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Author Topic: Card costings  (Read 4293 times)

Sausageman

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Card costings
« on: February 08, 2013, 07:50:28 AM »
I've been wondering this for a while, but with the War Sledge being previewed it's even more curious to me now, but HOW are the costs worked our for spells?  I'm assuming there's some kind of formula behind the scenes, but I can't for the life of me figure it out  :)

Let's compare War Sledge to Galvitar, Force Blade.  There's 1 mana in it, both are the same level, both do 4 dice of damage. The sledge takes up both hand slots whereas the force blade only uses one (a HUGE plus as this enables wand use, or a shield, or whatever one handed stuff we might see in the future).  Both have a quick attack (4 dice on the sledge vs 4 dice plus piercing +2 on the blade), and both have a full round attack (4 dice plus sweeping and a 7+ daze on sledge, 4 dice plus double strike OR sweeping on blade).  As an additional bonus, the force blade also has 'Cantrip' too, meaning only one copy in the spell book is needed, as it'll keep returning to it if it's destroyed.

Now my first thought is that the force blade is quite a bit better than the sledge, but there is only one mana difference so this implies there isn't that big a difference after all.

Is it that I am not considering 1 mana point that significant whereas I should be.  Or is it that the designers are considering a 50/50 chance of a daze on a full attack as significantly more potent than I do?  Or perhaps there are other factors at work here, like how 'good' the Forcemaster is compared to the Warlord (it's channeling, it's base melee attack, it's life etc etc).  Or perhaps it's all three plus a few others....

Gewar

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Re: Card costings
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2013, 09:13:51 AM »
I think it is partly because of War Sledge is for Warlord and Galvitar is for Forcemaster only.

Why should that matter?
Forcemaster is lone warrior - she has to pay tripple for any non-Mind creatures in her spellbook, which leaves her with Mind creatures. And I guess there will not be many of those.
So she has to kill her enemies by herself and the same time she has to cast all ofthe other spells.
On the other side there is the Warlord with his horde. While his army is dealing with oponent, he has planty of time to cast support sells.

What I mean, Forcemaster's action is more precius than Warlord's and that will be her, who should kill her oponent (not her creatures), so she should get slightly more effective weapon.

Cantrip, one-handed, doublestrike possibility and piercing +2 without daze chance and 1 mana more expensive is significant, but not huge difference.
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DarthDadaD20

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Re: Card costings
« Reply #2 on: February 08, 2013, 09:28:54 AM »
Bryan Pope wrote once that he has around seventy spread sheets for finding mana cost!(I think I remember that right.) I would think it would be a collaboration of what you would think would go into finding a cards casting cost, like; anticipated tactics,overall saying power on the field,average damage per turn calculations, usefulness and flexibly,availability,synergy,I could go on but I wont. Im sure those all factor into what becomes a balanced and useful guide for coming up with the casting cost. If it is seventy spread sheets of data.....you have fun trying to crack that formula!
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Sausageman

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Re: Card costings
« Reply #3 on: February 08, 2013, 09:30:39 AM »
Quote from: "Gewar" post=7280
I think it is partly because of War Sledge is for Warlord and Galvitar is for Forcemaster only.

Why should that matter?
Forcemaster is lone warrior - she has to pay tripple for any non-Mind creatures in her spellbook, which leaves her with Mind creatures. And I guess there will not be many of those.
So she has to kill her enemies by herself and the same time she has to cast all ofthe other spells.
On the other side there is the Warlord with his horde. While his army is dealing with oponent, he has planty of time to cast support sells.

What I mean, Forcemaster's action is more precius than Warlord's and that will be her, who should kill her oponent (not her creatures), so she should get slightly more effective weapon.

Cantrip, one-handed, doublestrike possibility and piercing +2 without daze chance and 1 mana more expensive is significant, but not huge difference.

Significant, huge difference - semantics really. But opinions aside, surely there is a costing formula involved - one that looks of the merits of the cards ALONE, rather than taking everything the caster has to offer on board too? That would be a logistical nightmare....

theduke850

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Re: Card costings
« Reply #4 on: February 08, 2013, 10:21:53 AM »
I remember some discussions some time ago about the efficiency of creatures which left me with the impression that there isn't a formula for mana cost, but there is a measurement for efficiency in relation to the other attributes and traits on the card.  

the Forcemaster seems to me to be intentionally designed as highly efficient and it would make sense that she gets a clearly better weapon for only 1 mana cost more.

HeatStryke

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Re: Card costings
« Reply #5 on: February 08, 2013, 05:08:13 PM »
There are equations involved, some insane amount of spreadsheets of em.

The big difference here is what people said: the Forcemaster is designed to largely work alone. She therefore needs a more efficent weapon than the Warlord who is supposed to support an army.

Sausageman

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Re: Card costings
« Reply #6 on: February 09, 2013, 04:58:27 AM »
Well, the post on the Facebook page clears this up then:
"My bad, Galvitar costs 11 mana, not 9. I gave you folks the wrong card image. Please accept myy apologies. War sledge is a bit more fairly priced now in comparison."

I'd say that pretty much clears that up then. :)

patrickconnor

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Re: Card costings
« Reply #7 on: February 10, 2013, 11:09:39 AM »
Sorry for the confusion. Here is the correct version: http://magewars.com/jsite/forum/spells/7025-forcemaster-vs-warlord-spoilers#7335

Thanks for all the support guys!

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