November 23, 2024, 11:26:54 PM

Author Topic: The current metagame is boring and stale and I'm getting sick of it. What to do?  (Read 7929 times)

Sailor Vulcan

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The current metagame has gotten boring and stale and I'm getting sick of it. I don't think I can wait for domination to be released. We need something to spice up mage wars games now. Any ideas?
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Phoenix

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Come to Origins and play Domination with me!!!

Sailor Vulcan

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But origins is almost a month away...
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Cnoedel

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Hey Sailor Vulcan, do you think it is because of "Mage Wars" itself or is it the normal "being sick of X" reaction? Because you are a very devoted player and loreguru it can easily occur that you are just overfed with it. In the later case - just try taking a break (I had similar reactions to other games I play, i.e Diablo 3, Lord of the rings LCG) and come back later when there is new stuff.

Getting sick of the comparison but as you know this is not magic where the meta changes every two months due to new cards and this difference has its up and downsides. (I personally prefer this method but I can see it feeling lackluster sometimes)

I for myself do not play that often so it will take a while to get sick of Mage Wars, then again, I am not as invested as you are.
Please explain what bothers you with the current meta?
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Phoenix

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There is something else you can do to make it more interesting.  Recently, someone I taught was upset because he did not have the number of expansion that I did.  So I made a book using only spells from the base set.  That was pretty challenging, no rust, no acid balls, no iron golems.  Made the next few games a real eyeopener. 

Sailor Vulcan

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Already did that. I have already successfully created core set x1 only spellbooks for all the core mages ages ago. I'm not sick of mage wars itself, just the current meta. These days when I play it's becoming harder to stay mentally present because there isn't as much to mentally engage me. All the strategies I play against blur together lately. Nothing's standing out and things are very repetitive. I don't get to make any creative plays. There's no chance of ever winning by outsmarting an opponent anymore, and I don't remember the last time I did so, because anything you could do to outsmart someone probably has already been done. The problem isn't that mage wars has a slower release schedule. The problem is that we all went an entire year without any releases at all, and during that time we all played our relatively small card pool to death.
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Borg

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I understand the feeling but that doesn't necessarily make it true ;)
My advice would be to "dig deeper". Look for new combinations with cards you may have dismissed in an earlier stage.
I'm a pretty devoted MW player as well and I still find things to try out all the time.
Don't assume "everything has been invented already" ;)
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Phoenix

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     Salior Vulcan The good news is there is only 24 days until the pre release of Domination.  I believe that they will be putting up a PDF of the Domination rules before Origins.  So hang tight, it is coming.

Sailor Vulcan

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I understand the feeling but that doesn't necessarily make it true ;)
My advice would be to "dig deeper". Look for new combinations with cards you may have dismissed in an earlier stage.
I'm a pretty devoted MW player as well and I still find things to try out all the time.
Don't assume "everything has been invented already" ;)

All the time? Really. I'm rather skeptical that so much of what you've tried recently is actually anything new. I bet if you posted all of your most recent innovations on the forums most of them would be things I've already played or played against plenty of times before.

And I've tried what you suggested. A lot. It's mostly stopped working. There's only so many strategies and tactics you can pull out of the woodwork before it becomes a search for a needle in a haystack or a wild goose chase. And regardless of whether there are any new undiscovered spellbook strategies left to try, that doesn't change the  problems with the game play.

That being said, maybe the problem is that I don't have any experienced players who I can play against that often in real life, so I'm stuck with octgn in a metagame that uses a full card pool plus promos. Maybe if I could convince people to try block formats on octgn...
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Laddinfance

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Just to address an earlier statement, I'm working hard to ensure you won't go a year without an expansion again. I know how frustrating that was for me, and I only imagine it gets worse for people who don't get to build the cards for a living.

I think you've hit on two things that I've found in the past help me stay connected to games. First is having people locally. OCTGN is a wonderful thing, but there is something to be said for being able to play in person. I know this is also difficult. The second thing that was mentioned was to take a break. From what I'm reading you'd rather not do that, which I applaud. I just know that often if I have a little time away then I get reinvigorated when I finally have a chance to play a game.

End result, I'm trying to work my butt off so that you won't have a year of downtime again.

exid

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 :D
other sollution: I began to play in 2014 and bought fif a few months ago! I can bear a few months between to expenmsions!

Sailor Vulcan

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Just to address an earlier statement, I'm working hard to ensure you won't go a year without an expansion again. I know how frustrating that was for me, and I only imagine it gets worse for people who don't get to build the cards for a living.

I think you've hit on two things that I've found in the past help me stay connected to games. First is having people locally. OCTGN is a wonderful thing, but there is something to be said for being able to play in person. I know this is also difficult. The second thing that was mentioned was to take a break. From what I'm reading you'd rather not do that, which I applaud. I just know that often if I have a little time away then I get reinvigorated when I finally have a chance to play a game.

End result, I'm trying to work my butt off so that you won't have a year of downtime again.

Thanks. The whole playing in person thing is a good point. After playing for about two years, I only managed to successfully start an irl playgroup, like, last Saturday. I've looked and looked everywhere all this time, and as far as I know I'm still the ONLY experienced mage wars player in the entirety of central ohio. I'm guessing that's probably why origins isn't having an actual mage wars tournament this year. It's partially my fault because I put off becoming an ambassador since neither of the nearby FLGS are both reachable by bus and have open game tables on weekends and at the time it didn't occur to me to ask if I could be an ambassador without having an FLGS as my "home base".

Of course I didn't realize that I was literally the only experienced mage wars player in the area. It seemed so ridiculously improbable to me. However, after searching all over the place the past couple years, on Facebook, boardgamegeek, at school, at tabletop gaming meetups, friendly local game stores, these forums, at conventions, at community events, and probably a few other places that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head, I have finally come to terms with the plain and simple fact that I really am the only experienced player here, and for a long time I was probably the only active player here. And as far as I know I am the only mage wars player in central Ohio who has progressed past apprentice mode.

Also, I'm not talking about northcentral Ohio. They sometimes refer to themselves as central Ohio even though they're not. And they're way too far away.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2015, 08:53:46 AM by Sailor Vulcan »
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I am from Columbus, though I don't live there anymore. I am trying to get my gaming group from back home into the game as well. If I have any success, I'll let you know. Most of them are hesitant to start playing over OCTGN until they know the game better so I'm bringing my game and all my books up when I come back for Origins and I'm hoping to have a chance to get them all (or at least some) hooked. Is there really no tournament at Origins this year?
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Sailor Vulcan

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I am from Columbus, though I don't live there anymore. I am trying to get my gaming group from back home into the game as well. If I have any success, I'll let you know. Most of them are hesitant to start playing over OCTGN until they know the game better so I'm bringing my game and all my books up when I come back for Origins and I'm hoping to have a chance to get them all (or at least some) hooked. Is there really no tournament at Origins this year?

There's no origins tournament this year. Just open gaming tables. There will be people playing domination, and we might be able to play an unofficial casual tournament or something. Also, there will still be Laddinfance's challenge. You might win a prize of you can beat him in a game of mage wars domination.
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I am Sailor Vulcan! Champion of justice and reason! And yes, I am already aware my uniform is considered flashy, unprofessional, and borderline sexually provocative for my species by most intelligent lifeforms. I did not choose this outfit. Shut up.

Laddinfance

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You can generally get some time in the Geek Chic lounge and play Mage Wars on their awesome tables. A couple years ago I got to teach Robert how to play Mage Wars.