There are some overpowered or useless cards that need fixing, in that order. Since most competitive mage wars tournaments are hosted by the community and not by Arcane Wonders, that means that we get to decide how we want to do things.
This thread is for experienced mage wars players only, preferably those with ~2+ years of play. Obviously I can't prove who's been playing 2+ years and who hasn't, so we're using an honor system here.
To start with, here are the unofficial errata that are currently used in the ADMW tournaments:
Disciple of Radiance Text Change
Once per round, whenever your Mage casts or reveals a healing spell, Disciple of Radiance may deal 1 direct light damage to a target creature in her zone
Casting a Spell - Change to the end of the Pay Costs Step
Previous wording - If you cannot pay all of the costs, the spell is cancelled and discarded, and you have lost the action.
New wording -If you cannot pay all of the costs, the spell is cancelled and obliterated, and you have lost the action.
Everything else remains unchanged about the step
Steep Hill
Steep hill will block Line of Sight if you cast a spell and it goes through two diagonal sections of the zone.
Force Pull
Once per round, the Forcemaster may cast this quick Force spell. Target creature is Pushed 1 zone towards the source of this spell. Will not Push a creature through a wall with the Passage Attacks trait.
Trample
- If a Flying creature makes a Trample attack against a non-Flying object, it loses Flying until the end of the attack.
- Elusive Creatures can ignore guards when making a Trample Attack.
- Defenses that do not work against Melee attacks cannot be used during the Avoid Attack step, however all other types may be (choosing one during the step following normal rules).
We also need to do something about the Druid. In particular, if you're facing a competent Druid player it virtually always puts you behind on mana and actions to destroy the treebond, yet it is nigh impossible to kill the druid without destroying her tree first.
Goblin builder and Gate to Hell would benefit from errata that improves their usability, but that doesn't need to be done right away.
The Bloodwave warlord's ability card is basically useless since all it does it increase the attack dice or armor of his creatures. The veterans ability in particular is designed to improve the power and endurance of a creature after it kills an enemy creature. 1 armor and 1 melee is not enough for this, because a creature has often taken damage by the time they've killed something. One possibility is to make stronger veteran tokens that have dissipate x, as a sort of blood rage or berserker sort of thing. Like, when a soldier of the bloodwave kills an enemy creature they go into a frenzy where they get better at killing things and are harder to take down. So like, instead of armor +1 melee +1, make it bloodthirsty +2 and armor +2 or something. Also that way it isn't just a worse version of Paladin's valor enchantment.
Anything else you think needs an errata? Post your suggestions below.
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EDIT: okay, so after reading a few more comments i've somewhat changed my mind about card errata. we probably don't need any errata for broken cards at the present time, just for cards that are worded badly or break rules as intended, or which are worded confusingly and need to be made more clear. The only exception to this is probably the disciple of radiance.
The game might be more fun and diverse with single purpose wands instead of mage wands/elemental wands, but i'm not sure that's actually necessary for game balance, so that idea's not a good one right now. We don't need to get rid of spellbind.
As for the druid being nigh unkillable without killing her tree, i suppose that one way to think of it is that the druid's tree is like a part of her mage abilities which doesn't become active until after the game starts and she spends mana and actions on it. if you think of the druid as a 34 life 10 channeling mage, and the tree as a 9 mana spawnpoint with 1 channeling and regen 2 and the ability to transfer damage to the controlling mage to make it more surivvable.... barkskin compensates for this, but barkskin has upkeep +2. so basically if your running a druid with a vine tree bonded thats' 34 life and 10 channeling on your mage, minus 10 starting mana and one quick action, and if opponent starts attacking tree and the tree needs to transfer damage to mage, barkskin is needed to compensate for that, which has upkeep 2 so thats like lowering druid down to 8 channeling effectively
So basically, the druid actually starts the game off at a mana and action disadvantage. She isn't overpowered, but maybe it would be a good idea to start attacking the tree sooner even if you don't expect to destroy it. the damage will be transferred to mage, then if she puts barkskin on it will be easier to gain a mana advantage on her until she removes it, which may give you more time to setup on her.