What would it be like for Mages of vastly different schools and philosophies of magic to come together in an arena and fight to the death? How would an Illusionist battle a Druid? Or a Warlock fight a Beastmaster? Or a Priestess fare against a Wizard?
Mage Wars — redubbed Mage Wars Arena in 2015 to distinguish it from Mage Wars Academy — pits powerful Mages against each other in deadly arena combat. Each Mage uses his own fully-customizable book of spells to achieve total victory over his opponent. Summon mighty creatures to do battle in your name; cast powerful spells to attack your foe and thwart his every plan and strategy; use hidden enchantments to turn the tables and rule the day; adorn yourself with mighty weapons, armor, and arcane artifacts – all of this and more await you in the arena of Mage Wars!
Mage Wars is a tactical board game, a combination of a card game and miniatures game, combining the best elements from each genre. The game is played on an arena game board divided into square areas called "zones", which regulate movement and the placement of objects. Each Mage (player) starts in a corner of the arena, opposite his enemy.
Each player holds a spellbook, from which spell cards are pulled out as they are cast during the game. This has the feel of being a real Mage, turning the pages of your tome of magic, as you plan your strategy each turn. A point system allows you to choose spells for your spellbook, with more powerful spells and spells outside your schools of training costing more points. You have full access to cast any spell you want each turn, allowing for an unprecedented level of rich strategy and tactics. Many of these spells – such as creatures, equipment, and enchantments – are placed on the board and become objects in the game. Creatures can move around the arena, and attack each other and the enemy Mage. Attacks deal damage, as well as interesting special effects such as Burn, Corrode, Stun, Daze, Push, Cripple, Paralyze, etc. Creatures can be destroyed when they receive too much damage, or can be controlled by powerful curses and enchantments, or contained by walls and other creatures.
Every Mage comes from a different school of magic, each with unique spells and strategies:
The Beastmaster will try to rush and swarm the enemy with his hordes of animals, buffed by his nature enchantments.
The Warlock will go right for the throat, armed with his powerful Lash of Hellfire, Helm of Fear, and Demonhide Armor. Along the way to the enemy Mage, he'll use his curses and fire attacks to contain and destroy enemy creatures.
The Wizard is a trickster, a master of meta-magic: countering, stealing, redirecting, and destroying enemy spells and mana. He's also a master of teleportation and portals/gates.
The Priestess will defend with knights and angels and powerful healing and protection spells. She'll wear down the enemy, then overwhelm them in the end.
The base game comes with all you need to get started: spellbooks, extra spells to customize with the spellbooks, arena game board, dice, markers, etc.
New Mages will be released every few months to add new spells, powers, and variety to the game. The game is NOT collectible, but is fully customizable!
Extra copies of spells available with:
Mage Wars: Core Spell Tome 1
Mage Wars: Core Spell Tome 2
GTS 2015 - Mage Wars Academy
- Will probably have to go at the bottom of the pile
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- Final Girl, which I know that a lot of people are looking for this one.
- I will say Final Girl is definitely not my favorite.
- So, honestly, not huge train game fans.
- This is Potion Explosion, which this is actually in my most recent video of my top 100 games of all time.
- Terraforming Mars, I would like to try it.
- I prefer the theming of Wonderland's War more than Terraforming Mars
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- Friends, it is time to open some Shelfy Blind Boxes.
- Each game also comes with a card, so you have some art, and then on the other side you have a little spiel of the game, and then you also have a QR code to check out more about that game.
- There are some like alt holo foil versions of games in here, so I'm really excited to see uh if I get one or not.
- All right, I've added in all of our new games on the shelves here. See you guys next time for part two.
References (from this video)
- interesting concept of a Magic-like duel in a compact form
- felt over-controlled by a 'anti-fun' deck (Beast Master/Wizard) and slow pacing
- turns were very long and not engaging for the players
- two-player design with intense counterplay dampened the experience
- two-player, deck-based magic duel with spellbook-style card play
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- deck-based spellbook with two players — Two-player game where both players have access to a full deck of spells from their Spellbook and cast them for effects.
