I would like to see a grand melee for Mage Wars but this will need some very heavy testing to get the rules working correctly. What is grand melee? It is a massive multiplayer game were you get prizes based off of people you kill and being the last people standing. The largest Melee I ever did was over 260 people in a single game. When games get larger you need special rules just to manage the turn order and Interactions.
Egad! A massive Flashmob approach to tourney play! Quite an event to plan and manage. Something for a big con, like GenCon or Origins? Amazing feat to pull off!
Here are some more modest suggestions, based on my bit of boardgame play and trucking two nephews over hill and dale for their MtG gaming
CARD LIST BASED GAME—A random card list would be created for each School. Players then choose from/use the random list. The effect would be rather like an MTG sealed deck game. Games could be offered when expansion packs are released, too, and players could buy, open, and use the cards at the tournament for a really close sealed deck experience. I always enjoyed watching players at MtG tourneys react to the cards they received in sealed decks.
NOVICE WARS—Limit the Epic Spell cards. Require the use of many Novice Spell cards. And tailor all the rest of the card choices to the Novice Level including creatures, armaments, everything. Every Mage is a Level 6, so this would work on the even playing field, especially when the game is new. After all, every Mage is a novice when a game is new, as someone pointed out in a post.
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WORST CASE SCENARIO SPELL BOOK WARS—Players choose a mage, create the absolute WORST spell book possible, then exchange spell books. I love playing this kind of match. Lots of groaning and popcorn tossing ensues, but it’s great fun. Not for the Spikes at the tournament (players obsessed with winning by as large a margin as possible/humiliating others). But we're playing to have fun. This approach also really tests the balance and weightings of the game and the characters/creatures
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WEIRD CARD—Everyone can choose ONE EXTRA CARD from the open set or from a predefined set that is usually NOT available to their Mage because of school, light/dark, race, or other reasons. The goal here is to leverage that ‘out of school’ surprise spell mechanism. If a predesigned set of weird cards is used, little or no mana adjustment would be needed and game balance would be less affected. It’s fun to fiddle with spells/ traits and play that favorite card.
No, You Can’t Use THAT Spell/Creature Wars (AKA Rut Buster)—Elimination of certain spells and creatures, certainly player favorites and one or two moderately important cards that players use far too often or often in very predictable ways. There are always cards that become player favorites, and eliminating them from play makes people rethink strategy. That’s the use of this kind of match. It’s important not to fiddle with the really necessary cards, like the Geyser. This is really useful when you also impose other limits, especially considering that there are so many cards for each Mage to choose from
