perhaps it would be a good idea to rehash the arguments.

Below I have listed various positions that I can recall being taken. This is kind of a refinement of one of DeckBuilder's posts. I have tried to fairly present both sides in an unbiased manner. If you feel I have not adequately represented one of the following arguments, please chime in. If you feel there is a position that has been left out, please add that as well. In the arguments below, the Pro position is in favor of revealing your training, while the Con position is against it.

Argument One
Pro) Training can affect training restricted spells and it needs to be made clear when such spells are affected. Without this information it is too easy for a player to cheat. There is no other instance in which you are able to keep the legality of something permanently secret throughout the game.

Con) There are currently no spells in the game that are affected by Elemental Training. Even if they were, you wouldn't necessarily have to announce your training until you tried to cast or take control of spell affected by your training. You are able to keep the legality of some things a secret such as the play of hidden enchantments. If your opponent suspects you of cheating, this can be verified with a judge when it occurs.

Argument Two
Pro) You must announce your choices in the game. If something gives you a variety of options to choose from at a specific point in time, so that you are unable to change your decision later, you can not keep that information to yourself. Otherwise, how are we to distinguish you making that decision when you were supposed to as opposed to changing it to fit your needs later.

Con) You only have to announce your choices in so far as is required to carry them out. Since your training has no immediate effect, it does not have to be announced up front.

Argument Three
Pro) It makes sense thematically. When two powerful mages enter the arena, an announcer would introduce them along with their credentials and accomplishments.

Con) First off, theme does not always directly correlate to rules. Secondly, an announcer would not necessarily reveal everything about your mage. Announcer's in sporting events often listen to the participant for how they want to be introduced.

Argument Four
Pro) My group currently reveals the Wizard's training (this includes play on OCTGN) and it works fine. We prefer it this way.

Con) My group currently keeps the training a secret and it works fine. We prefer it this way.

Argument Five
Pro) No other mage gets to conceal their training, and it is unfair for the wizard to get to. It provides them with a significant strategic advantage. If this is intended, then it needs to be taken into consideration with the relative power levels of the mages.

Con) Mages are meant to have different abilities and play styles. The mysterious training is part of the Wizard's. There is nothing unfair about it, although it does indeed need to be considered as a factor when judging the relative power of each mage.

[Laddinfance]

Well, we've been discussing it a lot, and finally come to a conclusion.

The Wizard is required to reveal his elemental training at the start of the game.

Thank you all for your debate on here. It has been very very beneficial to us in this decision.

[Zuberi]

Thank you guys for the resolution.

[aquestrion]

Thank you for the official answer.

[DeckBuilder]

(Polishes gracious loser speech...)

Thank you, Laddin, for giving my alternative view consideration and I hope it wasn't wasted in helping to crystalise the game's direction.

I half suspect play balance may have played a part (fair enough) but at least we now have a definitive ruling for all to play by.

(Zuberi: after Mind Control and now this, remind me never ever to argue rules interpretation with you again! )

[Zuberi]

(Zuberi: after Mind Control and now this, remind me never ever to argue rules interpretation with you again! )

lol, you better not clam up on me. I greatly enjoy our discussions ;-)

[Sailor Vulcan]

I think they made the right decision. Delaying your opponent from getting information is still using information as a resource against them, and I can imagine a lot of ways that can be implemented fairly and effectively. There's generally no reason to hide information for the entire game indefinitely, unless you have wasted mana on an enchantment that your not going to ever reveal, or maybe a nullify on a creature that never gets targeted by an opposing enchant/incant. In which case, the nullify isn't useful anyway.

In theory anything can be responded to. Stuck? Teleport. Too much damage? Heal yourself. Nullify? Seeking dispel. Hindered? Mongoose agility. The list goes on and on. When everything has at least one potential response provided you have enough of the right resources to make that response, there are no true hard counters, or at least not in the very beginning of the game when  both players are generally equal in resources (not counting all the spells in your spellbook that you haven't used yet).

I think similar logic goes for hiding information. In a game like mage wars, hiding information from your opponent s a great and valid strategy, but it can and should be possible to respond to it with another strategy. That's why we have things like Hugginn and dispel wand and brains capable of thinking and using the information that we do have to figure out what the opponent is trying to do before it's too late.

However, the mage ability card is not actually a spell or object in the game, and training is a trait that cannot be removed or altered midgame under any circumstances. Hiding training would happen completely for free at the very beginning of the game when it would be the ONLY resource advantage other than good spellbook design. In other words, there is no decent response to the concealment of training.

Sure, you could plan and cast a school-only spell on your opponent and see if it's legal or not, but in doing so you're actually putting yourself at a greater disadvantage than you were before. You just lost a quick cast and one of your two prepared spells and all you did was find out that it didn't work. AND depending on your luck and how poorly you're willing to design your spellbook, you might need to need to do that as many times as the number of variable schools your opponent could be trained in minus the schools they're actually trained in—until you find by process of elimination which one works. So against the wizard, you would have to cast at most three of these four on him: a fire only spell, a water only spell, an earth only spell, an air only spell. You might get lucky and cast the one that actually does work on him right away, but that's a one in four chance of working.

Even if training could be changed midgame I don't think training should be hidden; it would probably require some balancing work to make a shape shifting mage ability possible and not broken. I think they'd have to choose a form with defined training to start the game in, so that spellbook points can be calculated properly. But even the form that isn't active should have its training be public knowledge from the get go.

I strongly suggest that you apply the wizard ruling to all other mages with variable training in the future. The only exception to this should be in a variant format specifically designed with hiding training as a key mechanic.