Domination

[exid]

I don't like domination.
It seems to me it forces fast play: in arena you can play fast and try to kill your opponent or destroy his organisation quickly, but you can also organise the arena triying to take your opponent in a long game. In domination if you begin with a long term building, your opponent will take too much V'Tar to be caught up.
I like a game to be open for a lot of strategies, and it seems to me domination closes the possibilities. It makes shorter games, but time is no criterium for me. Does it bring other advantages?

Other question: will there be other battleground sets with other goals than V'Tar?

[iNano78]

Does it bring other advantages?

Multiplayer free-for-all.
We usually play Arena 1-on-1 when we have an even number of players, and 3-way Domination when we have an odd number (e.g. 5 players = a 3-way Domination and an Arena match on another table, etc).

Other question: will there be other battleground sets with other goals than V'Tar?

Rumour has it there will be a dungeon crawl style play mode and/or a 1-vs-many "Archmage" one coming.

[Halewijn]

I cant say I ever saw something official about this archmage. Rumors and nothing else.

Domination is the only set I didn't buy. Its awesome for multiplayer games. (I have played with other peoples set)

1vs1 I prefer arena or academy every time.

[iNano78]

I cant say I ever saw something official about this archmage. Rumors and nothing else.

You mean, aside from the many references in flavour text and artwork on Domination cards, and what Bryan has said in interviews, and this image that was on the official Mage Wars facebook page:

[iNano78]

Then again, that image was released as a preview for the first "Battlegrounds" set at the same time that Paladin vs Siren was announced as coming up "later this year" in March 2014... so... it might not be early in the queue anymore. And that might explain why the Archmage shows up on so many Domination cards: that expansion set might have included the Archmage character and rule set at some point in development.
http://www.arcanewonders.com/arcane-wonders/gama-trade-show-report

[Borg]

Don't like domination either.

Bought the set just for the cards but the rest of the box and its contents are sitting there untouched and unpunched.

Have no desire to play multiplayer and the whole "V'Tar" thing just sounds ridiculous to me and puts me off really.

Prefer Arena 100% of the time

[Zuberi]

I also prefer arena, but just because I like killing my opponent so much. If your problem is that it favors quick games too heavily, that's an easy fix. Just increase the vtar goal so that the slower strategies have more time to overcome the initial lead. This will also make winning via mage death more viable.

[Coshade]

Personally I prefer Domination when you have an odd number of people that want to play.

[Halewijn]

I cant say I ever saw something official about this archmage. Rumors and nothing else.

You mean, aside from the many references in flavour text and artwork on Domination cards, and what Bryan has said in interviews, and this image that was on the official Mage Wars facebook page:

I did not see that. (And as I mentioned before, I do not own domination)

[iNano78]

I did not see that. (And as I mentioned before, I do not own domination)

Domination cards are on the official card database/spell book builder.  For a few cards that reference the Archmage in some way, check these out:

[mwcard=MWBG1A05]V'Tarrian Energy Wave[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWBG1A01]Bolt of V'Tar[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWBG1I03]V'Tar Suppression[/mwcard]

[Kelanen]

I think Domination is the only good way to play 3 (and probably 5 player), and the best way to play any number greater than 2.

That said, I vastly prefer playing Arena, and playing 2p games. MW is a 2p game to me, nothing else. If we have 4p or 6p I'd rather we break up in to 2 or 3 Arena games. So 3p is it's only real niche, and we just organise game days to have even numbers.

Shortening the game, and/or putting a clock on it is a big negative for me, not a positive.

[exid]

I'm happy not to be alone!

Does it bring other advantages?

Multiplayer free-for-all.
We usually play Arena 1-on-1 when we have an even number of players, and 3-way Domination when we have an odd number (e.g. 5 players = a 3-way Domination and an Arena match on another table, etc).

I played domination 2vs2, but I had the same problem with the quick timing.
And when a mage was killed in one of our game, he was as bored as in arena during the end of the game (I thought of a tric to make him come back in game in exchange of V'Tar points, but in was unefective)!

Other question: will there be other battleground sets with other goals than V'Tar?

Rumour has it there will be a dungeon crawl style play mode and/or a 1-vs-many "Archmage" one coming.

That is great news! I like arena very much, but I would be great to have other way to play MW that I like!

I also prefer arena, but just because I like killing my opponent so much. If your problem is that it favors quick games too heavily, that's an easy fix. Just increase the vtar goal so that the slower strategies have more time to overcome the initial lead. This will also make winning via mage death more viable.

But how to fix the limite to make a good balance? (I think of 1000 V'Tar points, but then you can simply play arena!)

[Biblofilter]

Im a hard-core arena player myself.

Still i actually like Domination.

Timer makes game go a lot faster and changes which mages are best. Im still convinced that beastmaster is unbeatable in 1 vs 1 Domination.

Even the regular 75 min timelimit does something (good) for the 9 channeling mages.

I do like long games, but when we are 3+ players i prefer a timer. Even with 4 players its just a nice way to get to play everyone and not sit out waiting for that turtle Priestess/Druid/Necro match for 6+ hour games.

Its actually a bigger concern that "nobody" has Domination, giving me an advantage using Gravikor, Raincloud and whatnot in our regular arena games.

 

[Gogolski]

For those who don't like the timer element of domination, why not play with the sole objective of killing the other mage?

You can still use the orbs as small mana/healing generators and use the V'tar to power some spells. Maybe you should remove the Sslaks/Usslaks, to get an even advantage between players who want to ignore the orbs and players who want to use them...

It could be a cool way to play, a bit like the puzzle-arena variant where players piece together a board with the tiles, but with the addition of orbs which you can ignore to focus on killing the other mage or which you can use to get the benefit of mana/healing/spell-empowerment...

[exid]

For those who don't like the timer element of domination, why not play with the sole objective of killing the other mage?

You can still use the orbs as small mana/healing generators and use the V'tar to power some spells. Maybe you should remove the Sslaks/Usslaks, to get an even advantage between players who want to ignore the orbs and players who want to use them...

It could be a cool way to play, a bit like the puzzle-arena variant where players piece together a board with the tiles, but with the addition of orbs which you can ignore to focus on killing the other mage or which you can use to get the benefit of mana/healing/spell-empowerment...

I should try that!