Mage Wars > Domination

Let's talk Multiplayer Domination

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iNano78:

--- Quote from: Sailor Vulcan on May 07, 2016, 12:56:21 PM ---I think the problem is more likely to be your metagame, not galaxxus. A mage that tries to protect the sslaks and use only one orb is susceptible to swarms. If  you destroy his galaxxus and get out enough creatures to overwhem the enemy who is using galaxxus, you should be fine.
--- End quote ---

I've read and reread your post a few times, and I can't really get my head around this.  The early metagame is mainly shaped by the rules and card pool.  Perhaps it might evolve with many plays within the same group, but it will start by perception of card strength and what cards best contribute to your strategy.  Assuming [mwcard=MWBG1J05]Galaxxus[/mwcard] is legal, if you want any hope of winning by V'tar (and in multiplayer, you have a much greater chance of winning by V'tar than by eliminating all other mages), then you must run Galaxxus.  And if you are first to get Galaxxus in play, your primary strategy is going to be to protect your Galaxxus and/or the orb(s) you control that allowed you to cast Galaxxus. Your back-up plan (e.g. if your opponents make a tremendous effort to take out your Galaxxus) might be to take additional uncontested orbs... but only in extreme cases where your opponents put a considerable amount of resources into taking out your Galaxxus. 

The "cause" is the existence of Galaxxus; the metagame is the "effect."  It isn't the other way around.  We don't use Galaxxus because of the metagame.  The metagame exists because Galaxxus exists.

I'm not a Mage Wars playtester so I have no idea if this is true, but I suspect that Galaxxus was originally "Warlord (or War mage) only" - partly because the Warlord is thought to be under-powered in Arena, and partly because it makes sense thematically (the orcs and/or dwarves found a way to replicate the power of the orbs, as per the flavour text).  Then the playtesters/designers realized that the Warlord kicked butt at Domination if he was the only mage who could use Galaxxus, and that the Warlord was actually pretty good at Domination even without Galaxxus, so rather than scrap Galaxxus entirely, they opened up Galaxxus to every mage (but kept it War school both for theme and because "hey, it's got to belong to some school so might as well be War and benefit the Warlord slightly more than other mages").  But it's so overpowered and, after a few matches, everybody discovers that it's absolutely crucial to a successful V'tar strategy (seriously, try winning without Galaxxus against somebody that has Galaxxus and let me know how that goes for you), and it will shape the meta all on its own.  Even a Druid will gladly pay triple for Galaxxus, partly because she is among the best at protecting it.

Net result: Either (1) get used to the fact that everybody has a Galaxxus in their book and the first person to play theirs will generally win (unless s/he gets killed), making outcomes of matches predictable beyond round 3, or (2) ban Galaxxus and make your multiplayer Domination matches more unpredictable and fun for all players.  If your experience is different, then I congratulate you... but I don't see how this could possibly be limited to - or due to - our local meta.  It's pretty much ingrained in the Galaxxus card text and rules of Domination.


--- Quote from: Sailor Vulcan on May 07, 2016, 12:56:21 PM ---One thing you can do is nullify the sslaks that your buddy build opponent wants to protect. also, warlord can use harsforge monolith to great effect. turn to stone has upkeep +4. That's really expensive to maintain. If you put enough pressure on them and force them to use their mana in other ways, the turn to stone will come off and you can have an easier time attacking the ssllaks. Deathlock will counter all bull endurances on sslaks simultaneously because it's life gain is not innate. You could also use rusts on the sslaks, or acid balls. or just dispel the turn to stones. or you can curse the sslaks and use DOT to kill them. it's not that difficult to destroy galaxxus, and it, unlike the wizard tower, is actually costed right.

Although I haven't played domination much lately, so I haven't tried all these things myself.

--- End quote ---

I've considered Turn to Stone and other "protect Sslaks that enemies attack" types of strategies and they're very hard to pull off since they take so many resources that could otherwise be spent trying to secure your own orbs.  It falls into one of two categories: either (1) player(s) C (and D) benefits when player A spends resources preventing player B from acquiring an orb, or (2) it's a "win more" situation where you're so far ahead already that you can afford to waste resources stopping your opponent while also acquiring orbs on demand.

I'm not sure what you mean about [mwcard=MWSTX2FFJ01]Harshforge Monolith[/mwcard] being something worth playing in Domination.  In my experience, Enchantments don't see nearly as much play in multiplayer Domination as in Arena, so either I'm missing something or you meant another card.

Sailor Vulcan:

--- Quote from: iNano78 on May 09, 2016, 07:53:25 AM ---
--- Quote from: Sailor Vulcan on May 07, 2016, 12:56:21 PM ---I think the problem is more likely to be your metagame, not galaxxus. A mage that tries to protect the sslaks and use only one orb is susceptible to swarms. If  you destroy his galaxxus and get out enough creatures to overwhem the enemy who is using galaxxus, you should be fine.
--- End quote ---

I've read and reread your post a few times, and I can't really get my head around this.  The early metagame is mainly shaped by the rules and card pool.  Perhaps it might evolve with many plays within the same group, but it will start by perception of card strength and what cards best contribute to your strategy.  Assuming [mwcard=MWBG1J05]Galaxxus[/mwcard] is legal, if you want any hope of winning by V'tar (and in multiplayer, you have a much greater chance of winning by V'tar than by eliminating all other mages), then you must run Galaxxus.  And if you are first to get Galaxxus in play, your primary strategy is going to be to protect your Galaxxus and/or the orb(s) you control that allowed you to cast Galaxxus. Your back-up plan (e.g. if your opponents make a tremendous effort to take out your Galaxxus) might be to take additional uncontested orbs... but only in extreme cases where your opponents put a considerable amount of resources into taking out your Galaxxus. 

