Wizard and Wizard's Tower Errata

[Halewijn]

Water will be stronger than the other 3, but for the siren it will be her major school instead of the minor school like the other mages with elemental training.

Also, air has the etereal advantage. But since the wizard has the arcane zap, he had no need for it. This change thus indirectly also slightly weakens the power of the zap.

[Sailor Vulcan]

To be honest I don't think the wizard was ever overpowered per se. Mage Wars is overwhelming skill-based, and so well-designed that even with only five people in the company it still is overwhelmingly skill-based for all players regardless of the matchup. The problem with the wizard wasn't that he was overpowered in the conventional sense. It is that he was over-centralizing the metagame and heavily constraining both spellbook design-space and future card design-space.


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[Borg]

Having had some more time to digest these changes I’m even more impressed with them.
What I find so impressive about them is how they were able to get so much out of so little.
How they were able to affect/correct so many “issues” simultaneously with such “minor” changes.
These are truly master moves imo.

We all suggested a myriad of potential changes to correct the Wizard and his Tower but rather than starting to tinker with his Voltaric Shield or Arcane Zap ability or giving him a SBP penalty Laddinfance and AW ( and the playtesters no doubt ) put the finger right on the sore spot.

Just remove his Water/Earth/Fire Training and remove Spellbind from the tower and all blocks fall into place :
- we get a sufficiently toned down Wizard, who can no longer cherrypick from 5 schools and who can actually be rediscovered as an Air Mage,
- Warlocks and Warlords become the best in their training field(s) - as they should be
- the Tower is no longer a Toolbox creator nor a must in every Wizard book.

Mission accomplished and a job well done.

Couldn’t help but voice my appreciation again for correcting this real issue.
Time will show these errata were really necessary and the game will greatly benefit from them.

[Rodge]

Having only saw this, I'm gonna weigh in and express my delight at these changes. I've always disliked the Wizard, as he always felt "too good". Certainly Wizards always seem to have the best winning records when my group play, so we generally don't play them as it always seemed too easy to win.

I know that errata are always difficult for games designer to put in. Especially when it's changing such a core design element of the game. But I can see how the old Wizard could definitely have limited the options of developing new spells for other Mages. It's not the change I would have made (I'd have also added an opposition school, probably Nature), but it is definitely one that I can happily get behind.

The Wizard Tower fix is absolutely perfect. When a card is so good that the only "right" option is to always take it, then it's probably too good. Like others have stated already, I now think it's a good and viable card - but nowhere near being an auto-include.

Fantastic work by AW!!!!


Oh, and I'd also like to echo a few other comments that I'd like to see some kind of future release that involved a collection of errata'd cards. Would definitely be an auto-purchase by me!

[Sailor Vulcan]

I for one have noticed that the wizard is much more fun to build spellbooks for now. He has more options that people will actually play now I think


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[silverclawgrizzly]

Just taught someone the game. He played air wizard and loved it. He bought a core set. We should keep in mind that new players aren't going to mind much.

[DaveW]

Thanks for the errata folks.

The Air-only element training was an excellent choice, in my opinion. Air Wizards are powerful already, so all this does in my mind is takes away the ability to call the Wizard book one of the other elements in case it happened to be more spb efficient that way. Water training comes to mind in particular; think of how many water school spells are desirable for a Wizard. Also, it feels right to give the Wizard a niche in this element... much like Earth seems to belong to Warlord, Fire to Warlock, etc.

The Wizard Tower change was a good one. I also wonder why it didn't get a Zone Exclusive trait as others have mentioned, but losing Spellbind was a bare minimum change for a fix. Also, the combination of the two changes is very good. The Tower now will have more Air spells and not be a source of Surging Waves and other non-air staples.

Thanks again for the changes.

[jhaelen]

Doh! I had already wondered why there was no discussion of the errata; I didn't think to look at the sticky threads!

Anyway, I fully approve of these changes! (and about time, too...)

[Mika]

I was awaiting for the imminent release of spanish edition.
Was prepare to teach to new / young players to know and enjoy this game.
I used only 2 mages: Priestess & Fire Wizard.

What to say... Absolutely disagree with this radical decision.

Now, what will be the next? Forcemaster Errata? 
Because all we know FM is another OP mage... or not?

Maybe was a bit OP, but Wizard was a CORE mage. I bought (to customers or in eBay) some Fire School Cards - Equipment, Spells... separately to inprove a good SpellBook. Now my favourite mage is destroyed.

There was some other options: Mana production, Life points... but no: All other Schools lost.

P.D: Could I ask a errata Card for Wizard and 2 for Wizard's Tower to AW or have to buy another basic box?

[Laddinfance]

The errata was issued over the summer. The Core Set and Conquest of Kumanjaro have not been reprinted since then, so buying a new box would not get you the errata'd card. When these products get reprinted next these cards will be updated to their current wording. Right now I've included a link (in the original post) to pdf's of the two cards, so you can print off your own copies of them. We're also working on a possible solution to make errata cards more available to our fans.

Issuing errata on the Wizard was not something I did lightly, but it was necessary, especially when the Siren was coming out. I explained in my post on this, that the change was because the Wizard had become an enormous design constraint limiting what we could do in the future. I'm sorry that you disagree with our approach to this issue. Thank you for taking the time to express your thoughts on this matter.

[Sailor Vulcan]

I was awaiting for the imminent release of spanish edition.
Was prepare to teach to young players to know and enjoy this game.
I used only 2 mages: Priestess & Fire Wizard.

What to say... Absolutely disagree with this radical decision.

Now, what will be the next? Forcemaster Errata? 
Because all we know FM is another OP mage... or not?

