A variant that plays faster

[mythaphel]

First off, I have to say that I love Mage Wars! I am an avid board gamer and this is already one of my favorite games of all time.

I love the pace of the game and even enjoy the fact that it's very involved and takes several hours of captivating gameplay to resolve. However, quite frequently, a faster game is just necessary. I would love to see official playtested rules for a much faster variant of the game that doesn't sacrifice any of its depth (board size, spells & mage abilities would remain the same). I've played 8 two-player games so far and none have come out to be less than 4 hours long.

A thought: At some point, I got to pondering over elements that slow down the game without adding any tremendous value and I came up with a big one. Poor strategy. I noticed that players easily lose focus of the main goal (killing the enemy mage) and get caught up in endless battles between their creature minions. Perhaps one alt rule could be that every time a creature minion is damaged, a portion of that damage is dealt to the mage (maybe because its life is somewhat linked to the mage's or something).

[SeanDeCoy]

That's a pretty interesting variant actually. Another cool variant could be that every Mage splits his life with one of his creatures. You have to kill both to win, but both are a little easier to kill. You could also give half the channelling to that creature as well.

[piousflea]

I've played 8 two-player games so far and none have come out to be less than 4 hours long.

This sounds unusually long to me, is everyone using lots of heal spells, or are they keeping their mage way in the back and only fighting with creatures?

Your variant is interesting but would practically eliminate swarm strategies as a viable tactic. (as swarms of 0-Armor creatures will take a lot of damage very quickly)

If the problem is that both players keep their Mage out of harm's way and only send creatures to fight, what about this variant:

Empathic Damage: Any time a melee attack is declared against a creature, the attacker may instead attack the opponent's Mage, regardless of distance. This effect may not be used to override Guard, Taunt or Bloodreaper.

[Drealin]

An interesting idea, although I might alter your original thought a little bit.
Any overdamage dealt to creatures is put on the controlling mage.  That way you don't change anything too much, and it's easy to determine how much damage your mage gets.

[Hedge]

That's a pretty interesting variant actually. Another cool variant could be that every Mage splits his life with one of his creatures. You have to kill both to win, but both are a little easier to kill. You could also give half the channelling to that creature as well.

I think that would be an excellent trait to add to an attack.Damage Torrent

[Upgrayedd]

Try this to shorten the game.  Each upkeep phase, after the first, each mage loses 2 life.  Not health but 2 from max life value.

[DarthDadaD20]

I think a good faster game could have: Starting at less life. Or each mage channels twice the mana and takes four cards in the planing phase.(this should mean more damage dealt and more "big" creatures out on the field.)

[jcox2820]

A few things I have considered to speed things up:

- Each mage starts the game with whatever equipment they wish up to a certain mana cost pre-game.
- Each mage has one side of the arena in which to deploy whatever zone-exclusive conjurations they wish up to a certain mana cost pre-game.
- "Kill Box" mode, where every zone touching a wall instantly kills a mage if they are in them after a certain period of time. In this case, mages do not die from being pushed/teleported/whatever into the kill zones, but must use their next available standard action to move away from the zone or die.
- Victory can be achieved by victory points, which are scored by achieving certain things such as destroying spawn points, doing a certain amount of damage, killing creatures, etc.

Obviously not perfect, but these could be mixed and matched to speed things up.

[DarthDadaD20]

A victory point system could be interesting...Maybe scoring victory points for the mana cost of whatever you kill/destroy. It would take away from the mage on mage  combat but would be a fun variant more focused on creature production,protection and destruction. Maybe one victory point for every damage put on a mage?

[jonatep]

I try this variant:
each mage start with -10life
we use half of the board
the spellbook limit is 60

My (really personnal opinion), I loved it! I am a big tcg fan and didn't like how long the mage wars game long, with this variant, it's quicker (for us from 1hour to 15 minutes). You cannot put 4 dispel, 4 heal etc and each slot in spellbook need to be calculate. Control is still usefull but not without thinking (put jinx every turn because you have a lot in your spellbook is not a big deal) instead you need to cancel and/or dispell the right spell because your opponent probably don't have 3 of his (or her) bigger spell.

[DarthDadaD20]

My games are bordering on 30-60 mins more and more....

[malgor]

yeah 4 hours is way too long.  i've played a 6 player game that didn't last 4 hours.

i think what is delaying the game is probably the players.  taking too long to pick spells, decide what to do, etc.  a variant may solve your problem but the odds are it's the players that are making the game longer....so a variant will inevitably take depth from the game.

i do seem to pick my spells faster than a lot of people.  maybe i'm just stupid that way lol.... but i do think tournament play needs an egg timer.  not for casual games, but i don't see how mages need to take more than 90 sec-2 min to pick their spells.  hmmm maybe i'm off on how long i take.  i'll try and remember to time it next game and see what avg planning time is.

[Shad0w]

The more games you play the more time you learn to save in spell choices and action efficiency. A tourney round is 90 minutes and once you get the game down 30 - 60 minutes should be an average match for 1 v 1. We do 90 for the slower builds so they have plenty of time to develop.

[Sausageman]

My games are bordering on 30-60 mins more and more....

Mine too.  I've found only Priestess and Forcemaster tend to make games longer, as they both seem to have combat/damage avoidance abilities that naturally lengthen a game.

To make games shorter, my advice is to focus - concentrate on killing your opponent.  Sure, that Cheetah Speed on him might look cool, but is it really worth taking an action to dispel?  The more I play, the more I realise the game is about making as efficient use of your actions as possible.  I VERY rarely attack a creature if I have the option to attack an opponent directly, for example.  Getting distracted is what tends to lengthen games, not the game itself.

Just my experience.

[DarthDadaD20]

I would say you are quite spot on. Once you start to do the math in your head for damage output Vs. the actions it takes, Vs. the mana you need, adding in the cards that can use actions and just how important they are, You really get the game over quickly.

When the Warlock at first was puting out mana crystals for his turn three, and now is using battle fury to do 18 attack dice for his turn three...the game just speed up.