Magic is fun if you do drafts because at least there you can see a certain variation of cards used - because you just don't always draft the cards you need. So by design the decks there vary.
But if you look at standard.. it's fun the first few weeks after the release, but the following month after the pro tour it's dull as heck because everyone who plays seriously (with ambition) is playing the same deck the pros play. You may see some slight variation in the sideboard, but apart from that you know exactly what cards your opponent has as early as in t1 or t2.
You are right, the different decks don't use the same cards but everyone is using the same decks and that it far worse than overlaps in essential cards, what you have in Mage Wars.
It might be the same in Mage Wars if we had a "pro scene" as well, who knows, but since we don't have a pro scene everyone builds there deck as THEY think it is best and not just copying it from the internet. That alone is reason enough for me why I prefer Mage Wars.
Hi Enti,
As you point out, if MW had a "pro scene" I think you'd notice the exact same situation : lots of players bringing the same, latest powerbuild netdeck to a tournament.
However, I can't speak for "Standard" as I only play Legacy.
I think however it may be safe to say that standard may have somewhat less variety & power builds because of its limited card pool.
From my Legacy experience last year I can however say that I'm very pleased with the number and variety of competitive Legacy decks.
The "fantastic time" I'm having with it is because I like to build my own decks and not netdeck.
The challenge here lies of course in the fact that anything you come up with has to be able to stand up against the decks to beat.
I agree that in Magic tournament settings, you likely know what you're up against after your opponents' first two turns.
In MW however I usually know what my opponent has in his book BEFORE we even sit down.
Likely, at least one Dissolve, Dispel, Bear Strength, Force Push, Teleport, Regrowth, Rhino Hide, Surging Wave, Hurl Rock, Pillar of Righteous Flame, Tanglevine etc ...
That's what I dislike in MW by now : every book using too many identical staple cards from all different spell schools.
Apart from that, being able to choose from your whole deck every single turn adds so much more depth to the game.. Makes it so much more important to predict what your enemy might want to do, imho that's something unique no other game has.
That's what I thought as well.
But not anymore.
IMO 120 SBP's is too much. ( at least 20 too much imo )
A book's base strategy cards can usually be built with +/- 60 SBP's.
That leaves way too much SBP's to cherrypick a Toolbox of counter cards especially because you often need only 1 copy of a card due to the non-random draw in MW.
So many extra SBP's also means you can too easily tap into other schools.
This has two very negative results imo
1- games take way too long to play out as card after card can be countered or neutralized until someone eventually runs out of counters.
2- the different schools mean nothing outside the bookbuilding phase as any mage can freely cherrypick and cast any spell he likes ( with some restrictions to some mages alright )
If I compare that with Magic TG
1- Decks are much more refined and tuned because of the random draw.
In magic every card in your deck has to advance your strategy.
If you put a "bad" card in your MW book, you're not necessarily hindered by it. You'll likely find out after a couple of plays that you never play it during a game or that the card doesn't fit but you won't suffer any gameplay consequences right away.
If you put a "bad" card in your Magic deck this can cause you to lose the game.
You can draw it into your hand thereby wasting a turn and giving your opponent one more turn to beat you.
So because of the Random Draw Magic deckbuilding needs more skill imo than MW bookbuilding and it also leads to less ( needlessly ) drawn out games.
2- The different schools actually mean something in Magic.
Figuring out how many and which Lands exactly you need to run in your deck are one of the key aspects of succesful deckbuilding. They also limit what you can play in your deck and whatnot.
In MW this doesn't matter at all. It's too easy for every mage imo to just use any spell from any school in general.
With more expansions (potentially ) coming out and thus more power cards coming out this only leads to spellbooks looking more and more identical as the number of "staples" will only grow.
So, I think MW has a problem here.
There are Toolbox decks in Magic too, like the old Survival of the Fittest decks or the more recent Green Sun's Zenith based decks but in general, most competitive decks are finely tuned decks with a specific strategy and without any "fat" on it.
In MW every spellbook is actually a Toolbox of Counters with a certain Mage and a strategy for him tacked on.
This leads to games taking way too long and becoming too repetitive after a number of games imo.
Out of curiosity, how many competitive mage wars tournaments have you participated in? Speaking for myself, the only "staples" you listed that I actually use in every deck were dissolve, dispel, and teleport. I suspect some of the more aggressive decks are better off using vanpirism and/or heal, rather than regrowth or regrowth belt. And how often do you see necromancer running bear strengths? I am not sure what your local meta looks like, but I dont think the problems you describe quite generalize outside of your local meta.
The metagame on OCTGN is a little stale, but not THAT stale. And part of the reason for that is likely that we don't have a very large number of skilled tournament players, so there is not enough people coming up with new competitive deck ideas in the first place.
It's not because MW competitive deck design space has been fully explored. It hasn't been, ever. We simply don't have a large enough player base to fully explore it.
And the idea that adding more cards to the game would *decrease* the number of competitive strategies, and that the cause for that would be the spell point system, appears to demonstrate a lack of familiarity with the history of the metagames on OCTGN and at big conventions like gen con. In the past, adding more cards to the game has increased the number of competitive spellbooks people could make. Is there some reason for this trend to reverse direction that I don't know of?
People often make the mistake of trying to make a direct comparison between game balance and metagame diversity in mage wars to that of tcgs like magic. But most tcgs don't have a spell point system. In terms of game balance and metagame diversity mage wars just doesn't work the same way as other customizable card games - they're not in the same league.
In magic and other tcgs an overpowered card unbalances gameplay directly. But in mage wars if someone includes an overpowered card in their deck, that drives other players to have to spend even more spell points on putting cards in their deck to counter it.
Back before the wizard and his tower got nerfed, it was still entirely possible to beat a skilled wizard player with a non-wizard deck. But you would have to use more of your spell points to prepare your deck for that particular matchup. And if you did that then your deck would be less able to deal with other mages besides the wizard who did not overcommit themselves to dealing with wizards.
The old wizard wasn't overpowered in the conventional sense. All of his tactics could still be countered. But he overcentralized the metagame, placing a severe limit on the number of tournament-viable strategies. When people were building decks back then, the first question they would have to ask was "how will I deal with the wizard?"
Contrast to mtg or other tcgs where oftentimes an OP card is just broken and leads to decks that use it dominating tournaments, rather than just having an advantage that limits the number of viable decks that can oppose it.
Being able to choose from your whole deck each turn makes a huge difference. If your opponent draws their OP card they could potentially use it right away. But if you draw the counter before they draw the OP card, the counter could be a dead draw until they draw their OP card.
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