Creating the perfect set for my gaming group

[phillipsjr2]

So, I basically just want to have one set of Mage Wars that I use to play with my friends. I'd like to construct a deck for each of the 6 mages that remains static and that we can play with week to week. I don't mind making alterations here or there to vary up gameplay, but as the owner I'm the person most invested in the game and no one is interested in heavy deck-building or theorizing. To that end, are the preconstructed decks adequate and balance for us to play with on a week to week basis, or will I encounter problems with them?

Note: my gaming group is pretty intelligent and competitive, so imbalances between decks or exploits with combos will probably be picked up on rather quickly. My ideal would be to create 6 decks that all have a fighting chance against each other. I'm not opposed to buying either or both of the spell tomes if this is necessary for me to achieve that goal.

[DallasSooner87]

TL;DR at bottom

It might work for the first handful of games. However, after a few games I found the pre-built decks predictable and easy to exploit. Each deck only has a couple of dissolves or dispels. So if you can bait them early your opponent has no way to deal with, for example, a curse heavy deck or a Force Master Force Field. However, making small tweaks is probably the best way to get into the deck building. Each deck will slowly start to become more personalized and you won't have to invest much time to build a deck from scratch.

That said, the deck building is awesome and only takes a couple of tries before you can make one fairly quickly. I don't theory-craft as a build a deck I just kind of guess and adjust based on what works and what doesn't. How often I used something or if I even thought about using it in game. I was worried about the deck building but making something that is yours and beating the crap out of someone really adds an extra level of pride to the game, If your group as competitive as you say they might end up loving it.

Sorry for the long read I will TL;DR this.

The prebuilds are ok for a few games but get easy to figure out.

Deck building is fun and easy.

If you want to consider building get the core spell tomes. And if they change their minds about the deck building there is an easy to use editor here http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/85710/mage-wars-deck-cost-calculator

[nitrodavid]

I am in the same boat as you when talking about sharing your game with friends (had a 4 way free for all once). I am going to try something like this. I will make 6, 80 point core spell books then tell everybody they can add 40 points of there choice.

this way the core will be the same which is usually the case with most decks but each player can change up there extra 40 points depending on what they want to do. 40 points doesn't take long to build it usually will range from 5 to 15 spells (most obvious and cheap spells will be in the core).

that way you never know if they have 4 dispels or 2. it makes the game less predictable especially for the original deck builder. by all means gave "recommended" 40 spells point list for first or newish players but give them the chance to change if they want.

[Texan85]

Buy:
2x Core Set
1x Force Master
2x Spell Tomb 2
2x Kumanjaro

[fas723]

I also share the boat. If there could be 6 (or 4) really balanced books to use it would awsome.

This how I do it:
I have done similar to what nitrodavid has done, but I have put 100p each in mine. The last 20 p act as "jokers" and can be picked from the stock (unused cards) during the game. This is a neat way to both encurage deck buliding, balance, supprises and prevent run away leaders. Usually I put a "time limit" when to use the jokers, like: "not possible until round 8", or something. Then you have to go into your character in the beginning.

This is also a good way to realize what is missing in you book for competitive play.

[karlomarco]

All of the above are good suggestions. The core set is enough to get you going for sure, and that in itself is already a ton of fun for up to 4 players. And that leaves plenty room for card drafting and such.

But I suspect you'll sooner or later want more copies of some go-to spells (far from necessary though, and any mage can still put up a good fight with just the core set). If your group tends to get competitive and fight over specific cards, then a second core set or the tomes would be a nice thing to have.

I provide the games for my group as well, so after picking up the first core set and trying out a 2 vs 2, I quickly bought a second core to double up on the cards and for the extra board, markers and tokens. After that, I got both spell tomes and FM vs WL.

That allowed me to have all 6 mage spellbooks ready to rumble, with a ton of cards left over for deeper customization. The only thing I'm missing are a few more Hands of Bim-Shala to give each of the mages. No biggie though. Otherwise, this setup has pretty much all bases covered.

[phillipsjr2]

I did end up grabbing a second core set, both to have working copies of the Kumanjaro casters + an extra board and spellbooks for them.