What is the optimal lifelink value for team games?

[Sailor Vulcan]

2v2 standard arena games are already very very long. Where a 1v1 is about 1-2 hours, a 2v2 seems to be about 2-4.

Is it any wonder then, that almost no one ever plays mage wars arena in teams, and why 3v3 is pretty much completely unheard of?

Except the problem is that if you change 2v2 games to be lifelink +1 instead of lifelink +2, there might be the risk of two mages ganging up against 1 mage. Don't know if that's actually a big risk or not. However, consider that in zuberi's version of 2v2, mages had shared life, and it was lower than their life totals added together. Essentially they had their total combined life reduced by about 20 in exchange for lifelink +infinity.

The official team play does not reduce the total life values, and gives teams lifelink +2 or +3.

I am wondering if this is really the best way to do it, since it makes things even LONGER than zuberi's version. While having separate life values is probably better in some ways because a mage's life is balanced with their other abilities, it seems to make the game last longer.

But if lifelink +1 isn't enough to both encourage teamwork and to keep ganging up on a single mage from always being the optimal strategy, then I wonder what might be a better alternative that still allows for games to not be insanely long so much of the time.

Maybe using lifelink +3 but reduce all mage life values by 4 or something?

It might just be better to bring back zuberi's version. It's simpler and less messy, doesn't take as long, and doesn't have as many new rules to learn, like the control of objects changing when a teammate dies. Then again, it might still be fun to use sacrificial altar on a teammate who's about to die anyways. Not to mention things like bleed and poisoned blood work better with separate life values.

Maybe keep the lifelink+2 and subtract some amunt of life from each mage? The important question is how much life should be deducted?

I'm thinking maybe -10 life for both mages might do the trick, since lifelink doesn't change how much damage is on each team overall, just where that damage is. Then maybe increase to lifelink +3 so that burst damage isn't too powerful.

[wtcannonjr]

We always use the team rules and scenarios in Domination when we play Teams.

We find it much more interesting since you can still play towards Mage Death, but have an additional victory path for each team to worry about as well. It also resolves the time problem of playing without the domination victory condition.

[Ganpot]

The only time I've ever attempted a large scale Mage Wars team battle (4v4), we didn't use any life-link or life reduction whatsoever (and when a Mage dies, all their spells immediately end).  In my opinion, that both speeds up the game (granted, we're still talking really long matches), and makes it far more tactical.  Blowing up one Mage on either team without immediate follow-up basically ensures victory, which forces players to learn both individually and as a group when to attack and when to retreat.  Adding Domination to the mix just makes it better, since then players have to spread out or risk losing control of most of the V'Tar orbs. 

I've never understood why a lot of people prefer shared life in team Mage Wars games.  In games where players can't run away or counter that aggression, it makes sense.  But Mage Wars (at least Arena / Battlegrounds) gives players those tools.  Players should be encouraged to target the enemy team's weakest link while defending their own.  That in turn encourages movement across the board, which is one of Mage War's most unique qualities as a card game. 

The only real downside is that the game becomes far more brutal.  A single mistake can cost a team the game, after investing 3+ hours into a match.  So I guess my advice is: for (relatively) laid back or casual matches, life-link is great (it usually keeps all the players in the game so long as someone doesn't SERIOUSLY mess up).  But for competitive matches, I really dislike life-link. 

[Kaarin]

Was there any kind of report from team tournament in Germany?

[bigfatchef]

I never heard of shared life in 2v2 games. We locally changed rules to end the game as soon as one mage dies. That team loses.
That way team mates have to protect each other. Also multiplayer games won't take many hours. The problem with games lasting many rounds is that your spellbook gets empty. That problem is solved.

I think you can adapt this way very easy to even bigger matches without having to in- or decrease spellbookpoints or out lifevalues.

[Halewijn]

I feel the optimal life link is 0. If a mage gets seperated and killed by the other 2 he should have been more careful.

[Laddinfance]

We came up with the lifelink rule, because of how brutal team games are. It's not a matter of getting separated, in almost every team game I played, both of the other players ganged up on one opponent. It almost didn't matter how much effort they spent to stay alive, having two Mages pound on them was too much. Then team games simply came down to who downed a Mage first. Then you spent a ton of time trying to secure the kill on the weakened foe who remains.

This is why in domination we introduced the Lifelink rule for multiplayer, as well as the rule that the game ended when one Mage dies. Now, all of that to say I feel that Domination mode is actually really good for team play as it helps give the game an endpoint instead of just making it a multiplayer slugfest.

[Sailor Vulcan]

We came up with the lifelink rule, because of how brutal team games are. It's not a matter of getting separated, in almost every team game I played, both of the other players ganged up on one opponent. It almost didn't matter how much effort they spent to stay alive, having two Mages pound on them was too much. Then team games simply came down to who downed a Mage first. Then you spent a ton of time trying to secure the kill on the weakened foe who remains.

