booster suggestion

[lil_drag_n]

I love the idea that all cards will be available and their are no chase cards in mage wars.   I already own 2 core sets and all the expansions and can make about 4 decent spell books.  I don't want to rip apart one of these to make a new dwarflord book.  I have considered buy another core set, which is more cost effective than buying a bunch of spelltomes.  However I will come up with the same problem when paladin vs siren comes out.  The expansions offer lots of great cards but they lack core cards needed to make a proper spell book. 

My suggestion is for AW to release 10-15 card boosters like the way the munchkin game does.  The booster would consist of set cards.  One booster could be arcane essentials where u get nullifies, harmonize, seek dispels, force push etc. Another booster could be the armory chest where you equipment would be available.  Each booster could also release a promo card.  For about $5 a booster we could get a the cards we need as well as the amount of each card without breaking the bank.  This would promote making more spell books and therefore more mage wars.

[gw]

I second that proposal.

[Bluebaron]

Great idea. I would buy some of those.

[silverclawgrizzly]

Goodness would these be useful for helping out my newer players.

[YoungDave]

What an excellent idea.

I'd certainly be up for purchasing some booster sets of that type.

Might be something AW wants to consider.

[lettucemode]

For about $5 a booster

Others made a similar statement in the thread about selling spell binders separate from expansions and so I will present a similar rebuttal here. You have no way of knowing what the costs of such a thing will be. AW is still a pretty small company and does not have the clout of Fantasy Flight Games or Wizards to negotiate for lower printing/manufacturing/storage/distribution/margin costs on its products.

MtG's boosters are $4 because Wizards knows that it will not have to pay much in warehouse storage costs because they move so quickly. The sheer volume makes up for the low margin on a booster. Additionally stores go to Wizards to ask if they can sell their stuff, not the other way around. Meanwhile AW is still working on getting its stuff into stores in the first place. Many local game stores around where I live don't even carry Mage Wars products, but even Target has MtG boosters.

I'd place the cost of the proposed boosters at $15 if the store even decides that they are worth the space on the rack.

[lil_drag_n]

I understand your playing devil's advocate. However we do know other small companies sell simular size boosts from $5 - $7.  And AW sells 110 cards spell tomes for $20 retail.  And the tomes comes in a more expensive box not wrapping.  About $5 does sound reasonable. And about stores carrying mage wars, I'm from Toronto Ontario and we get AW products at specialty games stores and comic shops.  These are the stores that will order it for their customers.

The only way to know is if the good people at AW thinks this is the right move for them and look into it.   

AW, This would make mage wars more accessible to players that start with the core but not sure about diving in.

[aquestrion]

It cost more to wrap a few cards. The sheet the cards come printed on either 55 or 110 cards per sheet then punched out and correlated into a stack so it is easier to package all at once then to break them up into 11 card packs. I've been wanting this also. I'm sure the company would be willing to make it for us. IF WE STARTED A KICKSTARTER OR SIMILAR FUND RAISING WE COULD HAVE IT FASTER.

[Zuberi]

Booster packs would be less economical, both for consumers and production. Even if they sold 15 cards for $5 a pack, it would be costing us nearly twice as much per card as we currently pay for any of their products. However, we could be more precise with our purchases, getting more of what we desire and fewer undesirable spells for our purposes. I think overall it would be popular with the consumers even if it was less economical for them. However, we're still left with the problem of it being less economical for production. As others have said, none of us know how the cost of such a plan would pan out for Arcane Wonders. They may end up having to charge $10 or more for a 15 card booster pack, which I doubt would see much interest from the consumers.

Thus, my opinion on this suggestion is that I think it would be a good idea IF they can do it at a reasonable cost. Even then, I would personally prefer the current model as it gives me more bang for my buck than the suggestion possibly could, but thinking about people besides myself I do think the booster idea would be beneficial to many players and especially newcomers to the game.

[lil_drag_n]

Zurberi your right. we won't know the cost effectiveness for AW but neither would they until they look at the seriously.  I would bet that most of us would pay more per card if we got a better selection of the cards we wanted or needed.  The designer board games and cards is not a cheap hobbie but AW have made it quite reasonable. Especially with such high quality.  I did however thought CoK was over priced for the contents but I am happy the FiF expansion got adjusted.  We all want AW to do well and make good money while creative what we all love.  We all want them to continue expanding with new mages, play formats and obviously spell cards.  But the selection of mages grows we physically need more 'essential' core cards.  I hope someone at AW is reading this and recognize the need to expand horizontally as well as vertically for MW to grow.

