How viable a strategy is killing the enemy mage in domination?

[Sailor Vulcan]

So one of the staff members at origins told me that focusing solely on killing the enemy mage has a very low chance of winning compared to trying to achieve domination victory. He estimated that killing the mage tends to work around 35% of the time, and domination victory 65% of the time. And it's even worse on larger boards. From what I've seen, going for domination victory tends to be a late-game strategy in the format, while killing the enemy Mage is an early strategy. How might this affect the health and diversity of the domination metagame?

[ACG]

In my first game of Domination, my opponent went for the throat and won (Adramelock vs Necromancer (me)), but it was an extremely close thing, and wound have turned out differently if I had focused more on the orbs.

In my second and third games, I exploited a flaw in the mechanics to virtually guarantee myself a victory using the orbs, denying my opponent any chance to win by aggression or domination. Needless to say, it is no longer possible to do this, and killing the enemy mage has become more difficult in the process.

I would say that domination is about the orbs, and you should build your deck around that. You will find it extremely hard to win by killing the enemy mage if they are focusing on the orbs; the only scenario in which a game has a reasonable likelihood of ending by mage death is if both mages ignore the orbs and just go for the throat.

As far as health and diversity goes, I wouldn't worry about it. Arena is about killing the enemy mage. Domination is about dominating the board. Different objectives, different metas.

[vlad3theimpaler]

So one of the staff members at origins told me that focusing solely on killing the enemy mage has a very low chance of winning compared to trying to achieve domination victory. He estimated that killing the mage tends to work around 35% of the time, and domination victory 65% of the time. And it's even worse on larger boards. From what I've seen, going for domination victory tends to be a late-game strategy in the format, while killing the enemy Mage is an early strategy. How might this affect the health and diversity of the domination metagame?

I would actually say the opposite.  I think that in a domination game, you should go for the v'tar first and shift to trying to kill the opposing mage as a back-up plan if you're losing the V'tar race.

The V'tar orbs are incrementally beneficial, since you gain 2 mana/heal 2 damage when you activates them, and then 1 for each V'tar you gain during the upkeep.  On the other hand, killing the enemy mage is all or nothing.  If you deal all but 1 damage to the enemy mage, you still haven't gained a concrete benefit from doing so.  Worse, that work can be undone by healing.  There doesn't seem to be any way to make the other player lose v'tar they'be gained, though.

Winning by killing an enemy mage is still possible, but it's difficult, because the pace of domination is so much faster than the core game alone.  My deck that I played against Aaron yesterday was designed to make sure I could reliably get a v'tar orb and galaxxus out by turn 3, and it's actually possible to even get an orb by turn 2 (although I abandoned those lists because I wanted a little more staying power.)  If domination becomes a standard tournament format, I think the metagame is going to evolve around taking those turn 2 and 3 orbs.

The real elephant in the room, though, is Galaxxus.  That card is so good in the format that I can't see competitive teams NOT including it.  If you have it as a prepared spell on the turn you take your first orb, you're doubling the amount of v'tar you would otherwise receive, and you're getting mana/health back from it, too.  And since it can't switch control in the same way as the orbs, there's practically no risk involved, either.  Much like dispel, dissolve, and teleport, it's going to be a staple card for the format that's practically an auto-include.

[Borg]

I'm not interested in Domination at all and what I read here makes me back-off even more.

I don't understand why we needed this alternative in the first place.

My fear is that it will divide a player base that is already too small to begin with.

Academy I can understand and support. We need more players and making the entrance easier makes perfect sense but Domination ...

Too bad I'll probably just end up buying it for the cards only.

[Coshade]

I'm not interested in Domination at all and what I read here makes me back-off even more.

I don't understand why we needed this alternative in the first place.

My fear is that it will divide a player base that is already too small to begin with.

Academy I can understand and support. We need more players and making the entrance easier makes perfect sense but Domination ...
Too bad I'll probably just end up buying it for the cards only.

