A little positivity.

[silverclawgrizzly]

What are the things you like most about Mage Wars? Just in general what do you enjoy? For me:

-The game is legitimately challenging to me. All the players around me that I regularly play with got into it at about the same time. Nobody has a clear advantage in skill or experience. I have to fight and fight and fight some more for every win and I learn from every loss.

-I think the artwork is really cool. Certain cards such as Samadriel or various enchantments are well done indeed.

-Mentioned it in another thread but I like spell books. I'm way too nerd elitist to ever play with a puny deck. But a spell book? Oh yeah there we go. Give me arcane might at my finger tips. If I want to feel power from a deck of cards I'll go pretend to be a certain Cajun mutant....

-I actually like a slow release schedule. One of the things that's turning me off clix is it seems every month something out is getting put out. That gets expensive and annoying. 2 a year is actually pretty cool with me.

[Lord0fWinter]

+1 to the challenge aspect.

-One of the major things I love about Mage Wars is that luck isn't going to determine the outcome of the game. Yes there are dice rolls but it is almost always tactical mistakes that will lose a player a match. It's a nice change.

-I love that there is no random card draw. This kinda goes back to point one with the luck thing. You can never say you lost b/c you "didn't get the right cards".

-Agree with the release schedule also. Less expensive this way and makes it not as hard to keep up with compared to games like MtG and the like.

-Love the customization. With the exception of Mage specific cards, every mage can have (almost) any card in their spellbook. This allows infinite customization and ensures that no two players will have the same spellbook.

[silverclawgrizzly]

I'm with you on the customization. I like the selection of mages thus far a lot actually.

[Zuberi]

+ The biggest thing for me is how strategic it is. The only luck in it is luck that you can plan for. You see exactly what dice are going to be rolled and what they need to roll before you ever pull the spell out. You can then calculate your odds of success and plan accordingly. So your tactic only has a 50% chance of success? You probably shouldn't hinge the game on it then. If it does fail, what is your back up plan?

I've never played miniatures games, but regarding customizable card games I've had people argue that dice are more random than the random card draw. I don't believe this is true, but even if it is, I can make plans around the dice. I can't plan my moves based upon random card draw. I have to wait until I draw the card before I see what my options even are that turn.

Thus, Mage Wars wins out hands down. It is truly a battle of wits and skill.

+ I also love that you can bluff in this game. You are always trying to anticipate your opponent, and the face down enchantments really add to this. Not only am I trying to guess what he's going to do, but I also need to guess what he's already placed on the board. Even if the enchantments didn't work like this, there would be an element of bluffing, but the enchantments take it to a whole other level that I love.

+ The customization is top notch. I like being able to build a book tailored specifically for me AND knowing how it will function. In games with random card draw you can customize your deck, but you can't guarantee it will ever work the way you envision. With mage wars I know what my book is capable of. I built it, I run it, it is entirely mine.

+ It is BEAUTIFUL! The cards, the board, the spellbooks, everything in the game has amazing aesthetics. The game is gorgeous to gaze upon.

+ The release schedule nice. It is slow enough so that it doesn't take over my life. I can only afford so much and I'd like to get other games as well. It also allows you time to integrate and adapt to everything. However, it is quick enough to keep things interesting. They might could shave a little time off between sets, but overall I like the schedule.

+ I like the value I get for my money. All of the sets are comparable in price to other CCGs that release an equal amount of cards, yet they provide spellbooks and tokens in addition (not to mention dice and boards in the core set). This makes it such a better deal than it's competition.

+ This might be delving into Arcane Wonders rather than Mage Wars, but I like their dedication to their customers. They seem to truly listen to us and care about us. I've never felt so good about any other company. The closes experience I've ever had was with Alienware (before Dell purchased them, I haven't dealt with them since so I can't comment how they are now).

[aquestrion]

I personnally like the 3 packs a year. Now it seems like all my great deck ideas have run out or have been thought up by other players and new sets revitalise my deck building engine.

Customer support is fantastic.

I love the challenge but hate the time it takes when two players use controling decks, some of my games have lasted 4 hours or more....