- die-based combat resolution — Damage is calculated via dice rolls to determine outcomes of creature combat.
- limited summons per turn — Typically only one summon per turn (two with quickcast) due to card costs and timing.
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Quotes (from this video)
- the hype was real on this one
- the first two weeks of December are crazy because every single company in San Francisco all these startups they're all doing holiday parties
- I spent two and a half hours talking about the games in front of me
- it's a very cool thing that and it means that next year in 2017 I'm hoping to take four separate weeks off for all these conventions
References (from this video)
- Fantasy Combat
- Mage Wars
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Deck construction — Mentioned as a game where you construct your deck beforehand.
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- I don't think Project L should have the video theme category applied to it. I don't think so.
- my solo cadet mode for captain's chair is the best video to watch to learn how to play the game.
- you only score points for your tracks if you have completed at least one of your missions.
- Many of you, especially Mage Knight fans, will know Ricky because he did the solo playthroughs of Mage Knight, which helped make Mage Knight what it is today.
- I have news. I am not allowed to share that news. I am under um effectively an NDA.
- Marvel Champions is a fantastic, fantastic game.
- The stream was crashing and literally every 30 minutes the stream would crash and my software would crash and people would be in the chat saying the stream's gone down.
- Too Many Bones is a good game, but me being so far out of my comfort zone that I literally cannot understand how to play the characters that I'm playing whilst hosting a live stream. Yeah, I don't want to do that again. That was uh that was horrible.
- Monopoly is in that situation where it's popular because it's popular.
- It's still a terrible game. It is. It is a terrible, terrible, terrible game.
- The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship, the new pandemic style game from Matt Leo. I'm going to pick that one. But caveat, I've only played it once and I haven't actually played that many games that technically have come out from 2025.
- You can't. There's too many games coming out every week.
- If you are not a Patreon supporter and you want to support me directly, you can for as little as $1 a month or $3 a month if you want access to the Slack channel, patreon.com/gamingrules.
- The secret word for this month is the game that arrived this afternoon that none of my patron supporters were able to guess.
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- The game Focus completely on the strategy it takes away the randomization and the luck of the draw to where you can truthfully say you know what you may have a better Spellbook than me
- The very first time I played this game it took me n and a half minutes and that's the amazing significant difference it is
- It's also a lot more portable I mean for me I I've Loved Mage Wars I mean most people have heard me say this that's why I came to the company but it's been able toow me to take it with me it's very hard to take M Wars arena with you
- The dice are really the only luck Factor cre that little bit of drama what's going to happen still a little bit of drama
- The winning one that's good
References (from this video)
- Eliminates luck of the draw through spellbooks
- Faster playtime (20-30 minutes)
- Easier barrier to entry
- Portable and easy to take with you
- Interchangeable cards and custom deck building options
- Good value at $29.99
- card combat between two Mages dueling Mages
- Mage Wars Arena
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Creature Combat — Players summon creatures, enchant them, and engage in direct combat, with creatures having armor and health stats.
- Dice Rolling — Attack rolls are determined by dice, which can result in damage, critical hits, or blanks.
- Enchantments — Enchantments are played face down and cost mana to reveal, providing offensive or defensive buffs, tricks, and traps.
- Guard Mechanic — Creatures can be set to guard, intercepting attacks directed at other creatures.
- Mana system — Mana is used to cast spells and activate abilities, tracked with a mana tracker.
- Piercing Damage — Piercing damage negates armor, allowing attacks to bypass defensive stats.
- Spellbook — Players have a spellbook where their entire deck is accessible, eliminating the luck of the draw common in other dueling games.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- The game Focus completely on the strategy it takes away the randomization and the luck of the draw to where you can truthfully say you know what you may have a better Spellbook than me
- The very first time I played this game it took me n and a half minutes and that's the amazing significant difference it is
- It's also a lot more portable I mean for me I I've Loved Mage Wars I mean most people have heard me say this that's why I came to the company but it's been able toow me to take it with me it's very hard to take M Wars arena with you
- The dice are really the only luck Factor cre that little bit of drama what's going to happen still a little bit of drama
- The winning one that's good