There are a few cards/changes from the mage wars wrap up project (
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nifbqikhcff4a6l/AAB3UZtoe9j96LvAz5PawA2Na?dl=0) that I am not a huge fan of, this has little to do with balance and obviously I feel much more stongly about certain issues than others.
The things that I am unhappy with are:
- Alternate Wizard/Forcemaster
- Natural pandemonium (the Elementalists spawnpoitnt)
- The ehtereal change
- The Elementalist
- The Monk
- The general philosophy
Alternate Wizard/ForcemasterI think that it just makes sense to include the alternate Wizard and Forcemaster in the promo set. The artwork for these mages has been out for 5-6 years, including them would only take up 4 card slots in the expansion (so you would trade a playset of some random card for these 2 mages) and even though there isn't much time to balance them you could just make them really weak and thus make sure that they don't break the game. I certainly feel like prining weak versions of them is WAY better than not printing them at all.
Natural pandemonium (the Elementalists spawnpoitnt)You could definitively make a good argument that this card is broken, but that is not really what I am trying to point out here. Against most spawnpoints you have 3 general stratergies: go for the mage, go for their creatures or go for the spawnpoint itself. Some spawnpoint like the Vine tree or graveyard make it HARD for the opponent to play in a certain way but not in the in the way that the Pandemonium makes it impossible for people to focus on creatures. I think it would be far less frustrating to play against if it was just really hard to kill all of the Elementalists creatures, like you don't really feel that creative about your solutions after you have decided to build a book that will try to destoy the enemy spawnpoint by round 4 for the 12th time in a row. I think you should limit the reanimation to once per round, make it cost more mana to reanimate and/or make the Pandemonium take damage whenever it brings something back. It feels good to have more options, even if they are bad.
The Natural Pandemoniums ability to get a discount based on the number of adjacent zones feels forced and unthematic imo (also this is not a huge deal). I understand why you gave it this ability, but I think it would be better if it made more thematic sense, some examples of how to make it feel better (to me): have it require something specific to actually be in those zones for it to get a discount, have it rotate 90 degrees during upkeep and only let it summon things in the zone it points to, pretend that is is massive in size and that it takes up a zone all of it's borders in order to be placed on the board, or litterally any change that helps explain the theme.
The ethereal changeI mentioned on discord that I thought it would be way better to buff incorporeal with a new card rather than a rules change. Knowing that not all rules in the rulebook apply makes it less reliable, the change makes the game slightly more complex and it could make the game feel even more different for a returning player. It should be easy to just make a card that either protects the incorporeal creatures or a card that gains a buff when they die, unless it is impossible to find artwork for such a card. Another crazy option would be to just leave incorporeal alone.
The ElementalistSome very minor things. It feels awkward that the glyphs have different costs, I know that this might almost sound silly but it would be a lot less information to remember, probably feel smoother in a way and I don't think it would change her playstyle that much. I really think that she should have a basic melee of some sort, there really isn't any thematic explanation as to why she can't throw punches and I also think that not having a basic melee can make her harder to balance since she has so no reusable way to deal damage, which then requires compensation... and yeah. I also feel that both the monk and elementalist are slightly too complicated, I mean I actually felt somewhat intimidated by the amount of text.
The MonkIt really didn't feel good for me to play the Monk I just felt really strangeled by not having any of the big plays that the quick cast markes offers. (IMO) There is also no good thematic explanation as to why he has 2 action markers, like if you showed me the ability without the theme I would probably guess that it had to do with time manipulation and not martial arts, I also think it is odd that he runs twice as fast as any other creature in the game and that he is the mage that has the least use for melee attack spells. The double action markers forces you to stop him from gaining melee + X which also makes no thematic sense and it is just to solve balance. He was supposed to be a solo-mage but all you really need for that to work is passive healing and burst damage.
A couple of suggestions to change him would be to: remove all ablitites aside form the once that have to do with ki, let him guard or melee attack with his qc marker (instead of removing it) or if you really want 2 action markers give him 2 mage cards (where one is a human and the other is just a spirit) so that there is no quad movement or things like that and actually makes more thematic sense.
The general philosophyI have faced arguments such as: 'as long as it isn't more broken than the gate or melee attack spells it's fine', 'as long as it is not as frustrating to play against as mana denail it is fine', 'as long as it's matchups are not as onesided as the necromancers it is fine' and so on.
I really think it is unhealthy to use the worst possible examples as measuring sticks, A because you should try to replicate the best and not the worst things in mage wars and B because you could easily set a new bar by accident this way.
Aditionally I think that many of you value balance too much. The most important factor, even as a competetive player is that the strongest books are fun and skillful, because these are the books that you will actually be forced to sit down and play with for hours and hours.
