Starving the Opponent and Other Concepts of Control.
It’s about that time for another article, folks. I don’t think I have seen a good article posted on here in a while, and it seems I have seen an abundance of aggressive builds. Is this what Mage Wars has degenerated to? A bunch of overly powerful things to do, with your only hope of winning is to either do something more broken, or perfectly time your reactions to counter the opponents? I don’t believe so. The easiest way to win a game of Mage Wars is to kill an opponent before he has time to react. This was, and is the norm. But what if everyone is doing the same thing? What if you were up against nothing but hyper aggressive/combo builds that relied on nothing but doing 15 dice of damage a turn? The game would break down into who has the better die rolls. I recently went and looked on the BGG page at Mage Wars “game weight”. This term simply means how hard, or simple, this game is to grasp. To kind of put this into perspective, King of Tokyo has a weight of 1.5. It’s not too hard to learn, and it is very luck based. Seasons has a weight of 2.7. It is much tougher to learn, as well as there being a high amount of strategy involved with that game. So what does Mage Wars have? A 3.5. This means that this is a difficult, very high strategic and tactics based game. So it doesn’t make sense that this game should degenerate into who has the better combo, or who has the better die rolls. There has to be something more than that. And there is.
There is a dark, dusty, cobweb filled corner in the depths of Mage Wars strategy. It has been talked about little, and has been given almost no love. What am I speaking about (hint: look at the title)? Control, of course. What I aim to do today is to show new players and old players alike how beneficial running a control build can be. Now, before we get into strategy, I want to address the first thought that came into your mind. “But I don’t want to play for 2-3 hours on one game!”. Control does not mean slow. Nor does control mean weak. Let us try and define control as an archetype before we digress further. Webster states that control is to exercise constraint over: dominate; command. A second definition says that control is to hold in check; curb. To put this into simplified in game terms, to control is to hold dominance over a certain resource. Be it card advantage, mana, action advantage, any game that a player can exert control over an opponent has an abundance of resources.
So, why has that not been done successfully yet? There are many Mage Wars builds, millions of spellbook combinations, so why have we not seen a powerful control build? We have. Aggressive builds can be considered control as they use damage output to control you. They depend on good dice rolls, and lots of attacks, to stop you from acting, and to get to you to start reacting. But there is a problem here. There is a high risk reward output here, as you can roll terribly and just lose the game because of luck. The best control builds depend not on luck, but on the intentions of your opponent. This is what I set out to create. A build that depended not on only luck to win, but on skill as well. In order to do this, there are a few things we have to realize.
First, we need to realize that we will be damaged, even maimed, before we can take control. If any of you are familiar with Magic the Gathering strategy, you will know that often control decks will go down to 3-7 life before they can exhibit enough control to win the game. We have to take our licks if we hope to win the game. This needs to be taken with a grain of salt, though. You need to analyze the opponents damage output before you go accepting damage. If your opponent has the potential to do 8 d of damage, we can probably afford to take it. 16 d of damage, on the other hand, is a different story. Knowing how much damage you can take, and when you can take it, is the first lesson to winning with control. As well, when I say that we need to take damage, I do not mean that we should just put ourselves out there to be attacked. Light to moderate defense while setting up is never a bad thing.
Second, we need options. Not every opponent is going to do the same exact thing, although they all have the same end goal. For this reason, I believe the wizard is the strongest option when choosing a controlling mage. I also think the Warlock could be a good choice, for his curse option alone. We need to always be able to react to what the opponent is doing, no matter what we are trying to do. What gives us the most options? Familiars and spellbind cards, of course! I’ve been playing with Goblin Builder, for example, as a way to free up my planning for reactive cards, and letting the builder do the work for me. Deployment is our “card” advantage, and we are going to need to make as much use of it as possible.
Third, we are going to need utility creatures. There are so many creatures in this game, but there are only a few that give us multiple options. We need to utilize these creatures at whatever cost necessary. Look for creatures that not only have the option to attack, but as well roll to hit attacks, elusive, fast, etc. Our creatures will be doing the most damage, but they will also be out bodyguards. They will be threats that the opponent is going to have to deal with at any cost, and we need them to have as many options as they can as well. We also don’t want to waste tempo and cards buffing our creatures. We need our creatures to do work as soon as they are cast.
Now, what resources do we have in the game that we can use to our advantage? There are two obvious choices, and one not so obvious. The two obvious responses are damage and mana. The third is action advantage. We, in order to be the most effective, need to be able to control two of these three resources at any given time. For this reason, using cards like Suppression Orb, Mordok’s Obelisk, and Mana Siphon have a powerful impact. If we are gaining more resources than the opponent, than we can do more than the opponent. Cards like these also control the action advantage in the game. If they can only channel five a round, then chances are that they do not have a lot of options. Especially if we have 12 channeling to work with.
I see a huge problem when I do get the opportunity to see a control build, and that is that players will tip their hand before the game has even begun. I will see players cast Orb and Obelisk round two, and cloak on round three, making it incredibly easy for the opponent to play around. We need to play our control cards reactively. If we see two or three of the opponents creatures on the board, that is when we need to ease into control. Don’t tip your entire strategy in the beginning. Use that time to build. Make your channeling much better. Cast some equipment, maybe a creature. Take your time, but mind the opponent. If the opponent tries to get aggressive quickly, suppress the threat either by utilizing positional control or guarding. When your opponent runs out of steam, pounce. Pacify any large threat, as well as putting the cloak on. Mana Siphon them as soon as they get close.
Attacking with the control mage is not as difficult as you would think. Only make attacks that will afford you tempo, or that will end the game. The rest of the damage should be done naturally or by your creatures. Don’t get greedy and think that you have enough tempo to just go aggressive. You will not win that way. Winning with control takes time, and discipline. If you keep hammering the opponents resources, eventually he will die.
There are many ways to kill a mage without ever rolling dice, and although it may take a lot more time, they are our way to victory. If we don’t have to roll to attack, we can use our action to seeking dispel, force crush, teleport. Ghoul rot them, Enfeeble them. Make them so weak that they cannot do anything but watch you dance around them. This is easier than you think! Just remember not to get greedy at all. Know that you will win eventually if you keep them down. I repeat this because I feel it is the most important part of the game.
Control is not easy to play by any means. You have to really, really, really work to achieve what you want to do, any you will often almost die doing it. But if you want to base your games not off of the better die roll, but off the better player, I think the control route is the best way to go, especially in a hyper aggressive meta, because of it’s flexibility and strength in the mid to late game. Mage Wars is a game of skill. Let’s keep it that way!
Dude.
