Commonly Useful Spells

[lettucemode]

I do sometimes use 1 copy of Piercing Strike but it's more a meta decision (we know why).
I appreciate nonliving needs Commands (Golem + Charge, Brute + Evade though Force Push more utility).
Otherwise the whole Persistent Enchantments vs. cheaper one-shot Commands is flawed.

Persistent Enchants (with Ring) + Resilient Creatures (for multiple enchant use) is way more efficient.
Especially as creatures are often gamelong.

...

AW trying to make Commands work is intrinsically flawed based on efficiency analysis. Hence the Warlord issue.

More efficient, yes, but also more vulnerable. Any persistent or triggered enchantment can be dispelled, and will be if its effect on the game is high enough (e.g. Bear Strength on a Grizzly). Meanwhile a Power Strike user can give that same effect with extremely little counter-play.

The Warlord's Command Ring intensifies this effect...he ends up only spending 1-3 mana a round buffing his creatures, meaning he has enough to summon a level 4 one round, then buff it the next, then summon another level 4 the following round, etc. Persistent enchantments can't achieve the same effect on a mana pool, and they are not more efficient if they get dispelled one or arguably two turns later.

[jacksmack]

I do sometimes use 1 copy of Piercing Strike but it's more a meta decision (we know why).
I appreciate nonliving needs Commands (Golem + Charge, Brute + Evade though Force Push more utility).
Otherwise the whole Persistent Enchantments vs. cheaper one-shot Commands is flawed.

Persistent Enchants (with Ring) + Resilient Creatures (for multiple enchant use) is way more efficient.
Especially as creatures are often gamelong.

...

AW trying to make Commands work is intrinsically flawed based on efficiency analysis. Hence the Warlord issue.

More efficient, yes, but also more vulnerable. Any persistent or triggered enchantment can be dispelled, and will be if its effect on the game is high enough (e.g. Bear Strength on a Grizzly). Meanwhile a Power Strike user can give that same effect with extremely little counter-play.

The Warlord's Command Ring intensifies this effect...he ends up only spending 1-3 mana a round buffing his creatures, meaning he has enough to summon a level 4 one round, then buff it the next, then summon another level 4 the following round, etc. Persistent enchantments can't achieve the same effect on a mana pool, and they are not more efficient if they get dispelled one or arguably two turns later.

i disagree so much.

Say im a BM with a grizzly bear and lets leave rings out.

If i play power strike i spend 2 mana, but my opponent spends 0 mana no action.
If i play Bear strength i spend 5 mana, but my opponent spends 5 mana and spends and action.
The result is the same: 2 extra dice rolled.

How can you ever value 3 mana more than taking an action from an opponent and 5 of his mana.
(this is assuming that he bothers with dispel)


There are a few situations where i could consider using powerstrike:

When you got a low HP creature that your sure will die this round, but gets to take its action (attack) and you really need 2 more dice rolled on a target.

When a creature already has Bearstrength for a mega roll especially if that creature is wounded and has vampiric.


Regarding the Ring of Command - It sucks.
You cannot cast it early on and start benefitting from it right away like you can with enchanters ring or Arcane ring.
It also costs 1 more mana so you can cast it round 1 can get 0 benefits until round 4~ish and by round ~7 it has repaid itself. Then you would have been better off casting a flower and get a stable income that doesnt require you to spend an action on a war spell.
If you choose to cast it just before starting the war spell spam, then you spend a valueable action when the clash begins on saving a little mana 3-4 rounds later.

[baronzaltor]

Speaking of dark goodness, necropian vampiress is so good she even appears in occasional holy builds despite triple cost

Good point, Baron! Vampiress and Grizzly are "go to creatures" for an aggressive Arcane mage build. But triple?
We both know that Divine Intervention + Vampiress (for distance resilience) is flawed against most solid builds.
With Raptor Vine and Zombie Brute (and Thornlasher board control), we need to re-evaluate these older builds.

I think I've confused "splashable" with top schools here, my bad. Everyone splashes Arcane and Nature spells.

An example: say there was the following mage:

Magician (region: Kharhaz) - a mysterious master of diverse magics who can shift his magical allegiances
Trained in 2 schools of your choice. Pays triple for 2 major schools of your choice.
You need not declare your training unless required to so as to check play legality.
You must declare your training at the end of the game when revealing your book.
You may hand in a new spell book list with different training between tournament games.
Channel 10, Life 32, Melee Basic 3

This mage would be released in an unthemed Utility Set with just extra copies of Core Set spells I've listed.
I am also exploring the "information is a resource" concept of Prophetess above (while having a cheap dig).

I think the most popular default training choice (before scouting tournament meta) would be
"Trained in Arcane and Nature, pays triple for Holy and Mind"
(Already experimenting Thornlashers snatching into Hydra pits).

