Amount of copies for different base game cards

[jacksmack]

So i just got my hands on FiF and im happy with the amount of copies for each spell.
I could argue that Conquer is slightly overrepresented with its 4 copies for a lvl 4 very situational Warlord only spell.
The number of copies since CoK FMvsWL seems solid to me for all the released cards since then.

However.... There is still some outstandings with the cards from the core set.

I have 2 x core games, spelltome 1 & 2 and 1 of each expansion.
Some of the absurd low number of copies considered the amount of products i own:
leather gloves (3) - Novice Spells with such low copy count? An auto include when using a battle forge.
leather boots (3) -  -------------------------||--------------------------------
Dragonscale hauberk (3) - Too many mages must include this.
Magebane (3) - A male warlock will almost always include 2+ of these in a book. This will leave little to non for the other dark mages who can make good use of this or even fellella nature mage or a wizard.
Barracks (1) - gotta be (2) not more though.

I have 6 Battle Forges but not enough gloves, boots, hauberks to support it.


Slightly too low count:
Acid Ball (6) - A must include in almost each and every spellbook that doesnt rely completely on direct damage.
Death Link (3) - 3 mages can take good use of this card, and the male warlock can easily use 2 in a book.
Enchanters ring (3) - so many builds/mages can make good use of this.
Supression cloak (2) - i am actually fine with this count for my sake, but if you only have 1 core then you only have 1 copy of this.
Bearskin (3) - If frost is released as anything nearly as strong / effective as fire then 3 copies is far too little spread out on currently 3 nature mages.
Hurl Boulder (4) - Just a tad low considered how good a finisher this is for many books.

I do realize i'm not suppost to have 10 different books created at the same time, and im not asking for that.

But currently i can only build 2 books without swapping cards.
- and franktly...  even 2 books can be a problem if i make a firewizard and a warlock book. Or just 2 different wizard books (got 2 cores), because of the lack of Dragon scale hauberks.


I feel like im lacking a total of 20-25 copies of some of the core set spells (+ acid ball from DvsN and Barracks from FMvsWL) which isnt all too bad.
My problem is there is no reasonable way of getting them.
I already own 2 cores, and i dont want to get 2 more and still be short of 1 barracks and a few acid balls.


EDIT:
I sorta forgot to round this up - thanks fas.

My point is that there is inconsistency with amount of copies from base game for some cards in comparison to the cards released in COK and after.

I do realize that as more cards are released one will have to cut down on the current cards in order to stay within 120 spellpoints. But also more mages are released and it should be possible to build atleast some books simoultaniously without having to swap cards.

I have 2 suggestions:

1) If there is general consensus that the above cards i mentioned are released in too few copies for the hardcore gamers (im sure the casual players are fine, which is good) then a 3rd (and hopefully last) spelltome could be released.

2)
Stop releasing spellbooks, or hold back with it for an expansion or 2 and add in the missing copies from the base game.

cheers.

[fas723]

It sounds like a spell tome 3 is required. *hint AW
I don't own 2 core sets, but such a spell tome would be needed.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Or you could just write up your spell lists on paper, then when you want to use a different spellbook, just take out the cards currently in the binder and put the cards you want in. It's not that hard, doesn't take that much time if you already know what spells to put in (I'm guessing about 5-10 min if you're not recounting sp points), and it's much less expensive.

I would hazard a guess that you would be unlikely to have to bring more than about 3-4 spellbooks to organized play (I think the optimal ratio of people per card collection in mage wars is probably currently around 2:1 for competitive gamers and 3:1 for more casual gamers, given a collection that consists of one core set and two expansions.)

And you don't need the binders for casual play. Just use them in deck form, and during the planning phase search your deck and pick two cards. If you really don't like that, you could buy more spellbook binders.

I kind of doubt that it's really necessary to have a core spell tome 3, at least it probably isn't right now. I think a lot of cards will be released again in later expansions. What I would like to see is a spell tome with all of the "mandatory" spells of a certain school. Like say an arcane spell tome that includes dispel, nullify and teleport, a war spell tome that includes harsh forge spells, a water spell tome that includes dissolve, etc.

[jacksmack]

I did not buy 2 x cores + spelltome 1 & 2 to use pen and paper!

I just wish to have my wizard book intact at home while i bring the 2-3 spellbooks to a game session that i feel like playing that day. Without the hazzle of going through 4 spell binders to see where my leatherboots and dragonscale hauberk ended up from last session and redistributing acid balls.

