Arena vs Original - New Player

[kniknax]

Hello, I'm new here.

My wife and I recently bought Academy and are LOVING it! Looking forward to the expansions

We also own the original Mage Wars, but have just never played it as it looked quite complex, but now we find we enjoy Academy we are thinking of giving it a go - but... do we need to buy Arena instead now? How different is the original from Arena?

Thanks
Paul

[SharkBait]

Hello, I'm new here.

My wife and I recently bought Academy and are LOVING it! Looking forward to the expansions

We also own the original Mage Wars, but have just never played it as it looked quite complex, but now we find we enjoy Academy we are thinking of giving it a go - but... do we need to buy Arena instead now? How different is the original from Arena?

Thanks
Paul

Luckily, the original IS Arena  . Arcane Wonders rebranded the original as "Arena" in order to distinguish it from "Academy" as far as i know. You should definitely give the game a shot, it's a great time!

[sIKE]

As Shark said Arena is Mage Wars. So if you are just starting your "Mage Wars" i.e. Arena adventure, I would recommend that you go out to the Arcane Wonders website and download the rule book from the Arena release and you that updated rule set instead of the one that came with the game.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Make sure you have a good system for organizing your cards! Not keeping my collection organized by set from the beginning is one of the biggest mistakes I've made as a Mage Wars player, especially now that I've started playing Academy as well as Arena. Organizing my cards is going to be quite the summer project!

[gw]

On the other hand...I spent hours covered in piles of MTG cards and card lists hoping to come up with a reasonable way of organizing (never managed to accomplish that  -not even trying with Mage Wars    ). Great times...15-20 years ago though.

Make sure you have a good system for organizing your cards! Not keeping my collection organized by set from the beginning is one of the biggest mistakes I've made as a Mage Wars player, especially now that I've started playing Academy as well as Arena. Organizing my cards is going to be quite the summer project!

[kniknax]

Make sure you have a good system for organizing your cards! Not keeping my collection organized by set from the beginning is one of the biggest mistakes I've made as a Mage Wars player, especially now that I've started playing Academy as well as Arena. Organizing my cards is going to be quite the summer project!

Thank you - I'm new to deck building, but am enjoying building the decks in Academy so far.

So as a newbie can you explain your post a little more? Why would I need to organise the cards, and what way do you recommend?

[wtcannonjr]

Make sure you have a good system for organizing your cards! Not keeping my collection organized by set from the beginning is one of the biggest mistakes I've made as a Mage Wars player, especially now that I've started playing Academy as well as Arena. Organizing my cards is going to be quite the summer project!

Out of curiosity why do you need to organize the card collection by set? Each card is identified with the set information in the bottom right card ID.

[Iudicium86]

Interesting to see how other people organize various collections.

Since I treat my Mage Wars as one growing set, I have them in binders in 9 pocket sheets. Organized with subject tabs dividing first the major schools in alphabetical order, and then the minor elemental schools plus the mixed school cards. And within each of these tabs, they are divided into Equipment, Creatures, Conjurations, Enchantments, Incantations, and finally Attack spells. And within each of those segments they are alphabetical.

[iNano78]

Interesting to see how other people organize various collections.

Since I treat my Mage Wars as one growing set, I have them in binders in 9 pocket sheets. Organized with subject tabs dividing first the major schools in alphabetical order, and then the minor elemental schools plus the mixed school cards. And within each of these tabs, they are divided into Equipment, Creatures, Conjurations, Enchantments, Incantations, and finally Attack spells. And within each of those segments they are alphabetical.

I also did binders with 9 pocket sheets, but only separated alphabetically within spell type (eg Equipment, Conjurations, Creatures, etc). I keep promos separate (same format but not mixed in with released cards), and I originally had Academy separate as well but have since mixed them in with Arena since we generally don't play Academy as a format (it's mainly just an expansion for us).

[sIKE]

Make sure you have a good system for organizing your cards! Not keeping my collection organized by set from the beginning is one of the biggest mistakes I've made as a Mage Wars player, especially now that I've started playing Academy as well as Arena. Organizing my cards is going to be quite the summer project!

I keep mine in color coded sleeves by Spell Type, then sort Alpha by School then Alpha in each school. Other than the 4 or 5 spellbooks all of my cards are sorted in the box. The OCTGN SBB lets separate out cards from each release if I need it to. So if I wanted to make an IRL Academy spellbook. I would first do it in the OCTGN SBB and then build out the book with the cards from the box.

This is an old picture my box is almost completely filled now since Academy and Domination have been added into the mix, but you should still get the drift:

Works well with my OCD, though admittedly it is not the fastest process to build an IRL spellbook.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Make sure you have a good system for organizing your cards! Not keeping my collection organized by set from the beginning is one of the biggest mistakes I've made as a Mage Wars player, especially now that I've started playing Academy as well as Arena. Organizing my cards is going to be quite the summer project!

Out of curiosity why do you need to organize the card collection by set? Each card is identified with the set information in the bottom right card ID.

Good point. Forgot about that. Well, it would help with block formats, and if you want to sell an expansion at some point. And it might make it easier to find cards. Although maybe it's better to organize it by school before set.