This is why in domination we introduced the Lifelink rule for multiplayer, as well as the rule that the game ended when one Mage dies. Now, all of that to say I feel that Domination mode is actually really good for team play as it helps give the game an endpoint instead of just making it a multiplayer slugfest.

And yet the way it currently plays takes a lot longer than zuberi's version, and aside from a few ambiguities like healing and finite life, the format was balanced, and it was shorter than the official version.

In zuberi's version the life totals of all friendly mages would be added together and then 10 life would be subtracted per friendly mage. So for instance, if you had a warlock and a priestess, that was (38+32)-20, or 50 shared life.

I'm wondering if 2v2 will be better with teams having lifelink +3 and mages having ten less life each.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Okay so I just tried to play a game of 2v2 with lifelink +4 and mages having 10 less life each, and it lasted two and a half hours and probably would have lasted at the very least another four hours if I hadn't had to leave. The lifelink ability was only used once the entire game. This seems like strong evidence that lifelink is not necessary, and even can make games take a LOT longer.

It occurs to me that 2v2 never really developed its own global metagame, and people usually don't talk much about their local team metas. How many people play tested the official standard Arena team play, and how many of them were experienced players? It's possible that the reason team games are so brutal without lifelink is because you need the added skill of teamwork on top of regular Mage Wars skill. On top of that, because 2v2 lacks any well-known organized metagames, most people just use their 1v1 books, which are NOT optimized for teamwork. I'm wondering if maybe we should just have a 2v2 tournament on octgn with no shared life, no lifelink, ten less life for each Mage, and a win condition of first magekill, and see how it goes.

[Halewijn]

"strong evidence" is not 1 game. You need multiple experiments for that.

I thought this was about domination 2 vs 2. In domination you can focus on the orbs and people tend to have much less protection on the mages. For that reason I think it could work to try and focus 1 mage down. If on the other hand the opponents gain Vtar you can still lose the game. So, maybe lifelink is good or bad during a domination 2 vs 2 game. I just don't have enough experience. Domination 2 vs 2 is awesome!

I don't think the arena mage wars is fit for 2 vs 2. It's just not designed for that.

[Sailor Vulcan]

"strong evidence" is not 1 game. You need multiple experiments for that.

Usually yes, but we're not talking about something that's really obscure or complicated that requires years of research. We're just talking about game length here. If you want to know if your milk is spoiled, all it takes is one taste to get conclusive evidence that your milk is spoiled or not. In this case while the evidence is not conclusive it is fairly strong. That one game had ten less life for each Mage and lifelink +4 which was only used once the whole game. Even if there's a chance it's an outlier, the outliers are unlikely to be so extreme that your projected game length ends up looking like its going into 8-10+ hour range. If it is then that's a problem. The game was at least 21 rounds before it got cut off and barely any damage had been dealt, even though no one was turtling. It probably would have gone on until at least round 40 if not 50 or more. The other team was taking long planning phases, which might have contributed to the length, but the lifelink on top of that was just another thing that was making the game take longer, and it wasn't at all necessary that game. If any games in a format take more than 3 hours without showing any signs of stopping or slowing down in the next several hours after that, then the format is not viable for organized play.

To put this into perspective, the standard 1v1 format usually takes about an hour to an hour and a half. Every once in a while it takes about 2 hours. It almost never takes four or more, and I've only seen that happen twice that I can recall.

Based on that information and unless I'm missing something, it seems like a 2v2 format with no lifelink, no shared life, with starting life not reduced, and with first magekill as the win condition should take about twice as long as the 1v1 format. So about 2-3 hours on average, and almost never 8 hours, but never more than that. This of course is still too much. If you include lifelink it becomes the official 2v2 format which would be even longer.

Reducing starting Mage life values by 10 each instead of using lifelink is, as far as I know, approximately the same or very similar to cutting off a third of the game length. Then it should go down to 80-120 minutes on average, almost never 5 hours and 20 minutes, and never more than that.

I thought this was about domination 2 vs 2. In domination you can focus on the orbs and people tend to have much less protection on the mages. For that reason I think it could work to try and focus 1 mage down. If on the other hand the opponents gain Vtar you can still lose the game. So, maybe lifelink is good or bad during a domination 2 vs 2 game. I just don't have enough experience. Domination 2 vs 2 is awesome!

I don't think the arena mage wars is fit for 2 vs 2. It's just not designed for that.

Hmm. I don't think that's very likely, since game length seems to be the only obstacle to the format. Please explain.

[Laddinfance]

I find your results very disparate from my own. When I've played one person gets hammered hard and then becomes the weak link. I've had 2v2 games finish in under an hour. Now, I've also had games stretch out for quite a while. You can't be scientific about things if you draw conclusions after a single game.

