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Author Topic: Favorite Game Play Formats  (Read 9969 times)

Kring

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Favorite Game Play Formats
« on: August 13, 2012, 01:50:11 AM »
There are all kinds of games in league and tournament play.

What are your favorites?  What would you like to play at Mage Wars groups and tournaments?

Shad0w

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Re: Favorite Game Play Formats
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2012, 04:42:34 PM »
I would like to see a grand melee for Mage Wars but this will need some very heavy testing to get the rules working correctly. What is grand melee? It is a massive multiplayer game were you get prizes based off of people you kill and being the last person standing( the top 8 get the best bonus prizes). The largest Melee I ever did was over 260 people in a single game. When games get larger you need special rules just to manage the turn order and Interactions.
"Darth come prove to meet you are worthy of the fighting for your school in the arena and not just another scholar to be discarded like an worn out rag doll"


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Mestrahd

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Re: Favorite Game Play Formats
« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2012, 05:19:40 PM »
how many boards did you need to pull that off?

Shad0w

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Re: Favorite Game Play Formats
« Reply #3 on: August 13, 2012, 05:34:03 PM »
It was for another card game. The 1 game took over 13 hours
"Darth come prove to meet you are worthy of the fighting for your school in the arena and not just another scholar to be discarded like an worn out rag doll"


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Shad0w

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Re: Favorite Game Play Formats
« Reply #4 on: August 13, 2012, 05:38:21 PM »
It was for another card game. The 1 game took over 13 hours
"Darth come prove to meet you are worthy of the fighting for your school in the arena and not just another scholar to be discarded like an worn out rag doll"


Quote: Shad0w the Arcmage

Ayumi

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Re: Favorite Game Play Formats
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2012, 02:21:30 AM »
Quote from: "Shad0w" post=539
I would like to see a grand melee for Mage Wars but this will need some very heavy testing to get the rules working correctly. What is grand melee? It is a massive multiplayer game were you get prizes based off of people you kill and being the last people standing. The largest Melee I ever did was over 260 people in a single game. When games get larger you need special rules just to manage the turn order and Interactions.


Egad! A massive Flashmob approach to tourney play!  Quite an event to plan and manage.  Something for a big con, like GenCon or Origins?  Amazing feat to pull off!

Here are some more modest suggestions, based on my bit of boardgame play and trucking two nephews over hill and dale for their MtG gaming

CARD LIST BASED GAME—A random card list would be created for each School. Players then choose from/use the random list. The effect would be rather like an MTG sealed deck game.  Games could be offered when expansion packs are released, too, and players could buy, open, and use the cards at the tournament for a really close sealed deck experience.  I always enjoyed watching players at MtG tourneys react to the cards they received in sealed decks.

NOVICE WARS—Limit the Epic Spell cards.  Require the use of many Novice Spell cards.  And tailor all the rest of the card choices to the Novice Level including creatures, armaments, everything. Every Mage is a Level 6, so this would work on the even playing field, especially when the game is new.  After all, every Mage is a novice when a game is new,  as someone pointed out in a post.
 .
WORST CASE SCENARIO SPELL BOOK WARS—Players choose a mage, create the absolute WORST spell book possible, then exchange spell books.  I love playing this kind of match.  Lots of groaning and popcorn tossing ensues, but it’s great fun.  Not for the Spikes at the tournament (players obsessed with winning by as large a margin as possible/humiliating others). But we're playing to have fun.  This approach also really tests the balance and weightings of the game and the characters/creatures
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WEIRD CARD—Everyone can choose ONE EXTRA CARD from the open set or from a predefined set  that is usually NOT available to their Mage because of school, light/dark, race, or other reasons.  The goal here is to leverage that ‘out of school’ surprise spell mechanism.  If a predesigned set of weird cards is used, little or no mana adjustment would be needed and game balance would be less affected.  It’s fun to fiddle with spells/ traits and play that favorite card.

No, You Can’t Use THAT Spell/Creature Wars (AKA Rut Buster)—Elimination of certain spells and creatures, certainly player favorites and one or two moderately important cards that players use far too often or often in very predictable ways.  There are always cards that become player favorites, and eliminating them from play makes people rethink strategy. That’s the use of this kind of match. It’s important not to fiddle with the really necessary cards, like the Geyser.  This is really useful when you also impose other limits, especially considering that there are so many cards for each Mage to choose from

Shad0w

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Re: Favorite Game Play Formats
« Reply #6 on: August 14, 2012, 06:21:50 AM »
What about a spin off the generals format 3v3, 4v4 or 5v5 your job is the kill the other general while keeping your general safe. If a teams general dies that team loses.

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Another rule you can try for team play is unified spell book construction. This means that between all the book you cant break the 4 / 6 of a spell rules. Just remember to wait till set 2 before doing this.

Archmage Wars - Each play brings an archmage to the game instead for a normal mage. This is more of a format I would like to set but have never tried.
"Darth come prove to meet you are worthy of the fighting for your school in the arena and not just another scholar to be discarded like an worn out rag doll"


Quote: Shad0w the Arcmage

T_Hess

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Re: Favorite Game Play Formats
« Reply #7 on: August 17, 2012, 05:48:01 PM »
I was thinking about how a 2v2 match could be set up...
Normally teams would most likely start on the same side of the board right?
Well what if they started in opposing corners. Basically they start out split from each other and are forced to think on their feet while working their way to each other so Combos can be pulled off while battling over zones with the other teams.

Something else I think seems interesting would be "Zone Battles"
Basically when creatures/mages destroy another Mage's summon in a zone that mage claims that Zone and Mage's can't move into those Zones except for the mage that has claimed that Zone.
and in this Style. You win by trapping the other mage. When the opposing Mage is stuck in a zone unable to move you win.
I don't know how well it would work but that is the basics of it.....