I wouldn't worry too much about the Domination being impossible to kill the enemy mage. Poisoned blood and Deathlock are pretty solid to kill off the mage. I'm really interested to see what kinds of builds come out that focus on killing the enemy mage. I haven't seen anyone post the cards from the set yet, but there are some solid ways to lay on aggression with Domination.

[Phoenix]

Just got home from Origins.  I am going to jot down some notes tonight and attempt to write up a battle report from my game with Aaron.  I will include the spell list I used.  To answer the orginal quest.  I beat Aaron by killing his mage.  He was well on the path to victory by V'tar, it was a very close match.  What really surprised me was this match took right around 30 mins from set up to victory.

[jhaelen]

What really surprised me was this match took right around 30 mins from set up to victory.

And that's why I'll probably be playing Domination mode exclusively in the future and never look back.

[Borg]

What really surprised me was this match took right around 30 mins from set up to victory.

And that's why I'll probably be playing Domination mode exclusively in the future and never look back.

That's what I was referring to when I wrote "My fear is that it will divide a player base that is already too small to begin with."

[SharkBait]

From what I've seen of the Domination expansion (and my game against Aaron confirmed this), the coolest part is the potential to design your own arena. I'm also a big fan of additional win conditions, so the V'tar collection part of domination was an interesting dynamic as well.

Addressing the original post, I actually went for the kill instead of trying for the domination victory and lost. Having said that, I do think it's still a viable tactic and lost more because I messed up a move or two and not because Domination is the best way to win. They both seem pretty equal, in my first impression.

I do (somewhat) see Borg's concerns about splitting a player base. If the community can use Academy to expand, then I think the concerns will be mitigated.

[iNano78]

I like how V'tar puts a clock on the game.  If you don't find a way to win quickly, the game will end when somebody achieves Domination.  If you're playing an aggro "kill the mage" strategy, then you'd better not waste time and execute it in as few turns as possible.

Given the different recommended maps and V'tar objectives for Domination, I think balancing between Domination vs Destruction victory conditions is just a matter of tweaking the map and V'tar required to win.  A small map and/or high V'tar value is going to favour destroying the enemy mage and encourage (force?) interaction between mages; a large map and/or low V'tar value is going to favour Domination and might lead to less interaction between mages.

[vlad3theimpaler]

What really surprised me was this match took right around 30 mins from set up to victory.

And that's why I'll probably be playing Domination mode exclusively in the future and never look back.

That's what I was referring to when I wrote "My fear is that it will divide a player base that is already too small to begin with."

...or now I can actually get my friends to play since I have a faster, more multiplayer friendly version of the game.  I'm anticipate being able to play Mage Wars at least twice as often now, probably more.

[V10lentray]

Once I get my copies I will have to test out Domination mode. When I was playtesting I mostly focused on the cards and how they interacted in Arena. I will have to really test out Domination, but at the same time i need to get people who already play to test out Domination.

[Laddinfance]

What really surprised me was this match took right around 30 mins from set up to victory.

And that's why I'll probably be playing Domination mode exclusively in the future and never look back.

Our match was a bit crazy. You'll see when he posts the report, but suffice to say we started with an insane pace on that particular game. Most of the Domination games I play take about an hour +/- 15 minutes. The longest one I played was 2 hours approximately.

[vlad3theimpaler]

What really surprised me was this match took right around 30 mins from set up to victory.

And that's why I'll probably be playing Domination mode exclusively in the future and never look back.

Our match was a bit crazy. You'll see when he posts the report, but suffice to say we started with an insane pace on that particular game. Most of the Domination games I play take about an hour +/- 15 minutes. The longest one I played was 2 hours approximately.

Did you finally get to use something other than druid?   

[jhaelen]

...or now I can actually get my friends to play since I have a faster, more multiplayer friendly version of the game.  I'm anticipate being able to play Mage Wars at least twice as often now, probably more.

Exactly. This is actually my final straw. If Domination mode doesn't grab my fellow players, I might as well sell my collection of Mage Wars products.