WELCOME, SORCERERS, TO THE MAGE ARENA

This guide starts with a quick 101 of all you need to know to get started.

I will then cover each of the fundamentals in their own sections.

Further down, this guide will cover the more advanced aspects of the game, such as specific tactics to use when fighting enemies or how to raid enemy bases.


This guide is a work in progress.

As a wizard: Cast spells to kill enemies, and capture flags for XP and resources.
To win the game: Capture the enemy team's base and kill all your enemies.

After capturing their base by claiming the flag in their fortress, your enemies don't respawn.
If they recapture their base's flag, all enemies will respawn.

When you respawn, you respawn on the beach, as opposed to inside your fortress.

Press B to recall to your base. Recalling will heal you.
Press Q to open your map and see your current level and XP.
Mousewheel to select inventory slots. Check settings for slot-specific bindings.
1234 to flip spellbook pages

ALWAYS close your portcullis when leaving the base. It's also good to close it even if you are going to be quick inside your base.

You can open and close portcullis and chests by holding E on them, but opening an enemy portcullis or chest takes significantly longer and makes a lockpicking sound.

You can craft items and eat soups to make things easier, as well as acquire additional spells via trading or looting. Crafting items is a core component of winning games consistently.

The ingredients to craft are delivered to you periodically by goblins if you have captured flags.

You spawn in with a spell book. Select it in your inventory via mousewheel or a binding you set in the settings.

Flip thru pages by pressing 1 2 3 4 on your keyboard.
Say the spell name to cast the spell.

You only need to say one word for the spell to cast, such as "Magic" or "Missile" instead of "Magic Missile," which is still fun to say.

Typically, being closer to the impact point of a spell means the spell will deal more damage, such as for Fireball.

If saying the spell name doesn't work, try pronouncing it differently. By default, it's an American accent.

If it worked once but not consistently, or it suddenly stops working: While in a game, press escape and click reset voice detection.

If you have an accent, change your accent settings to something that works best for you. The accents menu can be found via the main menu or accents button in the escape menu.

If no one can hear your microphone, you likely need to set it via the windows settings, as the game will only use your default windows microphone. To set your default microphone, you can press the windows key and type "Sound Settings", then change your default windows input.

You can find spells either in the Mausoleum, trading whatever held items you want to with Gnomes, or in chests in the Lava Castle.

These additional spells come in the form of torn pages and contain one spell per page, taking up one slot in your inventory per page.

Blink: teleport in your facing direction... thru walls
Dark Blast: piercing kamehameha attack
Thunderbolt: pin-point damage at range. Hits the first thing vertically downward from the sky, so it doesn't work as well against targets indoors. Has a small effective AoE.
Divine Light: AoE heal with no fall-off
Rock: Make big rock.
Wisp: used to find enemies even at great distance. Deals minimal damage and slows the enemy it hits.

Unless you are playing Deathmatch in the Colosseum, there are flags around the map for you to capture. Simply stand near one, within its circle, to capture it.

A flag captured by your team will have your team's hand-drawn image depicted on it.

With the map open, greyed out flags/zones are unowned. Red zones are enemy owned. Zones that are brightly colored and have a raised white flag are owned by your team.

Your team starts on one side of the map. The opposite side of the map has your enemies.

The rest of the map is generated randomly, seemingly to be weighted toward having diversity in the biomes. (more research required)

There should always be at least one non-capturable tile spawned, and there can only be one of each non-capturable tile, but there can be multiple of the same resource tiles.

For example, you can play on a large map with 3 mushroom biomes and 1 crystal cavern biome, forcing the teams to need to trade with the gnomes if they want to craft.


In Medium mode, there is one hex tile between each team.
In Large mode, there is one center hex surrounded by tiles on all sides, and the bases are located on far ends from each other.


Resources are periodically delivered to the owning team's base by little goblins that can be killed by either team in order to make them drop their items.

Crystal Cavern: Crystal
Forest Hills: Log
Frog Bog: Frog
Mountain: Rocks
Mushroom: Mushroom

XP is awarded periodically to the owning team of the biome.

Lava Castle: has chests that have spells inside. Also contains PvE (spellcaster) enemies that will respawn.

