The future of Mage Wars

[Jock McFistpunch]

Personally, 3 hours is a bit of a long game for me.  90 would be perfect.  For me, the reason they take longer is analysis paralysis of having access to so many awesome things at once.  Do I want to equip a crazy demon hide mask or summon something that flies and has nasty teeth to terrify the other player?  BWAHAHA!

I know for when I taught a few friends to play Academy, the game took over 2 hours.  I don't know if anyone else has run into this, but they wouldn't attack each others' mages, they kept going after creatures instead.

I would love to see this game explode in a good way.  Out of curiosity, how has it changed over the years?  I had no idea it had been around so long, and I would much rather have quality or quantity when it comes to releases.

[Obsidian Soul]

I got into it with steelclawgrizzly back at the end of '12.  A local game store had botched my order and they refunded me the $200.  I purchased Mage Wars on a whim after steelclawgrizzly pointed it out, and we ended up playing 20 games over the next week.  We introduced it to our local gaming group and became the nexus of Mage Wars in the area (steelclawgrizzly is the nexus since I left to be with my fiancee). 

The same is faster than it was because of all of the cards that are available.  Combination mages are a possibility now (the warlock and warlord were originally quite weak) and it helped the quality of the game when they castrated the Wizard.  For about the first two years of our Mage Wars experience, we built our spellbooks to kill Earth Wizards first, which are now an extinct species, and everything else second.  With the extinction of the Earth Wizards, now you can build spellbooks without asking 'how can I kill two Wizard's Towers with Spellbound Hurl Boulders before they kill me?'

[Gogolski]

...

- Armor issue
This bullet is very connected to the first one. In my mind armor and defense are two functions that prolong the game in a less desired way. Thematic it is great. But it is frequently seen that both mages and creatures stack a lot of armor which basically neglects 1/3 of all die rolls. This isn't very inspiring for an opponent. On top this is armor stacking very efficient and a good strategy as well. I would say most Armor spells should have been much more expensive.

Armor issue is a disaster. This is probably the biggest flaw in this game. And apparently AW does not understand this which is a catastrophe.
Armor issue has always been there. Since release.

First catastrophe:
Wizard voltaric shield + armor + Passive regeneration.

Second catastrophe:
Druid treebond - or lifebond. Also you can add vinemarkers to this equation since it also slows the game down in the sense that rushing vs a druid is impossible.

And as if lifebond is not completely and insanly overpowered in itself they also added Barkskin.

Third catastrophe:
Veterans Belt. Congratulations... you have now broken Mage Wars.
If i express my self further regarding this card, i will probably be banned from the forums, so ill leave it at this.
...

Add to the mana cost of armor the amount of armor the mage already has. (Or twice the amount if that's not expensive enough)
You could do the same for the veterans belt: each damage conversion has a cost. It's only one mana to activate it, but you must decide when an attack is declared before dice are rolled.

[isel]

Well, it´s new year, i believe it´s time that developers make  news about the products for this year,

[Karadox]

you're right isel, I'm afraid the first thing we'll hear about the new academy extension´s will be a picture on a merchant page on the internet, like last year.

[exid]

and news about the arena extension they prepare for next year!

[Robert Geistlinger]

you're right isel, I'm afraid the first thing we'll hear about the new academy extension´s will be a picture on a merchant page on the internet, like last year.

Our policy at this time is that we don't announce a new product until the files have been sent to our manufacturer. That equates to approximately 3-4 months before the retail launch.

This is due to times in the past where we said "XYZ is coming in Spring" and then Spring comes and goes.

[iNano78]

you're right isel, I'm afraid the first thing we'll hear about the new academy extension´s will be a picture on a merchant page on the internet, like last year.

Our policy at this time is that we don't announce a new product until the files have been sent to our manufacturer. That equates to approximately 3-4 months before the retail launch.

This is due to times in the past where we said "XYZ is coming in Spring" and then Spring comes and goes.

So we can safely assume that nothing is coming in the next 3-4 months if we haven't heard anything?

[isel]

you're right isel, I'm afraid the first thing we'll hear about the new academy extension´s will be a picture on a merchant page on the internet, like last year.

Our policy at this time is that we don't announce a new product until the files have been sent to our manufacturer. That equates to approximately 3-4 months before the retail launch.

This is due to times in the past where we said "XYZ is coming in Spring" and then Spring comes and goes.

At least, would be nice to hear the names of the 4 next mages for academy that were announced for this year. I know that make a product is difficult, but it would be good for the game to hear some news although they were´nt inmediatly.

[Erebus]

Man it's weird to be back here. Glad to see some names I remember from a few years ago. I've been away from the forum hoping for some new Arena content to be released. Do we know at all what's coming up for Arena soon?  

[Karadox]

All we know is that this Year no arena set will be released.
Just 4 new Academy Mages. I believe that 2 of them will be a Necro and a Druid.

The last thing I heard about Arena Mages is that AW is working on a Barbarian who will bring Dinosaur to the arena.
In addition, there will be frost spells.
But this informations have been around for some time.

[exid]

In addition, there will be frost spells.

 
this has been around since the core set was edited!

[Karadox]

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1698407/thoughts-next-expansion

Aaron Brosman Posted Sat Dec 31, 2016

I'm almost 100% positive the next expansion will have Frost damage spells in it. It's something we originally meant to have back in Druid vs. Necromancer, but it ended up not fitting with the Mage we were making. However, unless something pretty drastic happens I'd expect Freeze/Frost Damage to be in the next set
.........................

It's more as 2 years now but it need to mean something, right? Or frost is just a running gag!
Hmm,  something pretty drastic happend? = Academy?

I think these are the 4 mages we will get for academy in 2018.

1 Druide
2 Necro It would make sense if he was next to dark school, also trained in Dsjer-Tet.
3 Mage 'Monk, Samurai,... In any case, an Eastern culture theme.
4 Mage Dark Elf, maybe Frostspells

[iNano78]

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1698407/thoughts-next-expansion

Aaron Brosman Posted Sat Dec 31, 2016
...

That was only 1 year ago (plus a few days), Academy was already out, and then Aaron (aka Laddinfance) disappeared from Etheria never to return... so yes, something very drastic thing happened, but it wasn't Academy.

[Biblofilter]

It easy to forget..

I love Mage Wars 

And im not the only one