Any of you play the WoW TCG? Did you like the mana system?
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Dom Harvey
Contributor
In town for GP Amsterdam, anyone have recommendations?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I'm from the Netherlands and I've been there only twice, and that was more than years ago. Sorry. I do remember liking the Begijnhof, which was surreally quiet in comparison to the streets outside.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Oh yeah, definitely. Preferably warm from a market stand!
"Drop" (licorice) is also a Dutch delight, but you either hate it or love it. There's definitely a far above average amount of Dutch people who love it though. PersonallyI like the salty licorice best, by far. Be warned though, Wikipedia describes it as an "acquired taste"
If you find a HEMA or a good bakery somewhere, "tompouce" is a Dutch pastry that's sure to please a sweet tooth. They're yummie!
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
This dish is commonly called "patatje oorlog" (literally "fries war") because it looks like a mess, if you're wondering why that name. There's some places where they call it "patatje vrede" (you guessed it, "fries peace") because that's apparently less politically incorrect.
I played a lot of WoW TCG back in the day, and the mana system was one of the most divisive aspects of that game. To be sure, it was nice to have very few non-games in WoW - you could still have bad opening hands, without question, but the number of games where one player didn't get to play at all was probably closer to 5%, compared to the ~20-25% in Magic.
At the same time, having a guaranteed land drop every turn takes a lot of the tension out of the game. You know how Cancel is always a borderline card in Magic? Turns out that when you always have three mana by the third turn every game, Cancel is one of the best cards in the game! It also makes 'going big' a lot easier than in Magic: running 11 and 13 drops in regular, non-ramp, control decks becomes viable, when you know with 100% certainty you'll be able to cast them by the appropriate turn, provided you survive that long.
The aspect of the mana system that's inarguably worse is its lack of colours: everything always makes "generic" mana. The way they close off spells - by simply marking them as belonging to certain classes - makes for far less interesting deckbuilding options than in Magic. In fact, the general exercise of building decks in WoW TCG is much less rewarding than in Magic, but that's not really the mana system's fault, as it is the game's design.
I guess what I'm saying is that it's complicated. It's not necessarily worse than Magic's mana system, but it's not a given that it's better, either. It's just different. I know that's kind of a cop-out answer, but the mana system does give WoW TCG its own distinct feel, and makes it so that you're not just playing a clone of Magic with a different cardset.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
For the uninitiated, how does WoW's mana system work?
Because from my experience you started with a full mana pool, and spent different amounts on your spells, regaining mana based on how much spirit (or MP5 earlier) you had on your gear
Probably doesn't really work that way in the TCG though
Because from my experience you started with a full mana pool, and spent different amounts on your spells, regaining mana based on how much spirit (or MP5 earlier) you had on your gear
Probably doesn't really work that way in the TCG though
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Oh man, you set yourself up with that first sentence, didn't you? Anyway, I disagree, to an extent. Closing off spells by marking them as belonging to a certain class works pretty well. A warlock deck will feel decidedly different from a paladin deck. Of course the same is true for a mono black deck and a mono red deck, but because you can freely mix and match colors in Magic the Gathering, the lines get much more blurry from a deck perspective, whereas in WoW the "color identities" (i.e. class identities) are truly separated from each other. I do agree that this has an impact on deck building, but having played a lot of casual WoW, I can honestly say there are so many cards that deckbuilding was as interesting an excercise as with MtG. I can't speak for constructed though, since I never played a constructed WoW tournament. It could be that the class system in WoW means a smaller card pool limits the options more than it does in MtG. Still, I built dozens of decks, and the game is really fun to play imho. I enjoyed it as much as MtG.
There's a few other things that Eric didn't touch upon that warrant some more attention, because classes are not the only thing that determines your deck option, and in all honesty it's a limited way of looking at WoW. Every deck starts with a hero, which has a class and a faction (either horde, alliance, or neutral). Your deck can include class cards of your class (some cards can be used by multiple classes) and neutral cards. In addition, horde heroes can't use alliance cards, alliance heroes can't use horde cards, and neutral heroes can't use either and must resort to neutral cards only. This is a thing however, as there are enough neutral cards to build a deck. There's a wide range of heroes available, each with their own playstyle, which means there's a lot of different decks that can be built.