The "cause" is the existence of Galaxxus; the metagame is the "effect."  It isn't the other way around.  We don't use Galaxxus because of the metagame.  The metagame exists because Galaxxus exists.

I'm not a Mage Wars playtester so I have no idea if this is true, but I suspect that Galaxxus was originally "Warlord (or War mage) only" - partly because the Warlord is thought to be under-powered in Arena, and partly because it makes sense thematically (the orcs and/or dwarves found a way to replicate the power of the orbs, as per the flavour text).  Then the playtesters/designers realized that the Warlord kicked butt at Domination if he was the only mage who could use Galaxxus, and that the Warlord was actually pretty good at Domination even without Galaxxus, so rather than scrap Galaxxus entirely, they opened up Galaxxus to every mage (but kept it War school both for theme and because "hey, it's got to belong to some school so might as well be War and benefit the Warlord slightly more than other mages").  But it's so overpowered and, after a few matches, everybody discovers that it's absolutely crucial to a successful V'tar strategy (seriously, try winning without Galaxxus against somebody that has Galaxxus and let me know how that goes for you), and it will shape the meta all on its own.  Even a Druid will gladly pay triple for Galaxxus, partly because she is among the best at protecting it.

Net result: Either (1) get used to the fact that everybody has a Galaxxus in their book and the first person to play theirs will generally win (unless s/he gets killed), making outcomes of matches predictable beyond round 3, or (2) ban Galaxxus and make your multiplayer Domination matches more unpredictable and fun for all players.  If your experience is different, then I congratulate you... but I don't see how this could possibly be limited to - or due to - our local meta.  It's pretty much ingrained in the Galaxxus card text and rules of Domination.


--- Quote from: Sailor Vulcan on May 07, 2016, 12:56:21 PM ---One thing you can do is nullify the sslaks that your buddy build opponent wants to protect. also, warlord can use harsforge monolith to great effect. turn to stone has upkeep +4. That's really expensive to maintain. If you put enough pressure on them and force them to use their mana in other ways, the turn to stone will come off and you can have an easier time attacking the ssllaks. Deathlock will counter all bull endurances on sslaks simultaneously because it's life gain is not innate. You could also use rusts on the sslaks, or acid balls. or just dispel the turn to stones. or you can curse the sslaks and use DOT to kill them. it's not that difficult to destroy galaxxus, and it, unlike the wizard tower, is actually costed right.

Although I haven't played domination much lately, so I haven't tried all these things myself.

--- End quote ---

I've considered Turn to Stone and other "protect Sslaks that enemies attack" types of strategies and they're very hard to pull off since they take so many resources that could otherwise be spent trying to secure your own orbs.  It falls into one of two categories: either (1) player(s) C (and D) benefits when player A spends resources preventing player B from acquiring an orb, or (2) it's a "win more" situation where you're so far ahead already that you can afford to waste resources stopping your opponent while also acquiring orbs on demand.

I'm not sure what you mean about [mwcard=MWSTX2FFJ01]Harshforge Monolith[/mwcard] being something worth playing in Domination.  In my experience, Enchantments don't see nearly as much play in multiplayer Domination as in Arena, so either I'm missing something or you meant another card.

--- End quote ---

I'm more familiar with 1v1 Domination tbh, and the only official map that really is balanced on is Path of War. How big are your maps for multiplayer domination? How many orbs/sslaks, and how many players? My current guess is that 2 sslaks/orbs per player  in the game is optimal for balance, but I'm not entirely certain.

iNano78:

--- Quote from: Sailor Vulcan on May 09, 2016, 08:14:54 AM ---I'm more familiar with 1v1 Domination tbh, and the only official map that really is balanced on is Path of War. How big are your maps for multiplayer domination? How many orbs/sslaks, and how many players? My current guess is that 2 sslaks/orbs per player  in the game is optimal for balance, but I'm not entirely certain.

--- End quote ---

See the Domination rule book.  We've tried all the 3-player maps at least a couple times each (although we try to stay away from the one with 2 unprotected orbs near the player starting on the north side) and a couple of the 4-player maps.  We tend to play the smaller maps with lower V'tar goal when we are more pressed for time, and the larger maps with higher V'tar goal when we have oodles of time.  We haven't tried any custom maps (yet).

Sure, you could play on a really small custom map and/or with a higher V'tar goal, or use house rules (e.g. like you need to control the zone with the orb/Galaxxus in order to gain V'tar, etc), and generally tweak the rules to make mage killing more viable and orbs less tempting... or you could just ban Galaxxus.  We just banned Galaxxus.  It worked for us.  We're unlikely to tweak the maps, rules, etc, just to try to come up with another solution when removing the problem card is a much easier solution.  Ymmv.

wtcannonjr:
Some strategies we use to handle Galaxxus.

Brogan with +3 Piercing
Any level 4 or higher creature with Piercing Strike Incantation
Casting Zone Exclusive conjurations that benefit you into zones that your opponent must use to place a Galaxxus. As Domination is a race game it can really help to force opponents to use actions that delay progress toward the finish such as destroying walls or taking down powerful conjurations. While they do that you focus on the nearest orbs.
Priestess using Heal spells to keep opponent Guardians alive to delay or prevent the trigger for Galaxxus.
Akiros' Hammer with Wall of Pikes to guarantee LOS for at least one shot.

Your mileage may vary.

Crow:
FWIW, we allow Glaxxus in free-for-all games of 3+ players, but ban it from 2v2 games. 

Haven't tried a larger team game yet, so I can't comment.

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