Mausoleum: has urns that can be broken to get the loot inside them (usually spells). Also contains PvE enemies (skeletons and a spellcaster). Also contains the Hilt and Blade of excalibur.

The Excalibur pieces take awhile to pull them each from their respective stone. Take both pieces to the crafting table (stump) at base to make Excalibur. The rumor is Excalibur is supposed to kill a player and prevent them from respawning, but I have yet to see it do so. At the time of writing this guide, it's just a strong sword with a cool kill effect (makes noise and has visual effects).

The skeletons are currently bugged and will just teleport around dealing damage to people. You'll know it's a skeleton damaging you if you see some bouncing skeleton legs nearby.

You can see your current level and XP progress bar via the map (Q).
Skull is the highest level (>12), and your fireballs will affect massive areas with huge knockback.

Each level improves the effectiveness of spells.
How much each spell improves and in what ways depends on the spell.
Typically, a spell's damage and area of effect improve.

For wormhole, it's the duration. At level 1, it's 30 seconds. At level 3, it's infinite.

To craft, you will want to reference the recipe list is on the crafting table (stump) near your base's flag.

There are starting ingredients randomly assorted in your chest at the start of the game. You get more by capturing flags, which will lead to little goblins delivering resources to your base periodically.

You take an ingredient, put it on one half of the stump, then put another ingredient on the other half of the stump. Poof. You crafted an item.

The only weapons you cannot craft with ingredients are Excalibur (found in the mausoleum) and torn pages. Excalibur can be crafted by finding both the hilt and blade, then putting them together via the crafting table, whereas torn pages cannot be crafted.

The recipe list is incredibly hard to read in-game, and even though I do love that, here's a better version that was found on their discord:

Soups are crafted by soup man when you give him an ingredient.
Soups offer, mostly, temporary buffs that persist after you die.
The effects of soup do stack, so multiple mushroom soups will let you jump higher.

Crystal: movement speed + spell power
Stone: Talk really loud, so everyone on the map hears you echoing
Frog: Your tongue will force people to drop their held item periodically
Mushroom: jump height + negate fall damage. Makes a boing noise when u jump
Log: Heals some HP if any is missing and adds temporary HP. Recommended to use when at full HP so you get the full temporary HP benefit, as otherwise you won't get as much

Default Combo: Freeze -> Fireball -> Magic Missile
- This is the general pattern you would want to use in most instances
- It is best to save Fireball for after the freeze ends to ensure maximum damage by hitting directly on the target. Note that the duration of Freeze scales with spell level but does eventually cap.

Thunderbolt Combo: Freeze -> Thunderbolt -> Fireball / Magic Missile
- Very high damage if Fireball is used as well. Magic Missile is desirable if we don't want massive AoE and knockback, but generally we want Fireball's damage over time from lighting someone on fire.

Thorns Combo: Freeze -> Silverseed Bramble (item) x 1-3
- Brambles can continue to deal damage to someone even if they are frozen. You could bramble them first then freeze if they don't see you, but sometimes a spell isn't even necessary then.

Freezing an enemy, then hiding behind them, works well as a temporary shield against incoming magic missiles. It also means that, in a 1vX scenario, where you face multiple enemies, their AoE spells would have to damage the other person, too. Finally, if the person unfreezes and isn't dead yet, they will have to look around for you.

You don't need to unfreeze a person with fireball right away. You can wait a little to help get your cooldowns back.

Damage frozen players with hard-hitting AoE spells instead, such as Fireball, Dark Blast, and Thunderbolt.

Track enemies down with Wisp.

To stop enemies from respawning, you need to capture their base's flag. To do so, we need to first get into their base.

• Front door: Hold E while continuing to stare at the portcullis for like 20 seconds to lockpick and get inside

- Fireball has a knockback and can counter this. Because it can deal damage through walls, casting fireball from the safety of the interior of a base is ideal if you think the enemy is about to finish lockpicking.

• Jump in using one of the following methods: Frog Balloon, 3-4x Mushroom Soup and find a nice boulder to jump off of, Mushroom Soup + Mushroom staff, "Boinger", Mushroom (ingredient), Levitator, Lv 6+ Fireball while jumping (u take a lot of damage though), Blink spell

- These methods all have pro's and con's but are generally preferred over the 20 seconds of being vulnerable lockpicking

• A player can press B to begin to recall at any point they aren't taking damage.
  