As for the mana system, Eric is mostly right in his analysis. I don't agree with his "At the same time, having a guaranteed land drop every turn takes a lot of the tension out of the game" sentiment. Mana screw and mana flood are not good forms of tension, and WoW's system elegantly circumvent the problem. In addition, there are actual lands (quests and locations) in the game, and these are good cards since you will need to generate mana anyway. You just run less of them in a deck than the amount of lands you would normally run in an MtG deck, because you can use any card as a resource. Running a few gives you options, but you never flood or screw. I actually like the system better than MtG's.
I should really dust off those old WoW decks and find someone to play with again
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Is 8t kinda like hearthstone then?
I find in b hearthstone that there's a lot of otherwise aggro decks with really high curves because of that Garenteed mana, and while you don't get late game land flood, you do end up getting 6 and 7 flooded, which tends to be a bit of a wash in my opinion
I find in b hearthstone that there's a lot of otherwise aggro decks with really high curves because of that Garenteed mana, and while you don't get late game land flood, you do end up getting 6 and 7 flooded, which tends to be a bit of a wash in my opinion
In WoW TCG you get a 7-card starting hand (like Magic), and once per turn you can play one of them face down as a "resource" (that game's equivalent of lands). So it's guaranteed, in a way, but you still have to decide which card to put down / how high you want your curve to go.
Having played Hearthstone, Eric, I do kind of reject the argument that guaranteed mana takes away tension from the game. I think it's a potential source of tension, yes, but that game puts such a high emphasis on board control that any early misstep can really snowball. People aren't just filling their decks with haymakers and waiting to cast them.
I'll make a post here soon about the basics of the game I'm designing. Still very much a WIP, but I'd love input.
I actually have a ton of thoughts about WoW TCG, and while my post above may have had a negative tone to it, I should make clear that as a whole, like Onderzeeboot, I thoroughly enjoyed the six months I spent doing a really deep dive into the game. So much so that I think it spoiled me for Hearthstone - I couldn't get attached to Hearthstone in any way, shape, or form, because I'd already played the "real thing" that was WoW TCG, and Hearthstone felt like WoW TCG with all of the rough edges sanded down. (Yeah, I'm a Hearthstone / WoW TCG hipster - the worst kind of person, I know.)
Jason only asked about the mana system, though, so I didn't want to dump a whole truckload of opinions in just answering his question. I don't disagree that WoW TCG more than makes up for its guaranteed land drops by putting tension in other areas of the game, but it's hard to take a position other than that the mana system reduces tension, at least compared to a game like Magic. Maybe an example will illustrate this point better. Casting a Craterhoof Behemoth tends to be an event anytime in which it happens - you first need to draw the card, then you need to survive for a long time, then you need to have the exact amount and colour of mana to actually pull it off. Meanwhile, in WoW TCG, casting a 13-drop is much less of a cause for celebration than an 8-drop in Magic, if you can believe it. This is because the decks that contain even a single copy of a 13-drop will always drop a land, every single turn, in order to build towards their end game condition. It's not a matter of if, but simply a matter of when. In that sense, the tension is thoroughly decreased, and casting a deck's namesake 13-drop very punctually on turn 13 is often just rudimentary.
To address one of Onderzeeboot's points, I kind of hated the Hero system. I know, I know, Hearthstone uses it too, and it's probably great there (I wouldn't really know as I barely made it through the tutorial). But having such powerful effects that you were guaranteed access to, game in and game out, was thoroughly meta-warping. Worse still, you could never 'answer' another hero's effects, because you can't simply destroy the creature those effects are emanating from - they're coming from the hero! Ugh. To be clear, almost every deck I built abused the heck out of some broken hero, because if the system was there, I was going to bend it to my will. But I would've been happier overall, I think, if there weren't any avatars with busted abilities.