This gives an indication of just where the 6 Major schools stand in terms of utility and power ranking.
Arcane 1, Nature/Dark 2, Rest 3
This is because in school elements of the other 3 major schools are debunked:
(a) Commands don't work for Living, War = Battle Forge, equips & Battle Fury
(b) Actvive Healing is too action & mana intensive, the inverse of attack burst
(c) Too much Unavoidable/Psychic Immune, Mind = Force Push & novice Decoy

AW need to work on making those other 3 schools contribute more cheap spells to every spell book

(Baron & Kharhaz, let's not argue Dark is such a strong school as it begs the question about the focus of the next release...)

Oh, I wasn't getting in on the argument there.. I was just adding my Honeybunny vampiress to the list of great cards out there. (she has always been one of my favorite cards). 

Id mention another factor that strengthens Arcane though that doesn't get brought up often... its also an issue that has always annoyed me about the schools in general.  Arcane has magic and mana flavored cards but it also gets metamagic, which means it contains all of its own counters.   So an Arcane mage not only has an edge on you with those core utilities, but he also edges you out if you try to run counters on them.    I think counter magic and mana denial should have a been Mind spells with a "force of will" flavoring.   It would make it easier to swallow that Arcane can run more Teleports, Harmonizes, Wands, Transfusions and Wardstones and so on if they weren't also the mage who could easily pack more Dispels, Nullifies and Jinxes too.   Arcane should have tricks and mana, but someone else should have counters and mana denial to break up the overall monopoly Arcane has on itself.   A card like Mana Prism really should have been a Nature or Holy card as it is made to combat a theme that is almost purely Arcane, (with a little Mind for Supression Orb), while the Prism itself is an Arcane card.

Schools containing their own counters is something that irks me in general… Mind Shield is a Mind Spell, so the mage who can use it most easily is the one who needs it the least.  The spell was made to help protect other mages from all the new mind school control effects, but it is governed by the same mage (honestly, it should have just been Novice).   Dragonscale Hauberk is a fire spell, so the nature mages who pay triple for fire spells AND generally have a fire weakness have the hardest time using it while the Warlock with multiple fire immune creatures and fire attacks (and his own school-unique armor) can run it easily.  Having schools contain their own counters has just always kinda bugged me.

[Aylin]

Schools containing their own counters is something that irks me in general… Mind Shield is a Mind Spell, so the mage who can use it most easily is the one who needs it the least.  The spell was made to help protect other mages from all the new mind school control effects, but it is governed by the same mage (honestly, it should have just been Novice).   Dragonscale Hauberk is a fire spell, so the nature mages who pay triple for fire spells AND generally have a fire weakness have the hardest time using it while the Warlock with multiple fire immune creatures and fire attacks (and his own school-unique armor) can run it easily.  Having schools contain their own counters has just always kinda bugged me.

This is very true and annoying.

[lettucemode]

Say im a BM with a grizzly bear and lets leave rings out.

If i play power strike i spend 2 mana, but my opponent spends 0 mana no action.
If i play Bear strength i spend 5 mana, but my opponent spends 5 mana and spends and action.
The result is the same: 2 extra dice rolled.

How can you ever value 3 mana more than taking an action from an opponent and 5 of his mana.
(this is assuming that he bothers with dispel)

You may as well not count the opponent losing 5 mana since you also lost 5 mana for casting the Bear Strength in the first place. So in the end, you can either pay 2 mana or your opponent's action for +2 dice. I certainly see the benefit in that. However I value my investment in the next turn's mana more than I value taking up an opponent's action. If I only use a few mana every other round, then I can bring out Thorg, Sir Corazin, and/or grizzlies every other round (the Forcemaster-Grizzlies book does this). That sort of mana management is not possible if I'm casting Bear's Strengths. And if you add in the Warlord's ring and helment, now it's 1 mana for +2 dice and you don't lose a card from your spellbook for your trouble.

You cannot cast it early on and start benefitting from it right away like you can with enchanters ring or Arcane ring.

It also costs 1 more mana so you can cast it round 1 can get 0 benefits until round 4~ish and by round ~7 it has repaid itself.

If you choose to cast it just before starting the war spell spam, then you spend a valueable action when the clash begins on saving a little mana 3-4 rounds later.

I don't think it matters when you start getting benefit from it. Two or three level 4 creatures will easily last 7+ rounds. That is plenty of time to get the benefit from the ring.

you would have been better off casting a flower

[Kharhaz]

Magician (region: Kharhaz) - a mysterious master of diverse magics who can shift his magical allegiances
Trained in 2 schools of your choice. Pays triple for 2 major schools of your choice.
You need not declare your training unless required to so as to check play legality.
You must declare your training at the end of the game when revealing your book.
You may hand in a new spell book list with different training between tournament games.
Channel 10, Life 32, Melee Basic 3

This mage would be released in an unthemed Utility Set with just extra copies of Core Set spells I've listed.
I am also exploring the "information is a resource" concept of Prophetess above (while having a cheap dig).

