Mage Wars Arena

Mage Wars Arena returned to the table after a long break, in a relaxed teaching game of Angel Priest against Bow Beastmaster. And yes, I think I persuaded my victim to come back for another duel. That is a healthy sign: the game still has that immediate, faintly threatening energy that makes you look across the table and wonder what is being prepared.

It starts with building the decks. You decide which tools your mage will have to hand, then enter the arena with a plan—or at least with the confidence of someone who expects to find one halfway through. Angel Priest and Bow Beastmaster make the confrontation feel different, but the central business remains the same: two players trying to make their own threat the other player's problem.

Then the cards and their combinations start to speak. You press, you answer, one move changes the mood at the table, and you try not to show that you have just realised how badly this could go. There really are cards and combinations that irritate people because they seem broken; that complaint did not appear from nowhere. But when I am putting the decks together, the games tend to be very good, and the nastiness stays at the proper, playful level.

It is not perfect, and there is no need to pretend that every combination is a model of balance. But Mage Wars Arena remains a duel I want to have again: fierce, personal, and very dear to me.