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Personally, with skeleton books I always take an armory. But that might be just me, since the gencon winning book didn't have one and still won a tournament.

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Within more causal metas this works fine. This is far too inefficient for me and who I play against. I wold rather harmonise the temple so it automates and generates a creature quicker. If mana is a problem then maybe priestess wins out.

I harmonize only if I try to turtle in the corner (like when I face a forcemaster). Otherwise it just makes the temple something that should be destroyed, and spending 14 mana and 2 actions on it makes many opponents consider spending about the same to destroy it (it has only 8 life 3 armor).
And anyway, I don't really plan to bring a creature in the second round, since I am actually playing a melee build that would use most of the first rounds on equipping and enchanting the mage.
In a meta where adramelech warlocks are too common, priests might be not so good, and priestesses would usually be a better choice (because they transfer the burn back to you). In a meta where adramelech warlocks are rare enough, after PvS the priest became a very decent mage in my opinion.

With PvS out HA got much better with the inclusion of the breastplate that allows you to gaurd and the noble vanguard there are many options to trigger the HA, my two favorite targets for HA are the asyran defender and white cloak knight. White cloak knight is still a little squishy and I usually invest some mana to protect him while asyran defender has built in defense so I feel there is no need to invest anymore mana into him after making him HA. In my current priest book which I run a temple sentry, a noble vanguard, a temple highgaurd, and two asyran defenders.

Well, even before PvS you would usually run at least 2 creatures, one to guard and one to avenge (when I have enough mana it would be a knight of westlock holy avenger with a guardian angel as the guard, but many times I use cheaper creature). Definitely PvS made some better options for the priest, especially when it comes to attack spells and conjurations, and temple high guard might be a better choice for a guard than the guardian angel in some cases. I think that overall PvS made the priest a decent mage, with some really nice new tricks in his sleeves.

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Seems nice

I think that chant of rage is a little too conditional to take 3, perhaps trading one for Lullaby will be more effective.

I've never seen a meditation amulet used without a spawnpoint. What do you plan to do with so much mana and so few actions?

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Quote from: Super Sorcerer on January 07, 2017, 07:26:59 PM

"Magma Golem's Burn conditions damage all other creatures in its zone.".

Even if flame conditions do in fact still deal non-typed direct damage, this quote says "all other" not all. If Magma Golem takes damage for his/her burn conditions, you are failing to follow the instructions on his card.

There are 2 damaging effects here - the normal burn rules, and the golem special rules.
the golem take damage from the standard burn rules, and the other creatures take damage from the golem special rules.

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I didn't build a book using Ehren yet. I really need to.

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I heard that both in 2015 and 2016 there was an aggro forcemaster book that got into he semi-finals. I think it means they count as "competitive".

Personally, I like to have one non-thoughtspore creature  in my forcemaster books. Until recently it was usually a bridge troll or a necroprian vampire, but now with the siren's capability to neutralize single creature I am considering moving to skeleton nights. I didn't try Alandell with a forcemaster yet, but I've heard it is a good option as well.

Smashing things with galvitar is still a viable option, and a really fun one as well ^_^

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The Paladin's starting book got loads of creatures, and a spawnpoint that can spawn only 2. It is also a melee book that need the full actions to make melee attacks (or activating auras). That means a large portion of the book is just wasted.
To test the Paladin I dropped some things that came in several copies, and put in a temple of asyra, a dawnbreaker's ring, a bear's strength and some other minor things. it is still a testing book and not really competitive, but it is just easier to test all these new things when I could actually use them, instead of just having them in my book without any chance to see the board.

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I don't use OCTGN, but generally I build books by first taking the auto include essentials -  a teleport, a few dispels and item destruction spells (dissolve/crumble/explode/corrosive orchid), with some mage specific essentials (like cantrips). Then I add the spells that I am going to use if everything goes by the plan (if my plan include using a teleport, then it is in addition to the essential teleport). then, I start to think what is my book weak against, and take some counters for that. Eventually, if I had too few spellbook points then I add some more fun in-school things, and if I had too much spellbook points then I drop some spells that I am not likely to use.