Jason only asked about the mana system, though, so I didn't want to dump a whole truckload of opinions in just answering his question. I don't disagree that WoW TCG more than makes up for its guaranteed land drops by putting tension in other areas of the game, but it's hard to take a position other than that the mana system reduces tension, at least compared to a game like Magic. Maybe an example will illustrate this point better. Casting a Craterhoof Behemoth tends to be an event anytime in which it happens - you first need to draw the card, then you need to survive for a long time, then you need to have the exact amount and colour of mana to actually pull it off. Meanwhile, in WoW TCG, casting a 13-drop is much less of a cause for celebration than an 8-drop in Magic, if you can believe it. This is because the decks that contain even a single copy of a 13-drop will always drop a land, every single turn, in order to build towards their end game condition. It's not a matter of if, but simply a matter of when. In that sense, the tension is thoroughly decreased, and casting a deck's namesake 13-drop very punctually on turn 13 is often just rudimentary.
To address one of Onderzeeboot's points, I kind of hated the Hero system. I know, I know, Hearthstone uses it too, and it's probably great there (I wouldn't really know as I barely made it through the tutorial). But having such powerful effects that you were guaranteed access to, game in and game out, was thoroughly meta-warping. Worse still, you could never 'answer' another hero's effects, because you can't simply destroy the creature those effects are emanating from - they're coming from the hero! Ugh. To be clear, almost every deck I built abused the heck out of some broken hero, because if the system was there, I was going to bend it to my will. But I would've been happier overall, I think, if there weren't any avatars with busted abilities.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Fair enough, I'm not particularly fond of the broken hero abilities either, but I do like the concept of heroes in general. There are a lot of fun heroes to mess around with as well, and they serve as a nice anchor to thematic decks. Once again though, I'm coming from a casual standpoint. They printed a lot of stuff that was horribly overpowered in constructed
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Ah, like versus system! That would be a real different game if you only drew one card a turn.
...do you?
In WoW TCG you draw one card, yes. Versus system has you drawing two cards a turn.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
And how many do you draw in your game? I think that's what he wanted to know...
Maybe a turn order explanation is in order
And how many do you draw in your game? I think that's what he wanted to know...
Maybe a turn order explanation is in order
Oh, in my game just 1.
Fair enough, I'm not particularly fond of the broken hero abilities either, but I do like the concept of heroes in general. There are a lot of fun heroes to mess around with as well, and they serve as a nice anchor to thematic decks. Once again though, I'm coming from a casual standpoint. They printed a lot of stuff that was horribly overpowered in constructed
This is a great point. I think that from a big picture view, WoW TCG actually had a great set of rules in place - a different and interesting take on the mana system, a fresh style of deckbuilding (with their classes, heroes, and hero specialization), and the possibility of varied and unique archetypes. Where WoW TCG ran into trouble was with the design and development of their cards and sets. This is where they published multiple super-Spikey mechanics and individual cards that weren't fun for the vast majority of the playerbase, and honestly weren't even fun for the competitive set, but people were forced to use them to keep pace with everyone else. I'm almost certain that a more experienced set of designers and developers - such as the Magic R&D team - would've thrown up red flags and prevented a large number of these broken mechanics from seeing print, but the Cryptozoic guys probably didn't have the collective decades' worth of knowledge that the Wizards people do.
It's never going to happen, now that Blizzard has taken back the WoW license to develop Hearthstone instead, but I would love to see what a fresh R&D team could do with the WoW TCG ruleset, in crafting a new set of fun, balanced expansions for the game.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Yes! I should have a Cube in tow as well (though my irl list hasn't been updated properly in ages so it's a bit messy)
Not at Birmingham, but should be going to Liverpool later in the year.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Hoping to be in Toronto mid-November, give me tourism recs or let me Cube with you plz