Mage Wars > Spells
Card Errata (The Mage Wars Community Self-Management Project)
Sailor Vulcan:
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.
DaveW:
What is an ADMW tournament, and why should I care to use their rules in my Mage Wars games?
Are these rules to be used in major tournaments, like at GenCon? If not, then aren't they confusing to have?
Aside from that, I either don't understand or generally disagree with many of the things you post here:
Steep Hill revision makes no sense to me... the rules as they are now for this spell are good.
Is there a flying creature with Trample? If not, why worry about the Trample interactions?
The Druid is fine... it needs no revision. The same goes for the BW Warlord.
I may not play as much as some others, but I've been around since there was only the Core set... maybe five years or so? (Not sure when MW first came out.)
Sailor Vulcan:
--- Quote from: DaveW on July 27, 2018, 07:20:10 PM ---What is an ADMW tournament, and why should I care to use their rules in my Mage Wars games?
Are these rules to be used in major tournaments, like at GenCon? If not, then aren't they confusing to have?
Aside from that, I either don't understand or generally disagree with many of the things you post here:
Steep Hill revision makes no sense to me... the rules as they are now for this spell are good.
Is there a flying creature with Trample? If not, why worry about the Trample interactions?
The Druid is fine... it needs no revision. The same goes for the BW Warlord.
I may not play as much as some others, but I've been around since there was only the Core set... maybe five years or so? (Not sure when MW first came out.)
--- End quote ---
If you played a bunch in the beginning then dropped out for 2-3 years and came back recently, I wouldnt consider you to be an experienced mage wars player. There have been a LOT of big changes to the game since then.
But to answer some of your questions:
Admw tournament is the main OCTGN tournament that happens about once or twice a year, and it's run by arcane duels: sharkbait, puddnhead and coshade who are all very experienced mage wars players.
Because a creature with trample can gain flying through eagle wings, obviously.
The druid is currently broken. The only reason most players haven't noticed it yet is because our playerbase is so small and there's not enough highly skilled experienced druid players fighting often enough for everyone to have noticed yet. But in point of fact, the druids treebond only costs 9 mana and one quick cast action, yet usually takes on average 2 consecutive fireballs, or a galvitar doublestrike and a fireball the next round to kill. That's 16 mana and 2 converted quick actions or 19 mana and three converted quick actions compared to the druid only having to spend 9 mana and one converted quick action. Trying to kill the treebond puts you seriously behind on mana and actions, and if you're facing a competent druid player it is virtually impossible to kill the druid without killing the treebond, but if you do kill the treebond you're overcommitting yourself.
BW warlord is good because of card support, but his abilities are next to useless and anvil throne makes him obsolete. It would be good idea to change his abilities to be more unique, so that once the other mages have more card support he won't end up falling behind them again.
It makes absolutely no sense that you can see through steep hill from the corner of a zone but not through the side. That means that at range 1 you can't see through to the other side, but at range 2 you can! Thats clearly not the intention of the card, that isn't balanced, and it makes no sense from a thematic standpoint either.
As far as I know, gen con is literally the only official tournament run by Arcane Wonders themselves. All the other tournaments are run by fans. And a lot of players live too far away from the U.S. to go to gen con very often.
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Brian VanAlstyne:
In YOUR opinion, the Druid is broken. Let's not say ALL experienced players think it is.
Sailor Vulcan:
--- Quote from: DevilsVendetta on July 27, 2018, 09:34:41 PM ---In YOUR opinion, the Druid is broken. Let's not say ALL experienced players think it is.
--- End quote ---
One of the problems this game faces is that a lot of times people don't recognize when a card is broken because of the spell point system. The spell point system makes it so that imbalances tend to impact spellbook building rather than affecting gameplay directly. If you have to overspend spell points to prepare your non-druid spellbook to be viable against druid you'll be at a significant disadvantage to non-druid spellbooks that don't overspend spell points on preparing for the druid matchup. But some players don't see that because they think "well the druid isn't unbeatable, a skilled player with a good deck can beat her" and miss the bigger picture regarding spell point imbalances.
I've said it a gazillion times: this is mage wars. Not magic the gathering. The criteria youre using to determine whether a card is broken or not does not apply here, it applies there.
This is like the old wizard all over again.
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