Temple Builds, Strong Combos, and Suggestions

[nitrodavid]

larger comps will stop narrow vision decks because the more players you need to play with a fixed deck the more likely you will hit an deck super effective against yours. then again if you have a tournament with more then 6 rounds you will likely give mages a 20-40 spell point side bar (depending on rounds)

[Tacullu64]

HoBS is overepowered based on it's versatility alone. If I need offense I can power up my melee. If I can't reach you I can heal myself. Or if I'm simply positioning I can add armor without actually playing armor.

All this for 5 mana. Add this to the fact they power the temple of light, adding offense and control elements.

That is alot more versitility then most builds can hope that fast.

To discount the Origins tournaments as relevant data is wrong. The power of that card was evident against.both new and highly experinced players.

What I am saying is not "did you beat this" saying that you can beat it proves nothing. Tell me HOW you beat it. All I am saying is that in the hands of a competent player the card is too strong.

I don't discount the results of the tourny at origins. My contention is talk of HoBS being OP is premature. Including the tournament(s) at origins there is not enough data to declare anything overpowered.

Some people might argue that Battle Fury is over powered. I wouldn't, but to some a warlock or forcemaster doing 14-18 dice of damage in a single turn is excessive. I've heard priestess players complaining that the Idol of Pestilence is OP.

Months ago, on these forums there was talk of there only being enough time to play two temples before you had to deal with an aggro build being in your face, and that temple builds might be a little underwhelming. Today, one tournament later, the HoBS is so OP it must be nerfed, immediately, or the game will be ruined.

I just think we all need to slow down, play some more tournaments, collect and anylize the data before we make a decision that something is overpowered and needs to be changed.

[cbalian]

I don't think anything needs to be done with EXISTING already IN PRINT cards.  IF HoBS is overpowered (and I personally don't think it is) then the better way to handle it rather than NERFING the EXISTING card is make a NEW card that is effective against it in the next expansion.

That does a couple things...
1.  Most importantly keeps the integrity of the game in tact (ie everyone has the SAME cards, I don't want to see 2 copies of the same card floating around)
2.  Is a potential future money maker for Arcane Wonders (because people will want to buy a NEW card that counters the conjuration).

And didn't they already make cards that counter Temple of Light...walls with LOS blocking,
And didn't they already make cards that counter BOTH Temple and Hand when adding cards with extra damage to conjurations like hurl boulder and whatever that catapult thing is for the Warlord.  So if you are looking for reliable strategies to deal with these so called overpowered cards they exist.

I'm not arguing the Hand or the Temple or even the combo is good, they ARE good but seriously people I've played against temple builds and I've never lost to it.  I don't see what is so overpowered or "too good" about it?

Put Hurl Boulder in your deck with that many dice in 1 attack AND +2 vs conjurations the temple dies in one hit, so they wasted a turn summoning it you used a turn destroying it I just don't see the big deal.

If you aren't running Hurl Boulder toss a big creature at it and it dies too.

But honestly whenever I've seen hand and hands and temple of light I just kill temple of light (I hate being stunned or damaged).  The hand doesn't bug me...giving them 1 extra dice that can easily miss me isn't a big deal, the armor or the healing is nice and all but isn't anything you can't out damage, so I ignore Hand.

So a reliable (has worked for me every time) strategy is destroy temple of light, ignore hand, kill mage, bamn win.  I don't care how many hands or temples they put in their deck and even summon quickly they still haven't won.

[nitrodavid]

hurl bolder does no extra, I think you mean force hammer for +2

[sIKE]

Have you played against a hyper aggressive FM with Bear Strength with 3-4 HoBS out?

[reddawn]

Have you played against a hyper aggressive FM with Bear Strength with 3-4 HoBS out?

Yeah, my simple My turn 2 Adramelech, turn 3 Slayer Bloodreaper gets 12 dice plus good burn chances and much more utility just as quickly, if not more so.  There are equivalent builds for most of the mages too.

That's why I just can't take that tournament and temple build seriously.  I've beaten it too many times with various big X openings to really buy that it works well.  It might work against a sub-par warlock opening but then the whole claim that the Origins tournament was somehow super-competitive is even more questionable.

[The Dude]

It was not super competitive. At all. If I can get a vampiress/intervention book to day 2 it says a lot. Because there were a few good players doesn't make the competition super at all.

[HeatStryke]

Did I say Origins was super competative? I said it was relevant.

One thing about Hand is it's cheap, very cheap. Even if you go through the trouble of breaking the things they are replaced easily. Add in two more things, the holy spawnpoint and the ToL.

Consider with 3 HoBS and ToL you're throwing out an attack each turn with over a 50% chance to stun. During all this the preistess is blasting away at one target with the temple, beating on another directly, and summoning reinforcements.
 
Now remember the Preist from conquest, we get to add burns to the mix too. This is not solely about the hand, or temple of light its about the whole kit and what it does. HoBS is simply the easiest thing to tag.

And I'm not sure comparing one stupidly agressive deck against another really proves anything. Even if you can out race the temple build, if most other builds are obliterated by it the point still stands.

