Tales of a Miserable Mage

[Wise fool]

Played a couple games as a Druid last night (representing my 5th and 6th games total).  First game I turtled, planning to set up a Thornlasher/Bloodspine congo line that never got started.  My opponent played a Beastmaster who put Bear Strength and Eagle Wings on Makunda.  Then he teleported me away from the Thornlashers.  The second match he played a Forcemaster who destroyed me in 4 rounds with Galvatar and a couple of hurled boulders.

What I learned so far:

-- I can't afford to split spells up between keeping books for beginngers and try to make a coherent book for more competive play at the same time (only have one core set at present)
-- I need a plan for causing damage that happens FAST.  This game is over way too quickly to build up slowly.
-- I'm not very good at this game (yet).

I'm not discouraged, though.  It's still a fun game even when I'm getting mulched.  I got to dissolve my opponents elemental wand and dancing scimitar and hit him once with Togorah against the Forcemaster.

[sdougla2]

Yeah, Jeremy likes to put Eagle Wings on a big creature like Makunda. And the Forcemaster is often incredibly aggressive. If you aren't prepared for that kind of thing, you can end up picking your teeth up off the ground and asking what happened.

I've found that putting Thornlashers in the center 2 spaces and a Bloodspine Wall between them can work well. It gives you almost full board coverage for little investment, and you maximize the benefit of playing a single Bloodspine Wall.

Did you transfer damage to your tree and regenerate it? The Druid can be pretty tough with a Treebonded tree out, particularly with some armor and a Regrowth Belt.

You can build up, but you need to have a plan for defense if your opponent rushes you, and if you decide to build up, you generally want to do it quickly so that you can hold off aggression and/or put pressure on your opponent.

I'm glad you had fun. I should be at I'm Board for Mage Wars in 2 weeks. Maybe I'll see you there.

[Wildhorn]

A game last between 7 rounds (an experienced player destroying a new player) and 13 rounds (epic fight between players of equal skills). This means a game will last around 10 rounds (players of equal skills but one will make a mistake that cost him the game).
The only exception to that is if a Necromancer successfully set up an Altar of Skulls, then the game will most likely last 8 + opponent hp rounds (long and most likely boring game).

Plan according to that. The action (stuff bashing other stuff) usually happens on round 3 or 4. If you are still in your "setup" by then, you already lost.

[Aylin]

A game last between 7 rounds (an experienced player destroying a new player) and 13 rounds (epic fight between players of equal skills). This means a game will last around 10 rounds (players of equal skills but one will make a mistake that cost him the game).
The only exception to that is if a Necromancer successfully set up an Altar of Skulls, then the game will most likely last 8 + opponent hp rounds (long and most likely boring game).

Plan according to that. The action (stuff bashing other stuff) usually happens on round 3 or 4. If you are still in your "setup" by then, you already lost.

I've played several 15-20 round games. I've also played several 4-6 round games. Giving a range of 7-13 seems a little off to me.

[sdougla2]

I agree with Aylin. 7-13 rounds is a bit narrow. I've had several games that were over in 5 rounds. I don't normally record the number of rounds that my games go to, so I'm not sure what the high end is.

[silverclawgrizzly]

It's good that you're not getting discouraged. The Druid is a very tricky mage to get down and Force Masters take a lot of getting use to in order to defend against. What was your tree that you bonded to? A Vine Tree can put out enough Vine Markers to slow a Force Master down sometimes. Also liberal use of Tangle Vine and Surging Wave can cause them fits.

When you're new, you're going to take beatings, most likely a fair number of them. But so long as you learn from them and get better then it's actually better for you then winning and gaining nothing. Whether you play hard, fast, and aggressive, or cautious, methodical, and defensive is up to you. They're both winning strategies but you gotta figure out your style.

[Death-from-above]

I had a game last night against a friend who I had just recently introduced the game with and it lasted about 14 rounds which was crazy. I was playing johktari beastmaster and he was playing an air wizard. We were both using the pre made spellbooks because he didn't feel comfortable yet to make his own spellbook.

Even though this was his second game, he wiped the floor with me for the first half of the game. He was implementing strategies I never considered in my second game of Mage Wars. I finally managed a win with my Gorilla that had all rage counters and 4 armor. His only mistake was not moving his mage around and putting on any armor. If he had, this game could have gone a whole different direction.

Im still not very good with the game yet too. I find it hard to break away from my favorite strategies and my friend (Lord0fWinter) most of the time capitalizes on that. But I still have fun and almost never get discouraged after a loss. True, my morale is crushed sometimes when im rolling nothing but blanks the whole game, but I love how this game can vary each match. You could play the same to mages against each other twice and each game would be completely different then the other.

[Wildhorn]

@Aylin: 20 rounds means probably that both mage were turtling or attacking creatures instead of mages. Because 20 rounds means you have an average output damage under 2 per round while it should be around 3-4.

[Wise fool]

It's good that you're not getting discouraged. The Druid is a very tricky mage to get down and Force Masters take a lot of getting use to in order to defend against. What was your tree that you bonded to? A Vine Tree can put out enough Vine Markers to slow a Force Master down sometimes. Also liberal use of Tangle Vine and Surging Wave can cause them fits.

I did have the Vine Tree (tree bonded) out the first game against the Beast Master.  He flew over the vine markers with Makunda.  The second game he had an elemental wand with hurl boulder, so I didn't have time to set up.  I moved in to dissolve the wand and he double struck me with his weapon, and followed up with another hurl boulder spell.

One of the major things I consistently forget to do is use guards.  I could have saved my mage a lot of grief simply by using guards. 

[Aylin]

@Aylin: 20 rounds means probably that both mage were turtling or attacking creatures instead of mages. Because 20 rounds means you have an average output damage under 2 per round while it should be around 3-4.

Wildhorn, not everyone plays hyper-aggressive all of the time. One person playing a Control book well will drag a game out as well.

[sdougla2]

Guarding is an important aspect of the game, and it's easy for new players to forget about it.

[Aylin]

It's good that you're not getting discouraged. The Druid is a very tricky mage to get down and Force Masters take a lot of getting use to in order to defend against. What was your tree that you bonded to? A Vine Tree can put out enough Vine Markers to slow a Force Master down sometimes. Also liberal use of Tangle Vine and Surging Wave can cause them fits.

I did have the Vine Tree (tree bonded) out the first game against the Beast Master.  He flew over the vine markers with Makunda.  The second game he had an elemental wand with hurl boulder, so I didn't have time to set up.  I moved in to dissolve the wand and he double struck me with his weapon, and followed up with another hurl boulder spell.

One of the major things I consistently forget to do is use guards.  I could have saved my mage a lot of grief simply by using guards.

Dispel (on the Eagle Wings) would have also helped a lot in that first game.

Tarok and Galador also should have places in most Druid books (my opinion), either of those would have helped with the flying kitty.

[sIKE]

Snatch and Bloodspine wall would help too.....

[sdougla2]

I don't run Tarok in my Druid build at present, but I do run Kralathor, Steelclaw Grizzly, and Galador. You don't need Tarok, but you do need some creatures that aren't weak to fire. Galador is perhaps the creature that covers the most bases for the Druid. He helps with Flyers, Incorporeal objects, Iron Golems...

[Aylin]

I don't run Tarok in my Druid build at present, but I do run Kralathor, Steelclaw Grizzly, and Galador. You don't need Tarok, but you do need some creatures that aren't weak to fire. Galador is perhaps the creature that covers the most bases for the Druid. He helps with Flyers, Incorporeal objects, Iron Golems...

Yeah, Galador is definitely the important one to include. If nothing else, Lightning Stag should go in.