[silverclawgrizzly]

Aquestrian if you're playing Mage Wars for 4 hours we should get together for Axis and Allies some time I remember some of my matches going for like 3 though before so I feel your pain. What we started doing was putting a time limit.

[webcatcher]

1) No random draw

2) The individual pieces are cheap like a card game, but I get to move them around a board like a miniatures game.

3) Slow release schedule means I can keep up with the expansions for less than $100 a year

4) Very balanced (I know we all complain about this a lot, and there are some serious problems which need to be addressed, but compared to other games I've played MW is a dream balance-wise).

[kailas]

Damn you guys, you said everything i wanted to say
-Spellbooks (endless possibilities)
-I always loved tactical strategy games with units with their stats (remembers me a game, poxnora)
-The complexity and interactions
-The support MW gives with their answers and huge FAQ
-Ofcourse the art, im an eye candy man

[IndyPendant]

Heh.  Most of this has been said before already.  Clearly AW is getting quite a bit right!  But I'll state what I love most:

--Specific card lists: I know what I'm buying.  I can't stress this enough; if AW had decided to go random/collectible with Mage Wars, I wouldn't even have looked at it.  But!  All that did was get me to give it a try.  So, what else?

--Slow Release Schedule: Quality releases spaced reasonably far apart, yes please!  Allows me to develop and fine-tune books, and have fun playing them for a while, before the Next New Shiny comes along.  Very happy with this.

--Spellbooks: I love that we have access to our entire spellbook, and pick a few cards each turn to play.  Gives the game a tactical depth that is unmatched in anything else I've played.  Drawing randomly from a deck was a real turn-off for me in other card games like Magic.

--Designing Spellbooks:  This is more personal, but one of the biggest things I loved about Magic was building decks.  Half the fun in Mage Wars for me is designing spellbooks, looking through cards and trying to decide what to include and exclude.  It makes spellbooks *mine*, in a way that other heavy-tactics games lack.

--Style: Mage Wars combines most of the things I love about card games, miniatures games, and board games all in one package.  It also gets rid of most of the things I hate about each of them.  And is very visually appealing as well.

--Complexity: I remember getting a little overwhelmed when the game was first introduced to me, and I've been a gamer of various types for almost thirty years, of almost any genre.  I was instantly hooked on the challenge.

--Balance: I've been somewhat vocal on certain recent threads, but it's worth mentioning here that taken as a whole, AW has done an incredibly good job with keeping the game well-balanced and fun.  With a game this complex, that is quite the achievement.  In my mind, the exceptions--although the do need fixing--only serve to highlight how good a job AW has done overall.

--Customer Service: I've had a few issues with AW's production and distribution now--defective spellbooks, damaged and missing cards--which have easily been resolved by a few quick emails to customer service and a short wait for replacements.  And that makes all the difference to me: problems will come up, no matter how much you try to avoid them.  What matters is how those issues are dealt with, and AW gets 10/10 from me on that.

[DeckBuilder]

+1 on Indy's list - except Balance, which means a lot to me as a competitor

I would also add these extra traits to Indy's list

* Fun (it's Inner Child fantasy, immersive role-playing a mage/general)
* Intuitive (most of the time, grrr)
* Rewards Skill (except for a few bits of cheese, grr)

It's a good thread by Silverclaw to remind ourselves why we love the game

[silverclawgrizzly]

Thank you Deck Builder.  In the end we need to remember no games perfect but this one's pretty friggin awesome!

I pretty much agree with everything that's been said.

In terms of balance lol I agree with Indy 100%. Compared to Hero Clix and from what I hear Magic this game is ridiculously well balanced! For a fairly new game that's privately owned I'd say AW has done an amazing job.

I'd also like to second the part about the game being fun. It is. A LOT of fun actually. I just spent an hour riding around to game stores in Charlotte getting prize support for my event tomorrow with three other local Mage Warriors(which btw is just a cool name) and we couldn't stop talking about how much we're looking forward to Forged in Fire. Our local Warlord fan was all "AHHHHH YEAH!!!! Gonna get a tank and bring some rockus!!!"