What's New?

Posted January 31, 2010.

Blog update to change the name of the tiers and magical store products and spells. I focused on the tiers, so you'll still find references to things from the original game if you read the blog carefully.

Another thing is Sougata Som (many thanks) came across information regarding Big Blonde Guy's attack bonus - 30% o-O

If you're into duel, that's a really good advantage over your opponents.


Posted January 27, 2010.


Yes, I am aware of the changes. If you don't, please read this.

Do actively send this week's limited gift - it's worth it.


 Posted December 21, 2009.



I think players are still reporting rollbacks. So I believe we're not out of the woods yet. There's been no announcement from the developer yet. Please be patient.


- 500 hall passes for: New Weekly Limited Edition Item (Items) - 10" Goblin Ore Power Wand -  (A.48 D.12)

- New Weekly Limited Edition Gift (Magic) - Incantus Stopus - (A.10 D.22)
Collect 20 this week to get that 5% boost on TAP.

Posted November 14, 2009.
Pages updated: Real Estate and Lessons. Real Estate page now contains more information about purchasing properties and how much rent income you loose when you go over 3 days without collecting. Lessons page now contains more detailed information about Lessons targeted to new players/beginners.


Which reminds me, it takes a lot of work and time to make this blog. It is OK to pass out the info you find here on the Forums, which for me, it's normal and expected, since we're all here to help out. But to copy and paste verbatim entire posts without at least putting a link back to the blog or mentioning the correct author is just wrong, not to mention a complete disrespect. (hint: I spoke with Katz and he said he has no idea why he's receiving the credit)

Posted November 9, 2009.

The game is back to what it used to be before the Friday's updates. At the present moment, the advices on this blog are relevant again.

But in case you haven't heard, the developer is making adjustments to the game, he's particularly keen on changing the weight of the Attack/Defense points which will impact people's ability to duel. Right now, I strongly advise you to ignore my comments regarding skill points although the developer said that when he is ready to change the TAP/TDP algorithm again, he would consider resetting all the skill points allocations. This way players will be able to reallocate their skill points accordingly with the new rules, so that no one will end up with the short end of the stick.

The developer also started a thread in the forums where you can voice your opinions regarding the changes proposed to the current dueling system. Click here to go to the forums and voice your opinion and suggestions. This is probably the only game on FB where the developer actually listens to the players.

Welcome to the School of Wizardry

First a little disclaimer - I am not affiliated in any way to the game's developer. I'm just a player, like you, who stumbled upon this new and very addicting Facebook game.

What I intend to do with this blog is to help people that might have just started playing the game with little tips and advices so you don't feel overwhelmed. I have some experience with this type of games, I've been playing Mafia Wars (If you don't know what Mafia Wars is, no problem) for a couple of months now, and School of Wizardry is basically a Mafia Wars set in a... School of Wizardry.

Between you and me, we all know the name of the school, but.... since the H name is nowhere to be found in the game, I will called it SoW.

Finally one last note: the game is new, so the developer is still working and making changes to it, some for better, some for worse. So a tip or advice given here might suddenly become obsolete. Hopefully I will find out, or someone will let me know, and I'll correct it.

Well, that's it, and I hope you enjoy the game, see you around.

Update: I created a quick start guide if you already installed the game on your Facebook. 

Quick Start Guide

So you just started the game, don't have time to read and want to get it over with? This is what this quick guide is for.

First thing you'll want to do is click on Lessons and look for the first one: Accept Invitation....

Click on Do Lesson 5 times, that's how many experience points you need to level up, get all your stats refilled and 5 skill points.

Once you master the first Lesson, click on Diagon Alley and buy yourself 4 robes. If you buy them all at once it will cost you only 800 gold. Then see how much money you have left. If you have 4,000 gold, buy a sorting hat. If you have 9,000 buy 6 11" Holly Wands. If you don't have enough gold, just go to the next step.

Click on Visit Bank (your best friend) and put all your gold away lest someone attacks you and steal it.

