Faulty orbs (domination)

[exid]

I'm not sure to understand the Faulty orb rule:

at the begining of the game somebody must hit the orb to turn it ON (he must control the zone to do that)
and after that, to get the V'Tar a player must control the zone during the upkeep

is that right?

[Laddinfance]

Not quite. In this variant you don't control the orbs by hitting them (and thusly you don't turn them on by hitting them). You must control the zone to power on the orb or to change control of the orb. Whoever controls that zone, controls that orb.

[exid]

thanks!

[iNano78]

... which is basically Mage Wars "retro Domination mode," according to this article:
http://www.arcanewonders.com/arcane-wonders/the-designers-desk

I feel like a Druid could just put vine tokens in each of the orb zones, then summon a Vine Snapper or Thornlasher to any orb zone that the opponent attempts to control (to prevent the opponent from getting control of them easily) and otherwise focus her attention on killing the opposing mage.  Similarly, a Beastmaster can send a Fox or Falcon to any orb zone in contention, denying the opponent control.  Pack a [mwcard=MWBG1I03]V'Tar Suppression[/mwcard] just in case...

In other words, it's fairly easy to force the match to default to an Arena match... unless I'm missing something (?).

[Laddinfance]

Having played this mode extensively, it really doesn't come down to a "standard" arena game. Even if it does come down to Mage death, then you still had to get forces to strategic points on the map to prevent a game loss that way.