LOL

I am a hardass! 2 schools of my choice? Sweet

I wonder if there is any chance of getting this thread back on topic

[Aylin]

Magician (region: Kharhaz) - a mysterious master of diverse magics who can shift his magical allegiances
Trained in 2 schools of your choice. Pays triple for 2 major schools of your choice.
You need not declare your training unless required to so as to check play legality.
You must declare your training at the end of the game when revealing your book.
You may hand in a new spell book list with different training between tournament games.
Channel 10, Life 32, Melee Basic 3

This mage would be released in an unthemed Utility Set with just extra copies of Core Set spells I've listed.
I am also exploring the "information is a resource" concept of Prophetess above (while having a cheap dig).

LOL

I am a hardass! 2 schools of my choice? Sweet

I wonder if there is any chance of getting this thread back on topic

Not at this rate! (As I make yet another off-topic post).

I think part of the problem is that there are only a few spells that appear in pretty much every book. Not much more to say after that.

[MageMuse]

Id mention another factor that strengthens Arcane though that doesn't get brought up often... its also an issue that has always annoyed me about the schools in general.  Arcane has magic and mana flavored cards but it also gets metamagic, which means it contains all of its own counters.   So an Arcane mage not only has an edge on you with those core utilities, but he also edges you out if you try to run counters on them.    I think counter magic and mana denial should have a been Mind spells with a "force of will" flavoring.   It would make it easier to swallow that Arcane can run more Teleports, Harmonizes, Wands, Transfusions and Wardstones and so on if they weren't also the mage who could easily pack more Dispels, Nullifies and Jinxes too.   Arcane should have tricks and mana, but someone else should have counters and mana denial to break up the overall monopoly Arcane has on itself.   A card like Mana Prism really should have been a Nature or Holy card as it is made to combat a theme that is almost purely Arcane, (with a little Mind for Supression Orb), while the Prism itself is an Arcane card.

Schools containing their own counters is something that irks me in general… Mind Shield is a Mind Spell, so the mage who can use it most easily is the one who needs it the least.  The spell was made to help protect other mages from all the new mind school control effects, but it is governed by the same mage (honestly, it should have just been Novice).   Dragonscale Hauberk is a fire spell, so the nature mages who pay triple for fire spells AND generally have a fire weakness have the hardest time using it while the Warlock with multiple fire immune creatures and fire attacks (and his own school-unique armor) can run it easily.  Having schools contain their own counters has just always kinda bugged me.

In my humble opinion, the cleaniest tweak would be to make Nullify, Dispel, and Jinx into Novice spells.  That and Teleport only targeting friendly creatures.  Don't know if that would be enough or too much, but it would certainly tilt the power away from Arcane.  Would certainly help out the Warlord.

[ACG]

I agree with baronzaltor. If you want to heal then you have three different ways to do it: direct healing through holy, regeneration through nature, or vampirism through dark. Each has advantages and disadvantages, but since the ways to heal are spread across three different schools, no mage is left out from healing.

If you want to destroy equipment then you also have several options. The water school has straightforward dissolve, the fire school has the more aggressive explode, and the nature school has a conjuration with a built in dissolving ability. The mind school can actually steal the equipment.

In the case of counter-enchantments, however, the arcane school has a monopoly. Ludicrous. The best way to solve the problem is to give a few other schools different ways of dealing with enchantments, in the same way that multiple schools have ways to heal but those ways are meaningfully different.

I also think that some of the basic metamagic spells should have been novice, but I would rather avoid more erratas.

I have no problem with schools containing their own counters. But they should not have a monopoly.

[Aylin]

I agree with baronzaltor. If you want to heal then you have three different ways to do it: direct healing through holy, regeneration through nature, or vampirism through dark. Each has advantages and disadvantages, but since the ways to heal are spread across three different schools, no mage is left out from healing.

If you want to destroy equipment then you also have several options. The water school has straightforward dissolve, the fire school has the more aggressive explode, and the nature school has a conjuration with a built in dissolving ability. The mind school can actually steal the equipment.

In the case of counter-enchantments, however, the arcane school has a monopoly. Ludicrous. The best way to solve the problem is to give a few other schools different ways of dealing with enchantments, in the same way that multiple schools have ways to heal but those ways are meaningfully different.

I also think that some of the basic metamagic spells should have been novice, but I would rather avoid more erratas.

I have no problem with schools containing their own counters. But they should not have a monopoly.

Casting the Holy school healing spells is the most inefficient way of healing though, since it takes an action every time it heals.

Explode and Corrosive Orchid are also prohibitively expensive if you aren't trained in Fire or Nature, respectively. Not to mention the mana cost of those is much higher as well.