General book design ~ fewer, more expensive spells, or more spells total?

[mwanafalsafa]

Since MW deck --- or "book" --- building works off a points systems instead of a minimum deck size, the above is a unique issue.

As I'm still new to the game, I don't have a position on this either way.

Do you think it's better to have a bigger, more tactically flexible deck, or a smaller, targeted deck full of more powerful spells --- particularly more that are out-of-school?

Hypothetically, I wonder what the smallest, or biggest, 120 pt book you could make would look like.

[sIKE]

Hypothetically, you could put in 120 Level One in School cards(1*120=120), worst case you could put 10 Level 4 polar opposite spell in one book (aka a Holy mage could put at maximum 10 Level Dark spells)(10*4*3=120). Why? Just hypothetically speaking....

[MrSaucy]

The answer is "Yes" because you need cheap spells just as much as you need expensive spells. By cheap and expensive I am talking about mana. But the same thing applies to how expensive spells are in terms of spell points. Extremes don't pay off. You need balance. You can have a tight build that focuses on one thing and does that one thing well, but lack of flexibility makes you easy to beat. Then again, if you overcompensate and make your build too flexible, it may not be able to do one thing well. When I do a spellbook, I think of the following areas to cover.

1) Core

This includes all the cards that your build will utilize NO MATTER WHO YOUR OPPONENT IS. This also includes your winning strategy. In general, builds win through attack spells, creatures, or the mage's themselves (see Solo Builds). The Wizard is the best at winning via attack spells. The Beastmaster always wins through his creatures. The Forcemaster wins by soloing. It is likely that the majority of your core spells will come from the schools of magic your mage is trained in.

2) A Way To Survive

This varies depending on your Mage. Armor and health regeneration make a Mage hard to kill. Regrowth and Regrowth belt are the only spells so far that grant health regeneration. Life gain makes a mage hard to kill. Most people think of Holy Spells such as Minor Heal and Heal, but Vampirism (from the Dark School) can be just as effective.

Some builds don't like using life gain and instead operate under the notion that the best defense is killing your opponent faster than they kill you. The Warlock definitely embraces this philosophy.

3) Creature management

Your builds just always have a way to answer threats in the form of creatures. Does your build have ways to deal with powerful creatures? Does your build have a way to deal with swarms of creatures? Does your build have ways to deal with flying creatures?

4) Give-ins

There are some spells that you need to have no matter what. There is some controversy on this topic, but most MW players will agree that any spellbook needs to have Dispel and Dissolve. Some people argue that Seeking Dispel and Nullify are absolutely necessary but I disagree with them on that.

In conclusion, there is no simple answer to your question. You need cheap and expensive spells. You need spells from your trained schools as well as some from your untrained schools. You really only need to delve into untrained schools to cover your weaknesses.

[ringkichard]

I'm a strong believer that your overall gameplan should influence your book size.

An aggressive book that plans to end the game in the first 10 turns probably doesn't need more than 40 cards, and can afford to spend a lot of spellbook points on high cost spells and out-of-school spells. An aggressive book is likely to care more about the mana cost of its cards than the spellbook cost. If there's a cheeper/better card out of school, an agro book may be able to find room to run it, even in multiples. An agro book is in the business of asking questions, and usually there's only so many questions to ask. 

Contrariwise, a defensive book needs to have a plan for 20 or more turns, and because control books are in the position of answering questions instead of asking them, they need solutions to a wide range of problems. This means more in-school spells, and fewer expensive splashes from out of school. The defense game plan, though, often includes investments like mana crystals and spawn points, so individual cards can often have higher relative mana costs.

But remember that these are just guidelines. Even for a very focused agro book, it is important to be able to throw a change-up and play a longer pressure game. If your opponent knows exactly what you'll be doing next turn, he'll almost certainly be able to counter. So far, no mage is so overwhelmingly agro that it can afford to broadcast its moves with impunity (though some Forcemaster builds make me wonder).

Likewise, even the most defensive book will need to go outside of its trained schools for some essential cards. No school is broad enough to defend against all threats by itself (though Earth Wizard may come close).