Mage Wars Core Set- In Stores Now Hot

That's some sweet art on the cover which of course means jack shit.

Why, in a world that already contains Magic: The Gathering and a brand new edition of Wiz-War, would anyone want this?

A good question, but they only need 0.1% of Magic: The Gathering players to try this to end up in the black.

S.

here

I've been keeping an eye on this one and it looks like a Summoner Wars ripoff to me. I could be proven wrong when we get more details, but they seem to occupy a lot of the same design space.

OK designers, no more games called [Something] Wars. It's just not very creative or imaginative. Anyone who has brainstormed for game names knows this is one of the initial naive names you come up with when you just throw whatever comes to mind to see what sticks. I've done it before. Richard Garfield probably thought of "Mage Wars" when he designed Magic, or maybe when designing Jyhad he wrote "Vampire Wars" on his list of potential titles then promptly crossed it out. I bet he even crossed it out so completely and thoroughly because he was embarrassed to have ever thought of it.

Not only is it boring, but the name doesn't even fit if the game doesn't really represent wars - a tactical duel ("tactical" and "dueling mages" are both mentioned on the box) doesn't sound too much like a war to me. War implies big armies and epic scope. Even if set in a war, putting "war" in a game's title might be inappropriate. For example Advanced Squad Leader because its focus is on low-level tactics. (Exception if it was called something like "World War II: Squad Tactics" or the like.) Star Wars is special and exempt.

I almost made this rant when Summoner Wars came out but I held back. Now I choose to bitch. This concludes my anal nerd rant.

Geometry Wars was pretty creative.... ;)

Soooooo...this is Wiz-War for people with no discernible sense of humor?

I watched a demo of this game at their GenCon booth. It looked a lot like Summoner Wars with the grid board where you lay down cards as units/spells/effects. I hadn't played Summoner Wars at that point and don't remember much of the mechanics to really compare the two. It looked neat, but I'm not a card game kind of guy for the most part, so didn't pay that much attention.

The "hook" in Mage Wars is that you got an honest-to-God spell book to use. It was faux leather or vinyl with clear slots to insert your cards, or "spells" rather. Kinda neat, but really just a gimmick. Think you got one per set of mage cards/spells.

I've been kinda surprised I haven't heard more about this game, as it was really popular at GenCon. They were running demos in one of the halls, and the waiting list for the entire show was filled by the first afternoon.

I have to be honest, I don't see why there's all this rancor. Hell, it's not even out yet. Has anyone played it yet? Because it kind of looks cool.

This has been done before...
http://whowritesthisstuff.net/?p=60

Note in the photo, the person on the left with the YuGiOh pallet

Thought you were going to link to Grimoire (which used a spellbook in 2010).

A customizable, card driven, tactical board game of dueling wizards?

If you subscribe to the BGG Wiz-War forum, you'll find that those people all already bought Wiz-War.

I'm losing my damn mind over there, and I'm about to throw in the towel and unsubscribe.

Also, these guys either have a touch of humor or aren't in the joke, since on their front page is a Creature "Ferret Companion" with the rule "Beastmaster only". Hopefully that's not a coincidence. Game might be interesting in what appears to be a number-crunching way, but the name and "schools of magic" stuff could benefit from some imagination. Yeesh.

Finally, please don't tell me you're planning dozens of wizards for future expansions and shipping four. I'm not doing that. Get it together.