Mage Knight Tips and Tricks

A few tips I have learned while playing Mage Knight. This video is mostly geared towards beginners who are struggling to find a successful strategy.

[@georgea5162]

The 'right moment' day tactic, in solo Conquest, gives you one more turn for the round, but you play after the dummy player. Playing before the dummy player gives you one more turn. So taking early bird is exactly the same as taking the 'right moment' for solo play (you ensure you go first, which gives you an extra turn overall). Also, taking early bird is slightly preferred because you leave that '6' card for the dummy player to hopefully draw (so you can pick up Planning at 4 and have a decent chance of dummy taking '5' or '6'). In volkare or pvp scenarios there is some value in the 'Right Moment' because being able to play 2 turns in a row before other players can go can be important in some cases (e.g. when you are being attacked by another player).

[@jschoenzy9416]

Thanks for this, it's nice to have someone talk about my favorite game. I got a few cool ideas I'm looking forward to trying from this. I've played this a lot and I'm still discovering new ideas and combinations.

[@Tombonzo]

Love Mage Knight! These are great tips!!

[@TyvanTV]

Good stuff. I still need this game!

[@mindartis4081]

My favorite board game. Great tips!

[@furretthefuzzynoodle3896]

It’s arythea not urethra...

[@jecheesecake]

Yes such a PWM phrase. This is not her anatomy, it is a person. Shame on you privileged white male.

[@furretthefuzzynoodle3896]

@@jecheesecake you talking to me?

[@fatowen1988]

Lol

[@user-po8kg3nj8h]

Great video!

[@wiz23926]

Midnight Meditation doesn't pull cards back from your discard pile, but from your hand. So holding on to it until the end when you don't have any cards to draw from doesn't make sense, since you'd just be moving cards from your hand back into your hand. It also doesn't help to create a really "big hand", since you end up with the same size hand you start with. I just helps to churn your hand if you don't like what you currently have in hand. Also, you can't declare a black mana die as one of the basic colors (when discussing recruiting the Magic Familiars), just Gold during the day. Unless you happen to have another specific card that says differently.

[@Lavoye]

I have no clue why anyone would ever pick Midnight Meditation. I fail to see how it could be chosen above any other strategy card. I might save you from a terrible turn, but it's not really a given. There are very niche situations where it can be usefull, but compared to other cards, it's pretty useless to me.

[@vidanovitch]

@@Lavoye To be fair, i don't eagerly pick it either. But if you think about it, what can possibly be worse in Mage Knight, than being just a few points of damage away of being able to defeat a draconum, for example. Or more generally, getting two of your influence cards clogging your hand when you are far from any interesting interaction location ? In this situation, withtout that tactic, you're basically forced to use them sideways, wasting their potential.

[@Matrium0]

Also you can only use it in the beginning of the round ("before any of your turns"). It's basically a better mulligan, where you can redraw the cards you don't like, but only works right at the start of the round. Sadly that's easy to miss, it would have been better to just state it as "when you draw" this cards. The difference is between "when you draw the card" and "before any of your turns" is negligible in 99% of cases and it would be more in-line with other cards. That's a bit of a thing about mage knight. Some rules are unnecessarily complicated for sure

[@Matrium0]

@@Lavoye I do pick it from time to time, usually when there is something you absolutely want to do, but your hand is garbage. Like you absolutely need to move, but did not draw a single move card. Or you are standing on a ruin and absolutely want to fight right now, but didn't draw anything fitting. Yeah, the outcome is still random, but if you have 4-5 cards unfitting for your situation there is no better tactic

[@blindminstrel24]

Please notice that the enemy with fire resistance is not affected by the red "Demolish" spell. Also if you use a mana die to pay for the Magic Familiar it gets replaced by a token of the same color. The die is actually returned to the source at the end of the turn. (So the bottom text is not confusing at all; its quite helpful.) Sadly those details are easily missed.