Click on Profile and put all your skill points into energy, unless you know how dueling work (read the duels post), I recommend you to stick with lessons. Only when you're more familiar with dueling you should start increasing your stamina bit by bit. But whenever you don't know where to put your skill points, just increase your energy.  

You will never have too much energy. Never. Trust me.
(and if you are an experienced player, you must be amused)

(At the beginning you level up so fast that you can even forget that you have skill points available to upgrade your character as you can see on the picture above)


Go back to lessons and you'll see the yellow border gone from lessons you now have enough required items. Do lessons until you master all of them and repeat the process.

If you run out of energy and you haven't level up yet, bank all your gold again and go to the Duel page.
A super quick dueling tutorial - On the left side you'll see the opponent's stats, on the right side yours.

Look for someone with a smaller or same order size than you and ignore the rest for now.

You remember the items you bought at Diagon Alley, don't you? You should have at least 4 robes by now if you followed my instructions.

Click on you opponent's name and you'll see their profile. Check out their items. If they have less than 4 robes and nothing else, attack! Repeat the process until you level up.

When you level up, go back to lessons, use all you energy, make the purchases you can. Put your skill points into energy. Don't waste them with Attack and Defense.

Bank all your gold and go back to duel. Always make sure you have more order members/items/magic/creatures than your opponent. Don't put skill points in stamina until you learn how to win duels and you're comfortable doing it. Also, don't go crazy on the stamina because you only have so much health.

Remember to save gold so you can buy Real Estate. If you save 200,000 you can buy all 10 Candy Shops at once (because this game has inflation), and you'll have income even when you're not playing the game.

That's pretty much it. Have fun!

Update: For more information about lessons, click here.

Before Getting Started

The good thing about SoW is that there's more than one way to play this game.

The bad thing about SoW is that there's more than one way to play this game.

Some people play it to complete lessons, some people like to duel other players to see who's the strongest, some people want to have the largest order in the game, some people want to reach for the top of the ranking (some players do it at any cost) and some people just do it to rob other players.

Unfortunately before you even start the game, you are faced with the decision of choosing a character, a main component in the game that heavily influences your playability. He or she will dictate your rhythm, the pace in which you will be able to play this game. Therefore you must have your goals in your mind from the beginning, because your goals should dictate which character you should choose for the game, although you can change it later, but it's rather costly (The Headmaster).

You'll see as you continue.

Getting Started

Finally to the nitty-gritty.

First, the link, http://apps.facebook.com/wizard_/.

Then of course, click on allow.

You'll be prompted with three choices: Let's call them raven haired, broken wand and bookworm.

This is where the planning mentioned earlier comes into play. Because each character has distinct strengths and weaknesses, it's best to choose accordingly with the way you want to play this game.

Raven haired generates:
Energy - 3 minutes
Health - 2 minutes
Stamina - 4 minutes
Gold - 60 minutes

Broken wand generates:
Energy - 2 minutes
Health - 2 minutes
Stamina - 3 minutes
Gold - 80 minutes

Bookworm generates:
Energy - 3 minutes
Health - 3 minutes
Stamina - 2 minutes
Gold - 60 minutes



If you would like to duel more, then bookworm would be the best choice since she can generate stamina every 2 minutes.

If you'd rather do lessons, which is my favorite way to play the game, you need energy. So broken wand would be the first choice although his poor performance in gold may frustrate you later, because you'll need a lot of money to finish lessons.

Raven-haired is a balanced character and I particularly wouldn't choose him, but if you must choose him, I would say he's better suited at dueling, since he can generate health every 2 minutes.

There are other characters you can choose from, but not right now. After you made your choice, remember to put the name for your character on the field next to where you click "Start Playing". (for some strange reason there's lots of people with default names)

If you mess up, go to the application page, remove SoW and reinstall it. It will prompt for you to set it up again.

Next step is to invite your friends to your order. This game has no minimum order member requirement in order to play it. But, the bigger your order is, the better you'll be a dueling/defending yourself. I would say invite all your friends and beg them to install the game, whether they play it or not, it doesn't matter. You just need the headcount.

If you don't mind strangers in your Facebook account, go for the Mass Add lists (where you can invite hundreds of people at once) and/or Add Me threads in the forums all over Facebook and on the SoW application page discussion forum.

