How to get started

[Jock McFistpunch]

Hi everyone,

I am really excited to play mage wars and I just got academy.  I haven't tried arena yet but I hope to get my friends playing both of them soon.

So, how do you guys track down players in your area?  What about playing on OCTGN?  I'm looking for ways to try and get started since I like to game as a social activity, even if it's online.

Any tips would be helpful, and hopefully we'll play some time soon.

[silverclawgrizzly]

Welcome Jock! Always glad to meet new Mage Warriors! What area are you in? There may be active communities we can point you towards. What mages have caught your eye?

[Jock McFistpunch]

I'm located in the Twin Cities in Minnesota.  Mage wise, I think the priestess is going to be pretty cool.  I've always liked playing cleric type characters in games for some reason. 

[Obsidian Soul]

The Priestess is a cool mage, though you will find that you tend to devote more spell points for creatures and incantations than many other mages.  If you end up playing Priestess, Battle for Kumanjaro is an essential expansion after the base set because of the Guardian Angels, which are still the best defensive units in the game (you will find that it usually takes four times their mana cost and their spell point cost in attack spells and conjuration spells to bring them down because of the combination of thei healing ability, dodge chance, and Aegis).  After BfK, I would suggest getting Academy Priestess, Paladin v Siren, and then the Lost Grimoire 1 in that order (you will also be able to make a decent two more good spellbooks with that combination of cards), though you can take your time getting those, as I had a great Priestess spellbook years before they came out.

[Jock McFistpunch]

So two questions:

What are some general book building guidelines? (I'm guessing there are some posts about this but I'm not sure where)

and

How do you connect with players in your area?

[Obsidian Soul]

I wish I knew that answer to the second one, I have not had much luck finding people since I left my old community (where I played an average of 8 games per week for 2 1/2 years).  As for the first one, there are a few important spells that most of my spellbooks tend to have: 2 Dispels, 2 Dissolves, 2 Nullifies, and 2 Limited Teleport (or Teleport).  I tend to favor books that have 8-12 creatures because I tend to cast 8-12 creatures, but everyone has their own preferences.  I think that the best thing I can tell you is build a spellbook and play the heck out of it, either online or in reality.

[Reddicediaries]

I wish I knew that answer to the second one, I have not had much luck finding people since I left my old community (where I played an average of 8 games per week for 2 1/2 years).  As for the first one, there are a few important spells that most of my spellbooks tend to have: 2 Dispels, 2 Dissolves, 2 Nullifies, and 2 Limited Teleport (or Teleport).  I tend to favor books that have 8-12 creatures because I tend to cast 8-12 creatures, but everyone has their own preferences.  I think that the best thing I can tell you is build a spellbook and play the heck out of it, either online or in reality.

I'm pretty sure we live 5 hours away from each other, no? Rochester and New York aren't that far apart.

[Drefan]

So two questions:

What are some general book building guidelines? (I'm guessing there are some posts about this but I'm not sure where)

and

How do you connect with players in your area?

When it comes to building books my advice would be to try and come up with an overall gameplan on how you're supposed to beat your opponent. Also some sort of counter vs other types of decks: Aggro - Greed - Mass Creatures - Buddy builds - Beefy mage.

Try and think of how you can get answers to these different playstyles within your main school and try and go as little as possible outside your own school if it's not for something of great importance. Think of weaknesses with your deck and how you can work around it in different scenarios.

Another tip would be to look at a bunch of games on Arcane Duels youtube channel, here you can see a ton of games from different players and get an overlook on what people like to play and how they deal with different situations.

[DaveW]

What are some general book building guidelines?

The first bit of advice that I got when I started was to not put too many of one thing in a book. My friend specifically told me to be careful how of many creatures and how many mana generators I put in. His general rule was about 1/4 of the book (30 points) in creatures max (more or less depending on how much I am depending on them), and about 15 mana cost in mana generators or less.

The concerns there were that I would have enough of other things to make the book viable in most situations, and that I wouldn't spend too much time and effort in setting up economy.

Other than that, you mostly want to focus on in-school spells (spells that match your training), since those spells are more cost efficient in terms of spellbook points. For example, a Dark mage needs healing... but the surcharge on Holy spells make taking a Heal less practical. Instead, you look at the Dark school and take a Drain Soul or somesuch instead. Also, remember that Novice spells can be effectively considered in school.

Once you find a core set of spells that you want to use, figure out two things: 1) How you are going to kill the enemy as quickly as possible which keeping yourself from being killed (a.k.a. how are you going to win), and 2) What are some opening sequences that you can use to set yourself up to accomplish #1.

[silverclawgrizzly]

Like Obsidian Soul my best advice is always "play the living crap out of your book and take out what doesn't work." Other than that though here's what I got: Make your mage do what your mage is suppose to do. It's fun to go with wacky strategies, and sometimes they work, but learn what each mage is good at and go do that. Warlord is it? Start piling on the damage man. Necromancer you say? Start chipping away at their life until you can hit em with the big guns. Don't set fires with a Druid, and don't try to turtle with a Force Master for example.

[farkas1]

when playing arena play the apprentice mode and set up the apprentice books first.

I recommend the warlock and beastmaster for your first game.  you could set all four up just in case a friend wants to try out the other two.  Just go through the phases and play and learn as you go.  you may realize especially in arena a rule may of been played wrong.  But the key is to just have fun.  for rules question check the forums and if you cant find an answer ask and someone will respond rather quickly. 

Also there is a discord channel for mage wars where players will look for games to play on OCTGN or ask rules questions or simply discuss books and strats. 

If you are looking for players i recommend setting up your local game store and seeing if you can teach people the game.  if you have a buddy you both could go. 

Good luck. 

[Jock McFistpunch]

Thanks for the help everyone.  I've been meaning to check out a local shop by me and I'm trying to get my friends into it.  So far so good on the friend front.  2 people really liked it and I'm sure after the other has had another chance at it it would make more sense. 

I've got all the current Academy expansions now so I will try building a few decks with that and then see how many fireballs I can throw at people in arena. 

And quick question, are spawn points worth it?  15 mana for the Beastmaster some seems a bit overpriced since I usually die in like 9 turns, that only nets me 5 mana in the long run and my dead mage can't use it. 

[Obsidian Soul]

Well, it depends on your play style.  You could just bring out the Ring of Beasts and a Steelclaw Grizzly your first turn, two Mana Flowers on your second turn, and then start buffing and supporting your Steelclaw with Enchantments and level one animals (I would suggest Falcons).  With the arena and academy enchantments, the Beastmaster is capable of having Grizzlies deal 14 dice of unavoidable damage without difficulty.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Spawn points are still good. That being said their main benefit is action advantage not mana. A lair takes about 8 rounds to pay itself back in mana, but in actions it already pays itself back in two deployments. If you consider a full action in Arena to be twice the value of a quick action (approximately), then it cost one converted quick action to cast lair, and then it effectively gives you +2 converted quick actions per round to be used on action generators (in this case creatures) which in turn each give you +2 converted quick actions every reset phase to use during the action stage. This, as the amount of time lair is in play increases, the net increase in its controller' s actions per round increase exponentially.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using Tapatalk

[Obsidian Soul]

It is not that straightforward, as you still have to have mana to use the actions.  In general, I find that a spawnpoint saves an action every other turn, but at the cost of the summoned creature being deployed away from your Mage (with the exception of the Necromancer, since he carries his spawnpoint).  It really depends on your opponent.  If you are against a Warlock, forget about the spawnpoint, as he will destroy it with the ballista and the trebuchet.  The same applies for the Forcemaster, though she will just use Force Hammer.