My own DoM proposal.

[Scorched Druid]

So far multiple changes to the sport have been voiced to help increase rank advancement among the lower level duelists. Rather than throw around ideas of giving everyone an advanced spell from the beginning ot changing point values, I am going to recommend something a bit simpler.

When a duelist wins their 2 matches and can choose 1 of the advanced spells MS/AB/GF/RF, why don't we try making this choice non-permanant. Give the Enchanter a 1 after their WoL to denote they have access to 1 advanced spell. At the beginning of a match they just announce what spell they are going to use for the match. This trend can be continued up until Wizard when the duelist would all ready have all four. Sorceror a 2, Magician, a 3.

Now I know some will think "Is he mad?! That would completely change how strategy works in the duels! For us Mages and Wizard we won't know what the lower ranked duelists are going to throw at us in the match!"

Precisely.

This is a two-fold recommendation. First and foremost, spell choice effects dueling style, as I voiced in the other thread, a good number (I'm still going through room logs to get exact data) of duelists gain rank and then have to learn how to integrate the new spell into their style. This idea would cut down on that. Enchanter A has 4 duels, they break even 2-2. They go back through their matches and are "Okay, in each one MS only worked for me once. Why should I keep it?" Well now they can have those four, see the result and can now determine "I'll give Arctic Blast a shot in my next match."

The duelist can now experiment with all four as they advance and get a feel for how each one works.

Now I'll touch on the tactics. Wizard and Mage all ready have all of the spells barring their choice on Immolation or Nether Ray. However I noticed that say..a Sorceror is a Keeper and is challenged by a Mage. The Mage knows exactly what spells the Keeper has, while the Sorceror has to agonize over what two spells the Mage will decide on. Now that is a two way street. Neither one knows what the other will pick. It is completley even and the challenge comes down to skill on skill alone.

Sure the counter to this is, "That's the point! The Keeper gets the raw deal because it's to test their ability to defend." Well to that I say, "Why should the challenger get all the time leading up til then to work out strategy while the Keeper has to wait until that night to do so?"

This idea does't alter the matrix, it doesn't mess with point values. It allows lower ranks to experiment with all the spells as they climb and reduces the learning curve. Also for those who have been around a while it adds another factor to strategy as neither side knows what the other will pick before it is announced.

There it is in a nutshell. Feel free to comment, complain, or debate.

[Tormay Eludes]

This idea. I like it a lot.

Simple, doesn't mess with the matrix at all, and allows the lower ranks to learn how to use the advanced spells much quicker.

[Harris]

Simple. Effective. I don't see anything wrong with this. This should help bring some parity between the upper and lower ranks when a lower rank can effectively adapt their tactics to match the Mage they're dueling. Dueling a Mage with Nether Ray? Make Arctic Blast one of your chosen spells. Having more access to the matrix will absolutely help the bottom ranks. It's somewhat ridiculous that the only person that has access to the entire matrix at any given time is the ArchMage. Allowing the lower ranks to fluctuate between the advanced spells on a per match basis sounds solid and doesn't shake anything up in the process in my mind.

[Misty]

This I like. It's a simple change to the overall game, doesn't mess with recalculating the matrix whatsoever, and adds some equality to the mix. I like this a great deal. If this went up for it, I'd vote yes.

[Neo Eternity]

The only thing I don't like about this is the potential tedium from having to announce your spells before each match. I would vote yes on this change too, if at least to get it into one week of site-wide play-testing.

This would be so easy to play-test. It'd be like some sort of week-long special event for DoM. And then after the week's over, we can look back and see if it worked out. If it did, we'll take one last vote, and if it's approved, we'll make the change permanent.

The rules need to be cleaned up a bit anyways if I recall.

Also, how should mage spells be handled?

[Scorched Druid]

The only thing I don't like about this is the potential tedium from having to announce your spells before each match. I would vote yes on this change too, if at least to get it into one week of site-wide play-testing.

This would be so easy to play-test. It'd be like some sort of week-long special event for DoM. And then after the week's over, we can look back and see if it worked out. If it did, we'll take one last vote, and if it's approved, we'll make the change permanent.

The rules need to be cleaned up a bit anyways if I recall.

I guess that'd be a third aspect. Mage Emeritus have to decide what mage spell they are going to use on a per match basis anyway. This can get the lower ranks into the practice of doing that. However, I'd like to hear Topaz weigh in on this since nothing can be done without her approval.