[nitrodavid]

the stun rate of temple will always be 2/12 only the daze increases with X

[The Dude]

The point you are making is that ToL is good, and against better players, it may have some effect, but in the long run, it doesn't. There are just too many ways around it. And as far as Hands go, they are good. So what? They won't win you the game, not even with ToL. And having 4 ToLs in your build because they are just so good doesn't mean I'm going to strike them. You stun me? That's okay, I can still kill you. You daze me? A little trickier, but still not a bad thing overall.

Dependence on other cards instead of the mage is what loses games.

I'm not sure subjectively calling builds "stupidly aggressive" is the way to go about things either.

And how was it relevant? There were 14 players in the main event. If you are saying 14 players will tell you the meta, then I'm going to have to have you look up "relevant" in the dictionary. Sure, it may give you some insight as to what some people play, but the numbers just are not there to indicate what is really good and what is really bad.

[Koz]

I'll restate my position that I don't think Arcane Wonders needs to react to this too quickly.  Only if it becomes a long term problem should they take action.  I personally don't feel that HoBS is overpowered.  Good, yes, but not overpowered.  I've always thought it should be at least spell level 2 (if not 3), but oh well, done is done.

Just because HoBS is showing up in a lot of builds doesn't mean that something needs to be done about it.  LOTS of cards show up in most/all builds, like Teleport, Elemental Cloak, Dispel, Battle Fury, etc etc.  Just because a card is used a lot doesn't mean it needs to be nerfed. 

I'm of the opinion that "problems" like this need to fixed via new cards.  The Forcemaster vs Warlod expansion went a little way towards creating cards that deal with conjurations, but didn't do a good job of it IMO.  Cards like Earthquake fall short of the mark by being far too weak in how much damage it can do to conjurations (should have had an extra die and been critical damage), and cards like Akiro's Hammer are just too slow, too expensive and too fragile themselves. 

However, other cards can be made in the future that can help mitigate conjuration effectiveness.  I hope they don't go overboard in creating cards that are too good at taking out conjurations, because then conjurations would quickly become liabilities rather than assets.   

[Fentum]

However, other cards can be made in the future that can help mitigate conjuration effectiveness.  I hope they don't go overboard in creating cards that are too good at taking out conjurations, because then conjurations would quickly become liabilities rather than assets.   

I am kinda hoping that we will get a 'Geomancer' at some point.

 Could include conjuration spells which act as zone terrain, ice, snow, lava, mud, water, etc. with various effects.

 Also attack spells which target conjugations and or creatures, such as fissure, earthquake, tremor, monsoon, etc.

And equipment such as Piledriver, a giant jackhammer which causes damage on all non living conjurations in the arena at upkeep stage. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, etc.

[reddawn]

The point you are making is that ToL is good, and against better players, it may have some effect, but in the long run, it doesn't. There are just too many ways around it. And as far as Hands go, they are good. So what? They won't win you the game, not even with ToL. And having 4 ToLs in your build because they are just so good doesn't mean I'm going to strike them. You stun me? That's okay, I can still kill you. You daze me? A little trickier, but still not a bad thing overall.

Dependence on other cards instead of the mage is what loses games.

I'm not sure subjectively calling builds "stupidly aggressive" is the way to go about things either.

And how was it relevant? There were 14 players in the main event. If you are saying 14 players will tell you the meta, then I'm going to have to have you look up "relevant" in the dictionary. Sure, it may give you some insight as to what some people play, but the numbers just are not there to indicate what is really good and what is really bad.

QFT. Playtester tells it how it is.

[Guardian]

The point you are making is that ToL is good, and against better players, it may have some effect, but in the long run, it doesn't. There are just too many ways around it. And as far as Hands go, they are good. So what? They won't win you the game, not even with ToL. And having 4 ToLs in your build because they are just so good doesn't mean I'm going to strike them. You stun me? That's okay, I can still kill you. You daze me? A little trickier, but still not a bad thing overall.

Dependence on other cards instead of the mage is what loses games.

I'm not sure subjectively calling builds "stupidly aggressive" is the way to go about things either.

And how was it relevant? There were 14 players in the main event. If you are saying 14 players will tell you the meta, then I'm going to have to have you look up "relevant" in the dictionary. Sure, it may give you some insight as to what some people play, but the numbers just are not there to indicate what is really good and what is really bad.

QFT. Playtester tells it how it is.

Not all playtesters have it stated on their profile, or truly understand the implications of what is trying to be accomplished. There is more going on then a simple card nerf and the fact that this is being discussed in the open forums shows that some people don't really understand the current situation and how it should have been handled.

[reddawn]

See, that statement would be true if the posters concerned about HoBS were saying, "hey, that deck that won the Origins tourney sounds tough, how do I beat it?" 

But instead those same posters are actually saying, "Hand OP. Nerf Plox."

And in the context of a very small 14 player tournament, in which playtesters have already said there were a lot of new players, AND in the context that I myself play this game on a daily basis and see results that reflect exactly what the playtesters say (i.e., the people who probably play this game on a similar kind of basis) NOT what OP-criers say, I'm sorry, but I just don't buy that there is a "situation" at all.

I don't see it in my gameplay, playtesters (at least the named ones that actually care enough about the game to post regularly) don't see it in their gameplay, so I'm not convinced.