Mage Wars Academy: Rapid Review
Information:
Mechanics: Head to Head
Player Age: 14+ Player Count: 2 PlayersTime to Play: 30 Minutes
Game Designer: Aaron Brosman, Matthew Burch, Bryan Pope
Player Age: 14+
Game Designer: Aaron Brosman, Matthew Burch, Bryan Pope
Rundown:
Mage Wars Academy is a twist on the classic head to head genre of games. This is a successor to Mage Wars Arena, a larger game with multiple zones that creatures can be in. This is a streamlined version with only one zone. The aim of the game is simply to damage your opponent so much that the damage equals or exceeds their health. To do this, you will summon creatures, cast incantations, channel fierce attack spells, brace yourself with equipment, and enchant the battlefield, creatures, or mages.
Player turns are fast and will consist of either exhausting your mage to attack or cast a spell (you can cast quick spells without exhausting once a round), pass, or exhaust one of your creatures to attack or guard in defense of eventual attacks.
Once everything is exhausted, the round ends, and all the upkeep occurs where everyone is un-exhausted for the next round. The real change in all of this from typical games in this vain is that the deck is replaced with a spellbook binder that allows players access to any spell they want within each round.
Alteration:
The base game comes with two mage classes, the Wizard and the Beastmaster. Through the expansions, this can grow to include another seven mages classes.
The real alteration comes from how players build their mage spellbooks. This task is tied to a certain cost in spellpoints. If the mage is trained in a type of spell school, the card cost will equal the card level. If they are not trained in that school, then it will be double the cost, and some mages even have a further cost if they are adverse to the school. There are around 80 spare cards for players to modify their spellbooks until they find the right combination that works for them as each mage can have multiple different styles amplified by specific mage cards that players can focus on.
Production:
This game has a literal spellbook for each player. Let's just take a moment to sink in the awesomeness of a head to head game that includes a literal spellbook.
It makes it even better that this spellbook has a function as it keeps all the cards of your deck both in battle and in storage. The rest of the production is standard with cardboard tokens, health dials, and standard card stock.
Interaction:
This is a directly confrontational head to head game where you are trying to whittle down your opponent’s mage with damage. The confrontation becomes even more interactive with the combat system as each round is built from multiple turns of a player exhausting one creature or their mage until every creature/mage has been exhausted through attacking, casting spells or guarding.
This means the more creatures you have, the more turns this will take, but this may not be a problem with the right spellbook (like a mage that focuses on attack spells).
Determination:
Key Points:
- The game comes to close as you run out of cards, which limits your options as the game goes on.
- The round system of one attack per turn can take a little bit to get used to but does open up a lot of decisions.
- Plenty of modification space for the spellbooks.
- No mana issues while you play the game. However, the luck comes from the dice.
- Quick turns
Mage Wars Academy re-writes how standard head to head games are played with the spellbook system. Magic The gathering is the easiest comparison where instead of leaving your decisions to the luck of the draw, that luck has instead been transferred to dice rolling. This is the kind of game that excels from customising your spellbook as the decisions in the game become easier if you know your deck, creating a better synergy of creatures. If you enjoy head to head games, then this is a great change of pace that immerses the player on a different level with customisable spellbooks.
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