• Pressing B to Recall results in a loud sound effect as it channels as well as a glowing blue visual effect
  
• If a player starts taking damage, the recall is interrupted and would need to be restarted.
  
• If recall succeeds, the player poofs away with no noise at the location they are coming from, but there's a very loud and obvious noise at their base when they warp in.
  
• Recalled players will teleport to roughly the same location
  
• Recalled players will heal back to full health if injured
  
• There is a cooldown of ~30 seconds before you can recall again.

• Cast Worm or Hole then cast the other one later. Walk through and your two portals are set up
  
• A portal can be destroyed with a single cast of Freeze
  
• Walking through a worm hole results in a loud noise but not as loud as recalling to a base
  
• Attacks that are locked on to you when you warp will prioritize retargeting to you if you are within their range
  
• Fireball can be cast through a wormhole, teleporting it between portals
  
• Duration scales with spell level. Level 1 duration is 30 seconds. Level 3+ is ideal for infinite portals.

Now that we have effectively covered how spells work, some combo's you can use when fighting, and how to enter a base, it's time to talk about what else there is to consider.

I've added additional sections to talk about how wormhole works and how recall works, because sound cues are important.

Listen for footsteps and check the map with Q to see if they are friendly or enemy footsteps, as a giant wall in the way does tend to hinder sight, and you making noise by moving might alert them to your presence.

If they are an enemy and outside of the base... really who cares? They have to get inside to do anything. Just prevent them from messing with the flag and you will eventually win. If they do get in, figure out how, so if it's preventable you can stop it from happening again.

Do what you need to do in the base, and if you're defending, wait for an ally to recall in, then mess the enemy up. Otherwise, you can hit enemies through walls with a Fireball AoE, or you can climb to the top of a tower to do something about it.

If you have the Thunderbolt torn page and a levitator, screw around a bit by flying up towers and sniping people if you want, or just find a nice cozy spot to camp in.

When a person recalls to the base, they will always land in about the same area, so, when attacking, you can use a Frog Stick to steal their held item when they pop in, and then blast them, or you can just freeze them right away. If another person recalls right after, now you can fireball multiple people.

Crystal Orb helps show locations of enemies, so you can have teammates handle cleanup.
You can use Rock Soup to shout at everyone on the map if you want to start coordinating a bit more.

Using methods to jump / fly high enough can allow people to enter the fortress through the slightly larger/wider holes in the fortress. Shrink ray + jump / fly methods allow for people to enter through the small holes in the fortress.

Here are some of the most common strategies you can choose to follow, depending on your desired playstyle:

Default: On a team of 4, 2 people pair up to PvE or PvP and 2 people individually capture flags. After capturing a lot of flags, the team regroups, crafts items, then attempts to raid the enemy team's base all together. Use worm hole to get to prime locations to expedite rushing to the base.

Excalibur Rush: On a team of 4, 1-2 people rush through Mausoleum immediately to get Excalibur and spells.
- The spells from this, alone, already provide a massive benefit to the whole team. This is significantly better than rushing Lava Castle, which is the best alternative for early game spells.

Gnome Trading: On a team of 4, 2 people dedicate themselves to taking everyone's torches and/or some resources to trade with gnomes until they get the loot the team needs, such as Divine Light, Blink, and a Mushroom ingredient.
- This can work at any stage of the game, but it's generally useful early game to trade stuff the team doesn't intend to use for awhile anyway.

Team Rush Immediately: On a team of 4, 3 people immediately rush the enemy base without any items. 1 person captures flags. After 1 or more of the team of 3 respawns, the team of 3 then brings at least 1 item that would allow multiple members inside the base.
- Leave the 1 person capturing flags to help spot enemy flanks and to secure XP and resources.
- Generally, this strategy is the dumbest I'd recommend using, because it's fun to PvP but will get tiring dealing with respawns constantly, and at low level the PvP is a lot slower since spells don't deal much damage. All other strategies are preferable over this IMO.

Sneaky: On a team of 4, 3 people capture flags, pairing up 2 if desired, while 1 prepares to allow the team to flank. The 1 person crafts an item for themself to get into the base, and prepares worm hole for the team to flank the enemy base.
- This is easily thwarted early in the game, but it has potential at any point in the game.