[Mathias]

Hello guys,

I understand your problem and experience the same. But keep in mind this is a problem of luxuary.

As stated before, AW first has to work on extending their sales points. They are only present in a small part of America.
On the European market, Germany is somewhat the most important market.
Luckily Germany has picked it up, but Pegasus messed up big times with the lay-out of the box imo.
Because Germany runs a German version, AW doesn't profit in any way.
And on Spiel 2013 they (Pegasus) messed up again big times for product placement. I had to look very hard to find the game.

And as I was afraid: A German copy costs €50 and the English version €60.
Druid vs Necro: German €25 - English €40.
And this fact is very frustrating for starting companies.
On the other hand "Proudly made in the USA" comes with a pricetag.
Plus artist don't work for free, and they do a good job

Getting the booster system starting is quite easy theoretical speaking. Pick sets of 55 cards and put them
in a standard poker-box and throw them on the internet.
In reality AW has a lot of hard choises:

1) They have to invest money in stock. Don't be fooled - you don't get rich from running a card game that easily. So you don't want to invest your last penny in stock.

2) Which cards to pick? No matter how hard they try, there will always one costumer who will be unsatisfied by the selection.

3) How to sell them? If AW only offers them through their online store, shopkeepers will be nagging.
4) If the boosters have to reach shopkeepers, costumers will be nagging because of the steep price.
(Shopkeepers also want to earn money for a living.)

So if you really want to build your 6th deck, do AW a favor. Buy another of their Core Set in your local gameshop. This way everybody will benefit

About the kickstart-proposal. Shopkeepers hate it. And that takes us back about expanding your local market.

[klaymen]

Maybe it's just me, but the Core Spell Tomes have satisfied all my deckbuilding needs, I have two of each. I'm still contemplating another core set, however, but that's mainly for extra tokens.

[lil_drag_n]

I never said it was easy but just introduce a problem and a possible solution. If its feasible for AW, that's up to them. But the lack of core cards is a problem that imo needs to be addressed.  If AW wants to expand, having players multiple books would certainly help.  Boosters my not be a solution, but what are the other options. 

I Also not a fan of the kick starter idea for MW.  I see too many game shops and comic shops go out of business.  I like to support my local brick and mortar stores.

[Sailor Vulcan]

I love the idea that all cards will be available and their are no chase cards in mage wars.   I already own 2 core sets and all the expansions and can make about 4 decent spell books.  I don't want to rip apart one of these to make a new dwarflord book.  I have considered buy another core set, which is more cost effective than buying a bunch of spelltomes.  However I will come up with the same problem when paladin vs siren comes out.  The expansions offer lots of great cards but they lack core cards needed to make a proper spell book.

You'll be able to make much more if you do dismantle your spellbooks. Just write down each spell list you come up with, so you can put them back together whenever you want. If you have two core sets and all of the expansions, then what's limiting you is not your lack of cards, but merely your imagination. A single core set allows for some decent customization. For instance, if you have no eagleclaw boots in your collection, 5 nullifies is exactly the number of nullifies you need for any spellbook you make.

I encourage people to try to make as many good spellbooks that only use one core set as they can and test them in tournaments and on OCTGN. This way we can find out how customizable the core set really is, both for competitive and casual play.

I suspect that if people try this, the desire for boosters as a means to improve the customizability of the game at an improved cost will mostly disappear.

[Zuberi]

There are actually two issues at hand. The first is getting new players into the game and the second is allowing veteran players to maintain multiple spellbooks simultaneously.

For the first issue, the main problem is the steep cost to catch up and get a single decent spellbook running. Arcane Wonders has already stated that they will be addressing this in a future introductory product, however.

For the second issue, the main problem is the limitation of core cards. This can be fixed by booster packs or even revamping the spell tomes so that they have a better card distribution similar to the later products that Arcane Wonders created. No matter what though, if you want to have multiple spellbooks built concurrently, you will have to dish out the money for extra product. Honestly, this isn't a huge concern however as it is completely unnecessary to have multiple spellbooks built at the same time. That's a luxury, and one which can be satisfied by the current model. Making it easier to satisfy that luxury does not need to be a high priority.