When you say "Old school" tcg, I assume you're meaning something like MtG. The thing is, that Mage Wars can't work old school. Try new school:
You could replace range with accuracy, so spells are most accurate when targeting objects within range. Different spells would have different accuracy rolls they have to get based on how "far away" the target is and how much accuracy the spell has. Some spells and attacks would be more accurate when the target is really far away, and some would be more accurate when the target is really close.
Then you would probably want to make all damage exact, rather than relying on dice rolls.
A lot of abilities would have to be reworked though, and some cards might have to be banned from the format. Elusive would probably have to be changed to something like, "ignores changes to opposing creatures' accuracy". Charge +x could be a way of increasing the power of an attack by lowering a creature's accuracy.
Also, I think instead of shuffling the deck and drawing seven cards, players should search the deck for 2 or 3 cards at the start of the game to be their starting hand, then instead of drawing from the top of the deck, they should be able to search their deck for any card during the planning phase to add to their hand. That way the rules about quick actions and full actions would work as normal. Each player would have separate turns. Some things could be done on either your or your opponent's turn, and other things would only be able to be done on your own turn.
Only your turn: full action attack spells, attacking with creatures, placing a guard marker (the rules for guarding would also have to be reworked a bit), casting equipment, casting facedown enchantments, summoning creatures, full action conjurations.
On either turn: incantations, revealing facedown enchantments, using an activated (ready marker) ability, rolling for evasion/accuracy, counterspells, effect rolls, quick action conjurations.
Also, decking out shouldn't cause you to lose automatically if you still have cards on the playing field.
I also wonder if it might be a good idea for this format to be restricted to "Apprentice mode Lv2", except with customizable decks. So 70 spellbook points, a choice of one out of two abilities for each mage, and certain predefined stats for each mage. That way the game-length would be the same as (or at least closer to) a tcg. It would be a smaller, more portable "travel-pack" version of mage wars.
http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=12920.0I think it would be an extremely difficult long term project to constantly convert every new card and mechanic to work in this "TCG" format. Perhaps the cardpool for this format should always be at least one expansion behind, so that there's more time for playtesting. And I don't think it should be called a "TCG", since it's still not collectible, even though it would be played like one in the format. TCG-style, perhaps. Maybe this version of Mage Wars could be distinguished by calling it MM, or Mini-Mages.
I'm not sure about how this idea would be received though. Perhaps by having a TCG-style version of Mage Wars alongside the regular "Full" version, it would become clearer to people that regular Mage Wars is NOT a MtG derivative, especially when they notice that the cards are so much more affordable than MtG or any TCG for that matter. And since Mage Wars is being forced to compete with games that are nothing like it, such as MtG, perhaps this would have the effect of allowing Mage Wars to compete better, while at the same time highlighting what sets regular Mage Wars apart.