Long Game: Capture all flags and hold all flags.
- In the Long Game strategy, you want to be the first to high level spells and you will dominate because of that. Resources are just a bonus if you are level 6+ and they are still stuck at level 1, since you kept hold of all the flags.
- The main issue with this strategy is that, if your team is spread out, your enemies can dog pile them and capture their nearby flags without much issue.
- This strategy is also very weak to early-game strategies, such as rushing mausoleum for Excalibur and spells. Your team will need to be good a PvP to steal these items back.


This list is not all inclusive. There are many other alternative strategies that exist and are of personal preference, such as hoarding and stacking soup or mixing and matching strategies. Try things out to find what you enjoy and works for you and your friends.

It is recommended that new players follow the Default strategy found in the "Common Game Strategies" section of this guide.

Ideally, you want to capture and control the majority of the flags on the map for the most time, and craft items to raid the enemy teams base with.

If you have spare items that you don't intend to use for anything, trade with the gnomes to get some other useful items. I usually like to keep my torch, but if I'm trying to rush the enemy team and win during the day, I'll trade it away.

It is recommended to drink frog* soup and use a frog balloon so you can quickly enter and escape without much issue, and when you do fight, there's a chance you'll take away the held item of the enemy.

If you are about to do an all-out battle, I recommend drinking log soup and crystal soup for extra HP, speed, and damage.

*At the time of writing this guide, the frog soup has recently been nerfed, but it's still a nice thing to have randomly happen to enemies. Just know, your allies aren't safe from it. The alternative, or additive to have, is the frog stick.

The game has a lot of RNG involved, but, late game, you generally should have enough resources to make just about anything work.

Otherwise, if you don't, your enemies should and you should be able to steal them from them :D

A fun tip is that torn pages have individual cooldowns, even if they are the same spell.

Tracker: Wisp + Frog Balloon + Crystal Soup + Mushroom Soup

Sniper: Stack multiple thunderbolt torn pages and keep at a pretty far distance. Also equip a levitator or similar to fly away as needed. Works well while camping in wizard towers or mountain.

Boinger: Use the boinger to bounce your enemies to space. Hilarious way to get kills and keep people out of a base. You can also aim at the ground to bounce upward and aim at a wall to bounce off a wall. Crystal soup if u want to be a little faster to catch people easier.

Healbot: Stack multiple Divine Light torn pages and always play around corners and objects, so you can just spam the AoE to keep healing your teammates.
- This build exists mostly for the memes
- This build loses its effectiveness late game, but it can be amazing early thru mid game at keeping an entire team of people alive. Realistically, when playing with random players, it is preferred if at least two players have divine light over this being stacked on one person, as people are more likely to split off then.

I AM SPEED: 4x Mushroom Soup + 4x Crystal Soup + Frog balloon
- Gotta go fast

Got your book: Frog Soup + Frog Stick + Freeze spell = Bad day to want to hold anything
- Generally a really terrible build past early game, but it is hilarious

1 person should always have divine light, ideally. One person should always have a way to get into the enemy base, ideally (I.E levitator / frog balloon).

Freeze: Freeze. (freeze ends) Freeze. (freeze ends) Freeze. Fireball (if not dead yet).
- I hate you if you do this. Generally, it doesn't work that well, but it can.

Fireball!: Everyone casts fireball at the same time. Since Fireball applies more damage when near the location, getting the timing right is important.

Hold Person: If you hold a person with levitator... they aren't knocked back by spells.... Enjoy!

Official Mage Arena discord here:

In addition to making mods for games and writing guides, I make YouTube tutorials and am an indie video game developer.

If you like this guide and want to see more of my content, such as YouTube videos and video games I make in the future, you can join my discord server here:

With my last few sections, I've wrapped up just about everything this guide was intended to teach. There are a lot of other advanced features and tactics I could get into, such as specific damage numbers and min-maxing things, but a lot of them would be worth their own guide and YouTube video to cover. I'll link them here if I ever make anything like that.

If there's something that needs to be changed, please let me know in the comments.

Thanks for checking out my guide, and please give it a rating!