But like I said in the initial post I want to leave the Mage rank alone, if we allow them to pick and choose between Nether Ray and Immolation on a per duel basis then there isn't any difference between Mage and Emeritus other than one set are all former Archmagi and one isn't.

[Wulfson]

If both duelists are ranked above apprentice, but not yet Wizard or Mage (although this does apply to Emeritus, in the Nether Ray-Arctic Blast example given earlier), they would have to both declare their chosen spells to the caller and have the caller announce their choices to the room, or else whoever announced their spells first would be at a slight disadvantage. For example if someone announced first that they were using Meteor Shower, the opponent could choose Reflection as a counter. Now, you could say have the higher ranked (if there is one) duelist declare first, as they have the advantage of more spells anyway, but you still need to handle the same-rank cases in a fair manner.

For Emeritus vs Emeritus, it really isn't as much of an issue (at least in my mind), since the other person's choice of NR or Immo doesn't really affect my choice of NR or Immo, and I don't think it affects any other Emeritus either.

[Scorched Druid]

That's a fair point Will and it wasn't something I had thought of, so I'm glad you jumped in given your history with the sport and as a former coordinator.

Higher rank announces first seems fair enough with the higher mana pool. In same rank cases, they submit to the caller and he announces it. This sounds good to me since it would make every duel a mini-challenge.

[Neo Eternity]

I hadn't thought about that either. Nice catch, Will.

[Shadowlord]

This proposal sounds excellent to me. Only one opinion to give on spell selection: have both duelists privately inform the caller of their spell selection regardless of rank, i.e. don't give lower or higher any advantage. Higher rank *should* give some advantage, in this case having an extra spell to select. Lower ranks shouldn't automatically be able to select in response to their opponent all the time just because they're lower. They should, as per this proposal, be able to change up their spells to become better familiar with the matrix, and more effective as duelers. Again, just my opinion.

I understand we're trying to equalize things a bit, but it shouldn't be done to the point of effectively penalizing someone simply because their rank is higher. A system that lets the lower rank choose first works fine to provide fairness between say, Enchanters and Mages, but is a Magician really all that much more powerful than a Sorcerer?

To reiterate, this is a great idea..just my thoughts on spell selection between differing ranks.

[Wulfson]

I think that for World League we had the Away Team duelist pick their spells first, and the home team duelist pick their spells second to give the home team duelist some advantage, since we still weren't applying fancies to DoM style duels, and thus Team Fancies couldn't be used. But in that case we were distinctly attempting to give one duelist an advantage over the other. I agree with Shadow that for normal DoM duels, it would be more fair to have both duelists pick their spells without knowledge of whatever the other person is picking.

Although, if you happen to know which spells your opponent prefers, you're much more likely to be able to guess what they'll use and plan accordingly. And if they know you know, they can plan accordingly too, and thus everything quickly devolves back into random chaos...

[Wulfson]

Would this proposed change also eliminate fixed Mage spell choices? If so, there goes my Emeritus perk (although everyone pretty much knows what I'm going to pick anyway). Although, it would allow my other character to use something besides Immo every once in a while.

[Wulfson]

Okay, after reviewing some of the World League duels (which, by the way Neo, Anubis dueled in a couple of World League Magic duels, he lost those too), I realize my memory isn't exact. The home team duelist apparently declared an additional spell for "team fancy" use.

[Neo Eternity]

How about going the other way?

In other words, not declaring spells at all, keeping your opponent guessing until you use your chosen spell(s)?

[Jake]

I think it's an interesting idea...but it doesn't seem to do anything for the apprentice (which was one of the discussion points in the other thread).

So, in the spirit of discussion, how about a variant?

Keep the basic structure as is. Remove one rank (as proposed in the other thread), and give all ranks the option to choose a spell at the start of the duel.

So, for example, an apprentice has access to the basic 8, plus one other spell to be chosen at the start of the duel.

The next rank up, the Enchanter, gets the basic 8, plus their selected spell, plus one to be chosen at the start of the duel.

In a hypothetical duel, Enchanter Bob has the Meteor Swarm spell, and at the beginning of the duel chooses Reflection to augment his spells for that duel. His opponent, Apprentice Jill, chooses Artic Blast as her augment spell.

The basic idea would present a "Try before you Buy" sort of approach. Try out the various spells, gain rank, choose one for keeps. Try out another spell, gain rank, choose another one for keeps.

Plus, it would give the Apprentices something to play with.