[Sailor Vulcan]

I find your results very disparate from my own. When I've played one person gets hammered hard and then becomes the weak link. I've had 2v2 games finish in under an hour. Now, I've also had games stretch out for quite a while. You can't be scientific about things if you draw conclusions after a single game.

I didn't say it was conclusive evidence I said it was fairly strong evidence. There is a difference. If even a single game of 2v2 Mage Wars is still in the early game after two and a half hours and there's no sign of it ending or even slowing down for at least several hours more, even though it has starting life reduced by ten for all mages, something is probably wrong.

Yes, what you describe has often happened to people. The important question is, why does that happen? How does "one person gets hammered hard and then becomes the weak link" become such a frequent issue? Maybe it's because without lifelink, the rules themselves are unfair/unbalanced/too "brutal". However, it seems significantly more likely that there is some other reason that this problem happens.

The fact is that people don't play 2v2 much and it never really developed a competitive metagame, likely because people weren't playing it enough, and when they did they used their 1v1 spellbooks for it. Standard 1v1 Mage Wars is already challenging, but 2v2 requires the additional skill of teamwork, which most people don't even design their spellbooks for. This fact could better explain why 2v2 was so brutal before the official version with lifelink was released. It also could better explain why 2 mages ganging up on one was such a common occurrence--teams with superior teamwork can more successfully separate the enemy mages from each other's assistance and fight them one at a time, and the fact that almost no spellbooks used in 2v2 are actually built for it could make it harder for a losing team to recover once their coordination has been disrupted like that.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Unfortunately, it seems like a LOT of people have this tendency to only use the official version of a format, and if the explanation above is correct, then the official version is not viable for competitive organized play. Without competitive organized play, Standard 2v2 Arena will never develop a metagame of its own, people will never start creating fun or unique team strategies and the format will continue to very seldom be played.

Perhaps my biggest disappointment about Mage Wars Arena at the moment is alternate variants. The only tournament viable variant formats that Arcane Wonders has released are apprentice mode and 1v1 domination. 2v2 domination probably could work if we had a balanced official map for it, but we don't, as quite a few players can probably attest to with their experiences of wall cheese on the official Truce at Straywood map. I made a more balanced version which I'm pretty sure I posted on these forums, but I doubt it's seeing much use because it's not the official version. Really, all I had to do was insert two empty zones in those corners. The lack of those two extra zones in the official Truce at Straywood map was a blatantly obvious oversight which has yet to be corrected let alone acknowledged, and so people probably continue to use the official Truce at Straywood as it is, despite how unbalanced it is with walls.

And because people rarely play variants, the amount of feedback you get on them from players is likely very limited. And without that feedback, these problems that Arena variants have will continue to persist.

Halewijn said that Standard Mage Wars Arena is not designed for 2v2. I'm going to take that a step further. Mage Wars Arena in general is not designed for alternate variants. It could be in theory, but it hasn't been in practice. As of now there is not even one variant format with a known organized metagame anywhere. I know that Arcane Wonders themselves don't have time or space to run variant format tournaments at conventions. But I never hear about ambassadors running them either. How long has the first Battlegrounds set been out again?

Suffice to say, I am very sorely frustrated and disappointed by this. I've written a lot of ideas for and about alternate variants on these forums, and it's all almost entirely for naught because people only want to play official variants, and since no one wants to play apprentice mode, that means that 1v1 domination is the ONLY balanced official variant of Mage Wars Arena that currently exists.

The nearly complete lack of variant play outside of EDH/commander was the second biggest reason I stopped playing MtG. Mage Wars is still my favorite game, and it is the only tabletop customizable strategy game that I can afford. But Mage Wars Arena has so much potential for variant play and it is being wasted, and it seems to be because of faulty format design and insufficient feedback for those designs. This seems to be an ongoing issue and it really needs to be fixed. Please fix it.

Thanks!

[sIKE]

I know we have talked about this many times, the pool of players is not deep enough to support what you so desire. You personally have stated multiple times that you can not find enough players to the released version of any of the Mage Wars product. How can you expect to have a vibrant variant play. Since I am a national  traveler I can tell you from personal experience, you can walk into practically any game store in the evening and find dozens of people playing MTG. You even complain that you couldn't find enough players in the MTG side of things to play EDH. What makes you think that players that have just picked up the game or have played only 3 or 4 of the mages (that is the variability piece I think you are missing) and have another 3 or 4 to yet player, and btw feel that they haven't mastered but maybe one or two, will want to go off into variant land.

As for the Wall Cheese with the Straywood map, it is known, and the powers that be, and I and sure they are working on resolving it, the one thing you can't say about AW is that they make knee jerk reactions. Domination is where I think you might have a chance to add to the pool of variant maps. I plan on including a couple of custom maps with each OCTGN release. It would be really cool if AW could set up a page where players could upload there custom maps and then other players could down load them and rate them. AW could even post new official maps or updated ones to the" Mage Wars Battlegrounds Map Repository".