[@Tessandr]

The first part of Demolish actually works against fire resistant enemies. Thats in official FAQ

[@Neighter]

You actually need 12 (3x2x2, and even worse for blue city) generic block for freezers you showed in example with swiftness. Its still easier to get frost resistance on units, or just an ability to disable them attacking. Or just nuke them at range, just remember that demolish does not reduce their armor.

[@DerZeppterdesAldi]

I think you are wrong with Magic Familiars. You don´t keep the die on the Magic Familiars its says you place a marker of that color on the card it says nothing about placing a die on it. So you just pay the mana with the die and reroll it at the end of the turn as usual. Also you can not pay with black mana since it is no joker like gold mana...

Hei, when you talking about swiftness block - I don't think that Utem Guardian can block Freezers (2 days ago I faced this situation, but Freezers have Ice attack... so your block is halved)

[@KujoPainting]

You should do a solo playthrough of mage knight. It's a great game.

[@PACEUK22]

Are all of those advanced actions in the base game or do they come with the expansions?

[@TheMeepleMarathon]

If you were to buy the original base game, you would not receive all the advanced actions. The rest would come with the expansions. The Ultimate Edition, which is the only one in print now, comes with all the cards from all expansions. If you wanted to play purely the base game, there are symbols on the bottom of the cards to tell you which expansion they came from. I tend to just play with all the cards at once.

[@DerZeppterdesAldi]

The german reading of the tactic planning says "At the end of one of your turns" so I thought its only 1 time use per round...

[@nicolasfredette8564]

6:30 Planning (day tactic), do you count wounds as one of those "at least 2 cards" ? The game doesn't specify "non-wound cards" like it does elsewhere. I always pick Planning on my first day, and it leaves a decent 60/40 chance that I'll play before the Dummy.

[@petrusvainionpaa7285]

Yes, the wounds take up one space in your hand limit -> it counts as a card in your hand.

[@alessandrohaddad6204]

In the ultimate edition, if I want to play a normal conquest, do I have to remove all the tiles and enemies from the expansions?

[@TheMeepleMarathon]

If I remember correctly, there are no extra map tiles that you would need to remove, but yes there are enemies that are meant for the expansions but would not be game breaking if you encountered them in the base game. The Ultimate Edition however does come with a handy one sheet reference that shows which enemy tokens go with what expansion making it easy to sort them apart and the included insert makes it easy to keep the expansion enemies separated from the base enemies during storage.

[@alessandrohaddad6204]

@@TheMeepleMarathon thank you!

[@afriendofafriend5766]

There actually are extra tiles that come from one of the expansions. They aren't necessary to remove though.

[@terrybaileysr.3714]

Urethra?!?! I lost it. Lol. Could not pay attention after that.

[@Sem5626]

lol yeah its hard... came down in the comments to make sure i am not the only one i've always pronounced it like "ari-they-ya" but i am no mage knight lore pro

[@supersteve76]

Facing a level 5 city then a level 8 city is just insane to me. I cant even defeat the level 5 city AT ALL. LOL. Ive played a few times and I cannot get strong enough to face a level 5 city. Like, how is it even possible??? LOL seriously. Fun game otherwise, I just have to play lower leveled cities

[@mgranvee8549]

Don’t be afraid to take wounds and remember that you don’t have to conquer the city in one turn. Try burning a monastery to get an artifact if you aren’t doing so already. Also, lower the city levels if you want. It’s your game and you should enjoy it!

[@supersteve76]

@@mgranvee8549 Thank you, yes I lower the levels to enjoy it more. Usually levels 2 and 4 sadly.

[@metalwizard1969]

Fight everything and take wounds.

[@ratguy69]

With Magic Talent the new spell goes to your discard pile. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to use that new spell until next round.

[@sagittariusa9012]

That is what he said :)

[@ShineOnYouCD]

Tip for you. The intro before you get into it is way too long. Almost 3 minutes.