Click here to see all other characters.

The Game

At the top of the page you'll find your stats - Level, Experience, Energy, Health, Stamina and Gold.

Under 4 of them, whenever necessary, you'll see "Get Refill", "Visit Nurse". "Visit Bank" will always be visible.

The "Visit Bank" link is your best friend. Especially because if you duel someone or if someone duels you and you are defeated, if your gold is not in the bank, you'll loose your gold too. I've been attacked and lost hundreds of thousands of gold before, so be careful, and deposit your gold in the bank, even though it costs 10% of the amount deposited. You have the choice to either pay 10% in bank fees or loose 99.9% of your gold on duels. There's a lot of people complaining in the discussion forums about players attacking with the sole objective to rob them. Don't be a victim, remember, CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!

"Visit Nurse" will take you to the nurse who can refill your health back to 100%. But you can only do this once every 5 hours and it isually it costs 100 times the level you're in. For example, if you are in level 10, it will cost you 1,000 gold. If you're in level 35, it's going to cost you 3,500 and so on.

Both "Get Refill" links will take you to The Headmaster, who will heal you Energy and Stamina and even health for 200 hall passes. This is a waste and in my opinion and you should never use your hall passes for any of these.

Below your stats you'll see the tabs where you can navigate through the game. They are: Home, Lessons, Duel, Diagon Alley, Real Estate, Gifts, Profile, The Headmaster and Order.

Home will take you to the main page where if become fan of the application you will be able to see the posts from the developer. He usually let us know about the changes in the game and stuff like that.

Lessons will take you to the lessons, the core of the game.

Magic Shop You will need items, magic and creatures to complete lessons and also to equip your order. This is where you'll go to buy them. Items and creatures can be purchased using gold. Magic can only be purchased using hall passes. Again, in my opinion, this is a poor way to use your hall passes.

Real Estate tab will take you to the properties you can buy. This is also the tab you have to go in order to collect the rent. Do not leave rent uncollected for more than 3 days, otherwise it starts to disappear. There are 9 different properties in the total although you won't be able to see them all until you reach a certain level.
You can only buy 10 of each property. I will list all the properties in a different post.

Gifts allows you to send free gifts to your friends. They are free, so do it. You'll also get hall passes when your friend or order member accepts them. It's a win-win situation. But you can only send one gift to 16 friends, once a day. You can choose from 3 boosts, Energy, Stamina and Health or you can choose from 8 types of magic. Some of the magics require your fellow order member to be above a certain level of experience before they can be used in a duel.

Profile - when you have skill points available this is the tab you'll go to use them to make your character better. If you're a Lesson person, you'll want to use it all on Energy, if you're a duel person, you'll need to put your skill points in stamina at first, eventually you have to balance between stamina and health. I particularly find a waste of skill points to use them for Attack and Defense. Best way to boost your attack and defense is getting more order members and having more items, creatures and magic.

The Headmaster takes you to a special shop. You can purchase a limited edition item (usually for 500 hall passes) but also:

Energy refill - 200 hall passes
Stamina refill - 200 hall passes
Health refill - 200 hall passes
More gold (the amount varies according to your level) - 250 hall passes
More order members (also varies according to your level) - 400 hall passes
(10) More skill points - 325 hall passes
Pick a new name - 400 hall passes
Pick a new character - 400 to 8000 hall passes
Reset Account - 500 hall passes

And you can also buy hall passes with cash (real cash, like US Dollars cash) or you can complete offers in order to get more hall passes. (Sometimes even if you do everything exactly like they ask you to, you still don't get the hall passes for some weird reason - I'm talking about the free offers, not the hall passes purchased with cash)

Order - You go to this tab if you want to invite your Facebook friends that are not part of your order yet. You can invite only 16 friends per day (I think). Under this tab you can also see all the members of your order.

New Tiers Name

It used to be Year 1, Year 2... Now they are:

Portsville
Beginnings
Apprentice
Duel!
Mystical Forest
Gateway Woes
Trouble
Attack!
Wizard World
Closure