November 10, 2024, 02:44:19 PM

Author Topic: Overused cards?  (Read 25571 times)

Moonglow

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #30 on: August 28, 2013, 09:42:35 PM »
Do an RCT type trial, make two identical books with the difference being immortal Hugin and the other having linked Hugin.  Two players play 5 games randomly getting either book each game.  See which build wins most often.

I really like the Haste idea too, as it seems to create a different mechanic than the game has now. Like lots of spells feel like variants of the same (push etc), the way you've implemented haste is pretty cool and introduces a whole new way to consider a creatures actions. 

Yeah, since there's no chance my crazy design ideas for rebalanced familiars would ever be adopted, I just kinda went nuts with it.

Making a creature potentially immortal seems really strong to me, just because of the action advantage, but is immortal Hugin any better than Wizard's Tower? Hugin does cast Teleport, which I think is the best spell in the Game, but has an action marker instead of a ready marker,  so... I dunno.

Here's another crazy idea for an Enchantment: Haste: Level 2 War. 2+5 Non-Mage Living Creature. Replace this creature's action marker with a ready marker. It now activates before or after any other friendly creature's activation.

Stormmaster

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #31 on: August 28, 2013, 10:15:36 PM »
I think I need to get with the times and toss a Teleport in.  I've never put that in any deck and never cast that spell.  So far haven't ever needed it but looks like it might be useful.

This discussion is a great extension to the other thread created about a base set of cards that should go in every book.
http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=12571.0

reddawn

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #32 on: August 28, 2013, 10:50:09 PM »
Yeah, after playing multiple games with creature Spawnpoints for the past couple of weeks, I haven't been impressed at all.  The problem is that the quality of the action advantage you're getting for the immense amount of upfront mana you're spending is just too low.  The Straywood BM has a little easier of a time with it, since he can at least buff up his with Totems or whatever, but all the others are just very subpar.

For example, I've been playing and losing with the Warlord a lot recently, trying to get the Barracks to work even though I thought it sucked from the beginning.  Turns out I'm still right about it; small soldiers just don't pull any weight and their damage falls off almost immediately.
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The Dude

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #33 on: August 28, 2013, 11:52:00 PM »
If you try and play Warlord with an outpost strategy, you're gunna have a bad time.

South Park References.

In all seriousness, I do completely agree. Which is why I've been playing around with Troll control. And I assure you, it's not because the rhyme is so clever.
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Moonglow

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #34 on: August 29, 2013, 12:09:50 AM »
And I assure you, it's not because the rhyme is so clever.

Go on, admit it, its one of the reasons...

Fentum

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #35 on: August 29, 2013, 01:51:45 AM »
Here's another crazy idea for an Enchantment: Haste: Level 2 War. 2+5 Non-Mage Living Creature. Replace this creature's action marker with a ready marker. It now activates before or after any other friendly creature's activation.

Someone grab him, quick! He's gone MENTAL!    :o

Cool ideas. Love the familiar concept, but anything that increases the opportunity to 'chain free actions to cause mayhem', e.g. Haste, is a worry.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2013, 02:46:40 AM by Fentum »

The Dude

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #36 on: August 29, 2013, 02:25:38 AM »
And I assure you, it's not because the rhyme is so clever.

Go on, admit it, its one of the reasons...

I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I have an addiction, and no, it's not fiction.

I'm stretching here.
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ringkichard

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #37 on: August 29, 2013, 08:00:39 AM »
Anybody want a peanut?
I can take the fun out of anything. It's true; here, look at this spreadsheet.

jacksmack

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #38 on: August 29, 2013, 08:17:38 AM »
Anybody want a peanut?

I want more cats so i can make a BM deck using makunda.

release Druid vs Necrobob already!!!

Stormmaster

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #39 on: August 29, 2013, 09:50:23 AM »
You have to wait until October bob, sorry.  :-\

Koz

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #40 on: August 29, 2013, 10:50:50 AM »
I've said this before, and I will say it again. What makes MW deckbuilding so special isn't the "mandatory" part of the building. Arguably every single "deckbuilding" game on the market today has elements that every deck will include as it makes them either playable, or better. From the ones I have played and love, there are a few examples I could give. If we look at one of the recently popular Android Netrunner, there are a few builds in particular, that, in order to be "competitive", need Account Siphon, as well as some amount of breakers, and economy. This is just one of many. You can't play Standard Magic the gathering without including lands in your deck, and you certainly can't be competitive without including "dual" lands. (Dada, I see your belcher and it is an exception, not a rule). As well, even if you look at minis games, which are closer to Mage Wars, have certain "necessities" that are required for tournament friendly builds.

Obviously every game has staples that go in pretty much every deck, no one has said otherwise.  I've played A LOT of ccgs in my life including: Magic, L5R, Netrunner, Warlord, Spycraft, Doomtown, Shadowfist, Star Wars (both Decipher's and FFG's), Rage, VtES, Doomtrooper, Shadowrun and probably a couple others I'm forgetting off of the top of my head.  I've been playing these games a long time as well.  Hell, when I started playing Magic I was already old enough to drink...and The Dark was the new set.  Yeah, I'm that old ;)

Anyway, my point is that I'm familiar with the concept of staple cards.  The fact that this game stands out as having many more staples than any card game I've ever played is kind of the point of the thread.  You're talk of lands in Magic is a red herring and not at all the same as what is being discussed in this thread.  If I sit down to play Mage Wars as the Priestess vs the Warlock, something like 25-30% or more of our builds will be the same.  The day that I sit down for a game of Magic playing Blue/White against someone playing Green/Red and our decks are 30% identical, then you can compare Magic and Mage Wars.  But that's not the case, and never will be.