Im not sure why you mention the binders. I never said i had too few of those, the opposite is actually the case as i got 10 of them or smht.
I will most likely get rid of 1 set from the core, so all of them are different design.

What is necessary for you is not necessary for me and vice versa.
I would love to bring 4 completely different spellbooks to a gaming session and have the flexibility of avoiding mirror match without playing the same book all evening.

An arcane tome or similar would not make sense. We already got tons of dispels, nullify's and dissolves - these cards are no longer the limit of how many spellbooks you can make. Making it a thematic tome just for the sake would'nt target the right spells.
Its also worth noting that its quiet few actual card copies that are missing in my list. There is not material for more than 1 additional spell tome.
If using the same template as tome 1 & 2 it would be 110 cards which would make room for something like additional Deathlock and Poisened blood. Which there is only 1 and 2 of with a core only.

[barriecritzer]

I have 2 core sets and 2 of each spell tome which allows me to build 4-5 books at a time without running out of utility spells that are needed for most books. In my opinion it is worth spending the extra 20 bucks and buying an extra base game than buying one copy of each of the spell tomes.

[Sailor Vulcan]

I did not buy 2 x cores + spelltome 1 & 2 to use pen and paper!

Wow. I really hope I didn't sound rudely exasperated/impatient like that in my earlier post, and if I did I didn't mean to and I sincerely apologize.

But anyways, aside from not wanting to dismantle any spellbooks, there's another alternative reason someone would want to buy 2 x cores + spelltome 1 & 2: a larger playgroup. More players sharing or being loaned cards from a collection requires a larger collection with more copies of certain cards. I did not know what your reason for buying 2 x cores + spelltome 1 & 2 was, but I figured that the reason I just described was the one that would make actually make buying 2 x cores + spelltome 1 & 2 necessary in order to build and play your spellbooks, rather than merely a wonderful convenience that isn't vital to your mage wars play experience. It was an honest mistake on my part.

I just wish to have my wizard book intact at home while i bring the 2-3 spellbooks to a game session that i feel like playing that day. Without the hazzle of going through 4 spell binders to see where my leatherboots and dragonscale hauberk ended up from last session and redistributing acid balls.

If you wrote down the spell lists this would not be an issue because you would know where those cards were just by looking at the list. It seems to me that this is not your primary reason for not using written lists to dismantle and put back together books/decks. Rather I think it is simply that you really dislike hassles, even rather minor hassles like dismantling decks/books; not the card searching. That's okay, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Arcane Wonders needs to release another spell tome or change the products they've already released to include more copies of the cards you want more of. It might be a good idea to do something like that if enough people feel the same way you do about that minor hassle, but is not exactly a problem that needs to be overcome. Just a relatively minor inconvenience that's really annoying to some people or perhaps a lot of people, and Arcane Wonders could release a core spell tome 3 and it might be a good idea at this point (I don't know for sure), but they don't exactly need to.
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[silverclawgrizzly]

It sometimes irks me that I only have two Regrowth Belts. I own two core sets, one spell tome, and each expansion. I've got currently built:

Anvil Throne Warlord
Necromancer
Stray Wood Beast Master
Adramelech Warlock

Basically built and I just gotta put a few cards back in:

Priest
Druid
Johtari Beast Master
Wizard(Air)

[V10lentray]

I own 2 of every thing except spell tome 1 and spell tome 2 (one of each of those) and I only have 3 gorgon Archers. Doesn't seem right...

[Boocheck]

For a standard human player, those numers of copies seems sufficient. Those (me included) who buys everything and are trying to build more then 3 spellbooks is not. Now, how many % from the whole ammount of mage wars players are in the second group? 5%, 20% or 50%?

For fun play, i just use services of my loyal copy machine or i just borrow cards from my friends. Of course, there are cards which really need more then one copy (barracks) but i dont se it as a big problem. We will probably see barracks in Paladin and same goes to other cards (dispels, dissolves teleports in future expansions) and trying to convince AW to create spell tome 3 which will be for a probably very small group of customers is not cost effective.

[fas723]

My play group really likes Mage Wars, but I'm the one who drives and push for it. This means that in the majority of times I play I have to deliver the spell books or cards to play with. In this case I totally agree with Jack that there are a few mandatory spells that are too few, and it can't be solved by just writing the card list on a piece of paper, I need duplicates.

On top of that I have found it very convenient to have some apprentice spell book made incase of teaching the game. This also drain the card pool of the mandatory cards.

Maybe I should add that I have 1 core set and both tomes plus one of each expansion (plus other things like extra play mates and promos etc)