Pre Battle Knowledge

[Recon022]

So is it customary for most of you to know which Mage you will be fighting against before you create a spell book?

We had a game the other day and I had created my first spell book (Force Master).

My gaming buddy decided to use the Druid for the first time. It was a good fight (I lost), but damn I would have liked to have a lot more Fire spells, not to mention that my Force Spells were pretty much useless.

After the battle we had a discussion about letting each other know before hand who we will be fighting, and we couldn't decide which route we should take.

What do most of you do? Tell each other before hand? Or wait till you play before you reveal which Mage you are going to use?

[Maverick]

I think keeping books secret is probably the best policy. As an example if you were playing a certain book that has a very specific counter or weakness (Say the druid and fire for this example) it gives your oponent incentive to build a book exploiting that weakness. Unless you are looking for a special challenge it will be a massive handicap to the player that announces his book first.

You will see match-ups like.
Necromancer -  Priest
Druid - Warlock
Enchantment heavy builds - Purge Magic and Destroy Magic coincidentally in book.
Armor heavy builds - Rust and Acid ball coincidentally in book in high frequency.
The list goes on.

I would take it a step further and switch up the actual book design you put your normal spellbooks into in order to further mix-up your opponent. As an example put a fire heavy Warlock book into the leather-bound looking wizard book and the Wizard spellbook into the fiery looking red book. Also randomly place spells in the actual book instead of organizing them so your opponent cannot see what section you are drawing from and notice a pattern. Keeping it truly anonymous is the only way to keep it truly fair.

[Kharhaz]

Keeping it truly anonymous is the only way to keep it truly fair.

Except for wizard training.

We had a good round and round about that one and the wizard must tell you what his training is if asked.

[Maverick]

Very true but he can wait until the game is getting started and both players have announced what mage they are playing for that.

[sIKE]

Typically when you build a book for a tournament it is known and hopefully when testing you can request certain book styles + mages so you can get a handle on your mages strengths and weaknesses. How if you are playing to win, I believe it should be a surprise to both players.

This can be frustrating as I have tuned books to play against a certain players mage and then have a totally different Mage and book strategy thrown my way. Most of the time my mage gets thrashed as a result but I have positive take aways from every game I play. I have one book that I played that wiped an opposing mage on the floor of the arena and then turned around and got thrashed soundly by a curse Warlock (I had pulled out most of my Dispels and Seeking Dispels). Had I known I would of tuned my book to better counter therefore the surprise of the mage is one of the vital essences of the game to me.

[Recon022]

I really like the "surprise" factor of not knowing what you will face. I am pretty sure we will end up going with not knowing beforehand, it just sounds more fun!

[sdougla2]

I always build general spellbooks that I will play against whatever mages the other players bring. I will consider different matchups as I build the spellbook, and I will often end up tweaking things in order to improve a particular matchup, but I don't build a spellbook with the thought in mind that I will be specifically trying to counter the Beastmaster or whatever because I don't know what my opponent will be playing until we start the match.

[Arlemus]

Not a good idea to know before you go in, IMO.  You'd just end up building a book specific to that matchup and get blown out by others.

[Coshade]

Maybe you could build a few spellbooks and both of you roll a die and randomize which one versus which.

[silverclawgrizzly]

Also while I can see the sportsmanship of telling your opponent "I'll be making Book X" in a casual game it just wouldn't work in a tournament. For one thing even if you did know what you were going to face in Round 1 and were able to build around it, that could leave you totally blind sided in the next rounds.

[echephron]

On the other hand, in a tournament setting, scouting out upcoming opponent's games seems fair and informs you what cards they have and some strategies they use. It's too late to change your spellbook, but you will play differently