Comparing miniature games isn’t really helpful either, because if you play Eldar vs Chaos, you aren’t going to have any similarities whatsoever.  There may be some sameness between any two different Eldar players, but that’s not the point because you would expect to see similarities between two different Warlock builds as well.  The problem is that you see the same similarities in builds when you compare a Warlock build and a Priestess build.  That doesn’t happen in other games I’ve played, ccg OR miniature games. 

Don't get me wrong, I love Mage Wars, but I think this is a legitimate criticism of the game.  Everyone in this thread has been pretty constructive and just wants to see a great game be better, so just hand-waving away the issue with "all games have staples" seems rather dismissive.

For most of the last year I really had no issue with this aspect of the game.  But the more I've played the more certain cards have been revealed as not worth competitive play (creature spawnpoints, familiars, etc), so the "sameness" of builds has increased.  I don't think this problem will go away as the card pool expands either.  For instance, the only card that is going to replace Dispel in builds is a card that does the same thing but more efficiently.  So you just swap one staple for another.   

The real problem (if it is indeed a problem) is that any Mage can include any card in their builds in any amount they wish to pay for.  You can't do that in any other card game I've played.  You brought up Netrunner and I kind of wish there was a limit to the amount of out of school cards you could include in your build just like Netrunner has.  That would at least create more variability.  Maybe something like, no more than 18 points (15%) can be spent on out of school spells.  Or no more than one copy of any single out of school spell.  Or something.  And those were just off the top of my head, not specific, well thought-out recommendations so don't take them super serious.

Anyway, obviously the most important part of Mage Wars is the tactical play, but it would be nice if there were fewer staples in the game so that such a large portion of your build wasn't predetermined as soon as you pick your mage.

Koz

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #41 on: August 29, 2013, 10:54:04 AM »
One other little point to bring up, is that these mandatory cards can actually unfairly impact certain mages.  For instance, one of the major problems with the Warlord (among several problems) is that he has to pay triple for many of the staple cards in this game forcing him to either play less of the staples or just eat the ridiculous cost of them.  What a huge liability and a completely unfair handicap to an already weak mage.

Less staples would alleviate this problem somewhat.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2013, 11:12:02 AM by Koz »

The Dude

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #42 on: August 29, 2013, 11:16:51 AM »
You seemed to have missed my second point, which is that this game is young. How many cards are in Mage Wars right now? approx 160, as my count may be off. Compare this to Netrunner, which was released at the same time, which has 195 cards, and that's not including the core set. As well, you have approx. 20 of the Mage Wars cards to build with that are "X mage only". This leaves us with around 140 cards to work with. Now, we also have to realize that some cards are just better. Simply put, in most cases, Nullify is better than mind shield. As well, you have reiterations of multiple cards. Such as Defense and armor cards. They have small variations that become important based on the meta. As well, some cards have much, much better value in them than others.

Do I think this a bad thing? Not at all. But I also don't think it's complaint worthy, either. Now, once the card pool has even increased by 1/2, and the result is the same, then yes, I could see where a problem could arise.

As well, I don't think competitive shells work, especially in this game. There are 3 cards I'm probably always going to include: Dissolve, Seeking, and Dispel. That's about it. And even then, the numbers are mixed for each build I create. Just because it plays well to include ALL those cards doesn't mean it couldn't play better some other way. Too many people write off cards because they don't see them, and I think that is the real crime of the game, not that there are a number of cards that people like to use.

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #43 on: August 29, 2013, 11:19:41 AM »
As to your little point, I agree. Warlord was neutered because he was "too powerful". This is why he has the triple arcane cost. There aren't many people who do think it's balanced. That being said, can you give me another example of a mage who was neutered because of school and spellpoint costs?
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Koz

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Re: Overused cards?
« Reply #44 on: August 29, 2013, 11:22:11 AM »
You seemed to have missed my second point, which is that this game is young. How many cards are in Mage Wars right now? approx 160, as my count may be off. Compare this to Netrunner, which was released at the same time, which has 195 cards, and that's not including the core set. As well, you have approx. 20 of the Mage Wars cards to build with that are "X mage only". This leaves us with around 140 cards to work with. Now, we also have to realize that some cards are just better. Simply put, in most cases, Nullify is better than mind shield. As well, you have reiterations of multiple cards. Such as Defense and armor cards. They have small variations that become important based on the meta. As well, some cards have much, much better value in them than others.

Do I think this a bad thing? Not at all. But I also don't think it's complaint worthy, either. Now, once the card pool has even increased by 1/2, and the result is the same, then yes, I could see where a problem could arise.

As well, I don't think competitive shells work, especially in this game. There are 3 cards I'm probably always going to include: Dissolve, Seeking, and Dispel. That's about it. And even then, the numbers are mixed for each build I create. Just because it plays well to include ALL those cards doesn't mean it couldn't play better some other way. Too many people write off cards because they don't see them, and I think that is the real crime of the game, not that there are a number of cards that people like to use.

Dude.

Actually I didn't miss your second point at all, because I said this specifically:

Quote
I don't think this problem will go away as the card pool expands either.  For instance, the only card that is going to replace Dispel in builds is a card that does the same thing but more efficiently.  So you just swap one staple for another.   

So I think you missed my point ;)