Maybe was a bit OP, but Wizard was a CORE mage. I bought separately (to customers or in eBay) some Fire School Cards - Equipment, Spells... separately to inprove a good SpellBook. Now my favourite mage is destroyed.

There was some other options: Mana production, Life points... but no: All other Schools lost.

P.D: Could I ask a errata Card for Wizard and 2 for Wizard's Tower to AW or have to buy another basic box?

It wasn't merely a matter of being overpowered. The non-air wizards were over-centralizing the metagame. The wizard was more powerful than every other Mage, so every other Mage needed to use a larger chunk of their spellbook points to deal with him. And nobody was using the air wizard at all. The combination of training and wizard tower gave the wizard insane action and mana advantage, which caused him to play like a brute force Mage rather than the trickster and master manipulator he was originally designed to be. Now that the wizard has been errata'd he's much more fun to play and play against, and other kinds of wizard spellbooks have been given the chance to shine. Before, the wizard only had 4 different strategies that anyone had any reason to play: wizard tower attack spell rush, watergate, blasting banker, and telepit. There's a lot more interesting things you could do with the wizard now that the meta isn't revolving around those four spellbooks.

[Halewijn]

Mika,

If you play with only the core box, or a few expansions, you should simply enjoy yourself and play with a fire mage.  The problems initiated with the release of more expansions. With each new expansion, the wizard gained more tools and became more overpowered. Especially with the release of the Siren, things would have gone out of control. The Siren is a water based mage and the wizard would have been able to use all her tricks. The wizard was perfectly balanced IN the core box itself.

Only if you want to play competitive with the entire cardpool you should really consider the errata. I for one am VERY happy they did these changes.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Mika,

If you play with only the core box, or a few expansions, you should simply enjoy yourself and play with a fire mage.  The problems initiated with the release of more expansions. With each new expansion, the wizard gained more tools and became more overpowered. Especially with the release of the Siren, things would have gone out of control. The Siren is a water based mage and the wizard would have been able to use all her tricks. The wizard was perfectly balanced IN the core box itself.

Only if you want to play competitive with the entire cardpool you should really consider the errata. I for one am VERY happy they did these changes.

On the contrary the errata is better for casual play too. The wizard is much more fun with it, he has more options, and this way if someone in your playgroup wants to start playing competitively they will be more familiar with spellbook building for the actual competitive meta.

[Mika]

Mika,

If you play with only the core box, or a few expansions, you should simply enjoy yourself and play with a fire mage.  The problems initiated with the release of more expansions. With each new expansion, the Wizard gained more tools and became more overpowered. Especially with the release of the Siren, things would have gone out of control. The Siren is a water based mage and the wizard would have been able to use all her tricks. The Wizard was perfectly balanced IN the core box itself.

Only if you want to play competitive with the entire cardpool you should really consider the errata. I for one am VERY happy they did these changes.

Agree with all. Really. And thanks for your words, amigo Halewijn. I hope we will get many new players in Spain (languaje is a big deal here) after the spanish edition, and I will have no problem to teach / play against all them with my Core Box. But dunno, for me MW was perfect beacuse the concept of a 'Closed Game'. Well balanced, and with no the obligation to "subscribe" all months to get the last powerful cards... Definitely has been the biggest change I've seen in the game.

I'm sorry that you disagree with our approach to this issue.
Thank you for taking the time to express your thoughts on this matter.

No. Thanks to you for your kind answer and sorry for my reaction.

Simply I don't understand why all the other people is so happy with this change, but maybe I have to think twice about the good things that will come in the future thanks to this radical errata...

About my feelings with MW:

Rated with a 10 in BoardGameGeek. No discussion about this; simply a masterpiece in my opinion.

I bought the Core Box in 2014. And start learning to master only 2 mages:
(because I'm not collector, neither completist)

Priestess was for me the 1st option. Holy School, angels, the Light... nice! Was a "kind mage" to play vs newbie players, using Guard Angels, defending myself. Lot of Epic games (vs Necromancer) were made with my little princess.

Fire Wizard was my Top One. My strong mage to deal vs Forcemasters, Warlocks & Wizards in really hard battles with agressive strategies.

I left playing MW for some months awaiting the spanish edition. Some days ago, I noticed about the inminent release of DEVIR Edition in November and cheering up to "card players" (Magic, Netrunner, AgoT) to give it a chance playing it vs me.

After posting my feelings about the future of MW in Spain in a spaniard dedicated forum, another user warned to me about the "nerf of the Wizard"... Came back to AW Forum and discover that was true... and everybody happy!

And now?

Have to discard the Fire Wizard. A well thought Spellbook, now is useless, cause lot of spells/equipments are now so expensive. Obviously trained in Wind School has no chance against a FM.

The Priestess, - at least one year ago -, definitely was not an opponent vs Forcemaster or Not-Wind-Wizard, so need another TOP mage. And not very sure if in the future not will see another big "errata" with those TOPs. So atm, I feel sad, and unmotivated with one of my all time favourites games.

Thats all. Sorry if I'm not so happy as most of the users. But Wizard was the versatile option, and now I feel a little bit "forced" to learn to play at least 2-3 more mages.

P.D. Sorry for my english.

[farkas1]

Hey Mika,
I like your honesty here and I am surprised as well that there is not more people upset about the wizard changes.

I agree with others the fix had to be done with all the expansions coming out the wizard was increasingly becoming too strong.  With that being said there is no reason why you can't change and have a house rule the old rules and play the way you would like to with your friends.  Especially if you only have a few sets.  Once you experience and play more of the expansions you may change your mind about changes AW has made. 

if you enjoy Mage Wars don't let the wizard errata dissuade you.  Again house rule and play the way you and your group wants to.  You may start to enjoy playing other mages and find one that you like more if you stick to the current  changes.