Domination - first Sslak wins?

[Bjorne]

Hi,

I just played my first two games of Domination and it appears to me that this game mode is extremely snowbally. Do you agree? The first Sslak is important to kill as fast as possible so you can get your Galaxus out and start collecting two VTar per turn. Then, killing another Sslak helps your opponent as much as you I think. You get the counterstrikes but your opponent can just walz in and take your hard earned orb. Once you're falling behind in VTar/turn, the game is basically determined. Was this intentional? Seems to almost be like "The First to kill his Sslak wins!". And Galaxus makes this even more of a problem.

[Wildhorn]

Me and my friend noticed this and we gonna test a variant for Domination with 2 players this week-end. I will give feedback after out games.

[Halewijn]

I'm not really THAT experienced with domination (5+ games) but seem to have the same issue. I think one big "fix" might be to ban gallaxus completely. Maybe it might be more rewarding to kill a second slakk.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Or you could go for a more controlling strategy. I once made a domination earth wizard for the path of war map that would take control of only one vtar orb, summon a galaxxus, protect the two sllaks by the hidden passage tokens with turn to stone and bull endurance, destroy the enemy galaxxus and tank my way to domination victory. Unfortunately, before Academy the wizard was the only one who had the training for that kind of strategy. The beastmaster or druid might be able to do something like it with gator toughness and iguana regrowth instead of turn to stone and bull endurance and galaxxus with two orbs instead of just one (because you can't protect a sslak by guarding unless it's incapacitated or staggered. And turn to stone gives SIX armor.)

Unfortunately, there's really little card support for other mages to do controlling domination strategies. In fact, considering how domination was originally advertised as a game meant for large swarms which emphasized aggressive rather than defensive play, and considering how there's only one official 1v1 domination map with only 4 sslaks or less, Arcane Wonders probably had no idea that a domination version of control was even possible.

[Crow]

We generally only play Domination with more than 2 Mages.

(3+): Free-for-All 
Everything works pretty well as printed, including Galaxus.  Getting an early lead is suicide, so the trick is to stay with the pack until you are in a position to win.

(4+, even): Teams
We have been using Immortal Mages, killing team gains 1 V'tarr from the defeated team.  This one we have a few house rules to keep the balance;  1. No Galaxus.  2. Warlords not allowed to be teammates with each other.

[exid]

(4+, even): Teams
We have been using Immortal Mages, killing team gains 1 V'tarr from the defeated team.  This one we have a few house rules to keep the balance;  1. No Galaxus.  2. Warlords not allowed to be teammates with each other.

oho!
i need details about this.
how do the immortal mages come back? (when? with how many life? controling what objects?...)
is 1 V'Tar stolen enough?

[Halewijn]

warlords not allowed to be teammates? I once did that and it was tons of fun! But I get that it might be too strong..

Orc: Summoning the conjurations & spawning creatures creatures, using his full action to beat up stuff
Dwarf: armoring up the orc (and a little itself with a bow and some armor) and casting some attack and command spells for support.

That was a crazy strong combo since each mage was specialised in something. Why not making your own strong combinations to counter this instead? I'm sure there are other very strong combo's possible.

[wtcannonjr]

Hi,

I just played my first two games of Domination and it appears to me that this game mode is extremely snowbally. Do you agree? The first Sslak is important to kill as fast as possible so you can get your Galaxus out and start collecting two VTar per turn. Then, killing another Sslak helps your opponent as much as you I think. You get the counterstrikes but your opponent can just walz in and take your hard earned orb. Once you're falling behind in VTar/turn, the game is basically determined. Was this intentional? Seems to almost be like "The First to kill his Sslak wins!". And Galaxus makes this even more of a problem.

When we first played Domination games we found the same issue. Over time we discovered different combos of spells and mages to make this our favorite play mode. It requires more advanced thinking in your spellbook design since at the start of a match you don't know if your opponent will focus on orbs or charge you for the direct kill. We design our spellbooks without knowledge of which scenario we are playing. Also the choice of starting positions for each map can make a difference since some terrain impacts the mages differently. One trick is to use Spawnpoint and place in the center of the arena in a zone with one ormore guardians. These will protect the conjuration from melee attacks since they are guarding the zone. Growing an action advantage in Domination play can be one method to turn a game around since you can stop the opponent from controlling orbs simply by using more actions to turn it off or take control back. We find the Warlords very strong in Domination play because of their cheap access to walls and war spells. Multiple attack spells like Battle Fury and Whirling Strike and the Sweeping trait play a bigger role since the Battleground scenarios are a target rich environment with plenty of creatures already on the board. For example, a sweeping attack can destroy a guardian and then take control of an orb for a single action. Also, Akiro's Hammer has found new use in Domination games to take down enemy walls and destroying Galaxuus. A combination of spiked wall to guarantee LOS and one Hammer attack followed by a hurl boulder might do the trick.

If you don't like the back and forth nature of orbs changing control by a touch you can use the optional rule that requires zone control to control an orb.

[iNano78]

I've got about a dozen plays of Donination in. All 3 and 4 players (2-on-2). Our first matches went to the first orb player, but we learned to counter. For instance, sometimes you want to place a guard in a zone before dealing the final blow to a Sslak so an opposing creature can't steal it. And walls are incredibly important, with Flying/Fast/Elusive being a bit on the overpowered side. Also, to prevent "first orb + Galaxxus = 2 Vtar lead" issues, we recently tried banning Galaxxus and it's more fun - both because it's harder to get a 2 Vtar lead and because it frees up some spell book points that are otherwise mandatory to spend on your Galaxxus.

It's important to consider a backup plan if you find yourself behind in the Vtar race. In our last match, Necromancer was leading Adramech Warlock and Straywood Beastmaster by a score of 8-3-1 in a scenario with 9-Vtar goal. The Warlock and Beastmaster united to kill the Necromancer, then the Beastmaster made an amazing comeback to win with 10 Vtar - partly because he controlled the zone with the altar allowing you to sacrifice a creature for Vtar each round. It was pretty epic to see such a swing!

[Bjorne]

Seems like this was a common issue. Banning Galaxus appears to be an easy applicable option.

[reyda]

I've played Domination regularly and my playgroup doesn't use Galaxxus. Mainly for practical reasons, since we generally play 3-for-all and only have two copies of it; we do not want to put someone at a disadvantage by not having it and needing to play against it. Besides, not having Galaxxus make the games more diverse and interesting imo.

There are a lot of cards that get better in Domination than they are in Arena. [mwcard=MW1J17]Circle of Fun[/mwcard], [mwcard=MWSTX2FFC04]Poly-Puppy[/mwcard] and [mwcard=MW1J18]Stinky Gas Cloud[/mwcard] all gain signifiant avantages when playing with orbs. I've tried something with the [mwcard=DNJ01]Altar of Skulls[/mwcard] one, but still felt it was too slow despite the dying Sslaks feeding it.