In Magic, there is a concept called The Philosophy of Fire, which is the idea that if your opponent is dead, it doesn't matter how many more resources they have than you. Also, that on any given turn, the cards you will draw will add an average of X points of damage, and therefore you will have enough cards to defeat your opponent on turn Y.
I started thinking about how this applies to Mage Wars. Since most damage spells deal about 1 damage per mana spent, if there is a fast and efficient way to convert mana to damage, it does not take very long before a mage has aquired more mana than their opponent has life. For example, even the 9 channeling mages have gotten 37 mana by the end of turn 3, which is more than the life totals of all but the Warlock. (Like, if we could turn 4 Fireballs and a Fireshaper Ring into ~39 damage by the end of that turn...)
Another consideration added to the mix must be the non-Mana damage a Mage brings to the mix. For example, the Warlock has melee skill, so once close enough can add 4 damage per turn when not being obstructed by guards or distance.
The question that must then be asked is how to best convert mana to damage? Usually, the answer to this is "creatures". However, we must say this with a caveat, which is that almost every mage has some tools for controlling "a few big", whether it is Sleep, Force Hold, Turn to Stone, Mind Control, Banish, whatever. When we fight over a creature, we start trading a lot of mana and actions, which works against what we are trying to exploit: time. This is especially an issue since summoning a creature costs a full action, (which implies not making an attack), so the cost for it is not just the mana, but also +4 damage (assuming a mage with melee skill).
If creatures are not the best thing, then we have to turn to attack spells and equipment. Assuming we will get in 3 or more attacks using it, cards like Fireweavers Ring, Gauntlets of Strength, Lash of Flame (only because of +1 from ring and Burn effects), and Dancing Scimitar can all be worth it. However, playing any equipment demands actions, which might require a Battleforge since otherwise we would need our actions for spellcasting. I haven't played enough games (or done enough math) to know whether the 8 mana into the forge increases or decreases the fundamental speed you can deal 30-40 damage in, but my hunch would be a slight improvement.
Attack spells must be the bread and butter of this strategy. The more mana that can be turned into damage at once the better. I think Fireball and Hurl Boulder currently are tops, though Jet Stream, Acid Ball, Invisible Fist, and Fireblast all have their places. The book would either need an elemental wand(s) or lots of copies of these spells to keep turning mana into damage. Fireball yields an expected 8.75 damage (7 dice + fractional 1 burn) for 8 mana, which is pretty nice.
However, an opponent is not going to just sit still for this. Issue #1 are healing spells and effects. Unlike Magic where life gain is not very good, and thus is not played in ever deck, in Mage Wars every mage seems to find room for at least 1 heal or minor heal, and probably more. As such, we absolutely must have a reliable source of Finite Life. Currently this means either Deahlock or Tainted Blood. Deathlock is far more preferable, because Tainted Blood can easily be dispelled. Worse, it could be disspelled during a turn where the opponent is in the "going last" position, and will have initiative next turn, which could mean landing 2 healing spells after the dissolve before we would have a chance to Tainted Blood them again. The only upside of Tanted Blood is that if we catch them by surprise, we can waste a lot of their mana and one of their (presumably not overly numberous) healing effects.
Issue #2 is armor or Defenses. Even two points of armor effectively increases opponent's HP by 50% vs. a 4-dice melee attack and 25% vs. a Fireball. This is unacceptable. Part of the reason we want to avoid spending mana fighting over the freedom of a creature, is that we want to devote mana and time resources to keeping the opponent naked / defenseless. Explode is actually awesome for our strategy, since we are fundamentally constricted on actions (only 1 QC per turn if we are using our melee attack). We get to destroy a piece of equipment and push damage in one fell swoop. Sometimes we'll need to disspel or dissolve things, that's just the nature of the beast. Acid Ball is also a very efficient answer to most armor pieces. So long as we're not staring at a - Element effect we can't tolerate, it's actually better than Explore or Dissolve for anything like Leather Gloves, Leather Boots, Bearskin, etc. (I'd rather Explode/Dissolve a Wyvernhide Hauberk or Elemental Cloak because they mess up the burns.) The goal is to keep the opponent with no meaningful protection against our spells.
Issue #3 are counter effects like Nullify, Block, Reverse Magic, and Reverse Attack. These cards require careful play not to get destroyed by. I very much like Dancing Scimitar because of its ability to trigger Block or Reverse Attack, as well as to deal with a creature on Guard. Nullify and Reverse Magic require specialized answers. Either we must give up our melee attack so we can 1-2 punch the opponent with a "fake" spell (like Decoy), or take the time to summon a Familiar so that our melee attack is free and we can still 1-2 punch opponents. I've been thinking Sectarus is particularly interesting for this job, since it is a quick or battleforge action to summon rather than a full action like Huginn or Mindspore. Wizard's Tower is also a solid choice, though potentially a little fragile.
I've only played a couple of games with a book like this. So far it has seemed opponents are underprepared for the direct personal onslaught. Like, they have a couple of defensive pieces and heals, but when my entire book is dedicated to fighting past those, they run out of tools.
I'm curious about other people's experiences. Have you or your meta played books like this? Are they good? How do metas combat this strategy? What are the minimum tools a book needs to fight off a book like this? Etc?
