Koz, to me, that all reads as good sense advice. Well written. 

It's a terrible spell.  Look if you see some equipment out there you want to destroy with an enchantment on it, people are just going to not risk the destruction spell until they have 4 extra mana, and then they won't have to worry about this spell at all.  Plus, it costs the caster 6 points to force his opponent to spend 4 point extra to destroy it so you're not even getting an economic advantage.   You've heard of throwing away good money after bad.   This is the equivelent of throwing away good mana after bad.    If the spell cost the opponent more than the 6 it cost the caster, then MAYBE it would be worth it.  (still a weak spell since it can be planed for)

You're awfully confident about a card you've neither played, nor had played against you (or are you a playtester?). Armor Ward seems pretty similar to Suppression Cloak, and I haven't heard from anyone yet who thinks Supression Cloak is terrible.

If you're looking for a hard-counter, like in Magic the Gathering, obviously this isn't it. Mage Wars doesn't really have those (except, so far, Divine Intervention at 12 mana). But this spell doesn't seem any easier to play around than Nullify, and I think everyone agrees that Nulify is pretty great. After all, all you have to do to trigger a Nullify is play a Decoy on your opponent, and you'll get your mana back, too.

It's weird to me that you think people won't try to dissolve equipment unless they've got 4 spare mana, just because the opponent has a face down enchantment. Do you play around Nullify and Reverse Magic this carefully, too? There's a lot of things that enchantment could be, and you'll feel kinda silly if you let my face-down Bear's Strength prevent you from Dissolving my Lash of Hellfire.

You're right that the worst case scenario for Armor Ward is that the opponent guesses what it is, has the extra 4 mana to pay, and then never tries to Disolve any other equipment for the rest of the game. That's a 4 mana for 6 mana trade, and a loss of 1 action of tempo.

But that's not actually any worse than the worst case scenario for Nullify: the opponent guesses the Nullify, then doesn't cast any spells on the protected target. 2 to 0 mana trade, and loss of 1 action of tempo.

Rereading the rules, I see that,

Equipment spells have a range of “0-2”. Normally, a Mage will be casting equipment only on himself. But, if he wants to cast it on a friendly Mage (in a team game), or have a Spawnpoint such as Battle Forge cast the equipment on him, then the range requirement must be checked. You can cast equipment on an enemy Mage too, but you cannot cast equipment on a location that is already taken on that Mage. You may not have more than one equipment spell with the same name attached to your Mage at any time. Some equipment spells have an attack bar on them, and give your Mage a new attack he can perform. When the Mage makes an attack, he can choose to use an attack printed on an equipment card, instead of another attack he may have.

The rules don't exactly specify whether or not a mage can attack with equipment that is attached to him but controlled by the other player, but the rules clearly allow you to cast equipment onto your opponent, so there shouldn't be any problem having equipment attached to one player but controlled by the other.

Absent further clarification, I'd assume that you can attack with a weapon attached to you in your weapon slot, even if you don't actually control it?

Re-read the card. It doesn't expire; it's a suppression cloak for your artifacts. And it can come as a surprise the first time. If you counter an opponent's spell with it, it pays for its own tempo (and likely its own mana), then sits around draining mana until it's dispelled.

It's a 2-for-1 in both mana and tempo if it catches the first dissolve, then catches a dispel.

And I really wouldn't want to try dispelling high cost artifacts through one of these. 8+4 is 2 turns of mana for an opponent's agro deck, where 8 is only 1 (assuming he's spending to 0 every turn).

It's an enchantment, so it works with Enchanter's Ring, and it's meta magic, so it works with Arcane Ring, and it's Holy, so it works with Ring of Asyra. It's got a "protection" keyword, too, which I'm sure will be useful soon enough. It protects against abilities that destroy artifacts, not just spells (Druid?).

It's protection for your wands that can't be baited with a Decoy (Nullify) or Arcane Zap (Jinx), and it's compatible with Nullify so you can stack both.

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The major downsides I see are a hefty spellbook price for Warlock (5 points), and Wizard when compared to Nullify (4 vs 1). If agro Priestess (or Priest) is a thing, Armor Ward plus Battle Forge seems like a pretty good way to start. Oh, and it's actually the same spellbook price as Nullify for Warlord!

The more I look at it, the more I love all the design details in this card. I'm not certain it's good (might be kinda situational, requires playtesting) but damn if it isn't beautiful.

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Will it prevent the attack from an Explode? I'm thinking no (a shame) but it might, depending on what is meant by, "Destroy the chosen equipment. Then Explode makes the above flame attack against the target Mage."

My regular opponent plays an Earth Wizard, and uses teleport trap with Poison Gas Cloud to good effect. I can tell you from experience that Getting teleported or pushed into the cloud is frustrating, especially when the Wizard is more than 1 square away from the Cloud, so that the teleport wastes the attacker's first turn, and the Cloud's hindering effect wastes the attacker's second turn.

That said, if I go full offensive rush with a Pet Bear attack by turn 3 or 4, I can usually force him into his backup plan and he'll summon one or two Iron Golems instead. They're probably the hardest creatures to kill in the game, and they're extremely mana efficient. So maybe consider those as a good backup plan.

Aside from that, the Cloud is kind of fragile if your opponent brings an ethereal attack (mage staff, many of the attack spells).

The real mana sink in this strategy is going to be the upkeep on the Turn to Stone. It's a neat idea to stick it on Malacoda, but I don't know if it's 4 mana a turn neat.

And, one more...

5. Can you use this system to evaluate the efficiency of using Banish on a Lord of Fire?

I'm in the wrong half of PA to join you guys (Lancaster), but if any of you have access to the beta of Facebook's Graph Search, there are 7 people who're fans of Mage Wars who have their city listed as Pittsburgh, and a few more from surrounding towns.

Shoot me an e-mail if you want help with this.

After some thought, why not just give a Grizzly Eagle Wings?  I can't see Valshalla operating as well with the BM as with the Priestess. With the Priestess, she offers tension between killing Clerics and killing her; in your build, there is no such tension and an opponent could just focus fire her without punishment.

I mean, it's an interesting idea, but competitively speaking I'm not so sure it would work out.  I think including a couple Clerics to support a Gizzly, rather than a few small critters to support Valshalla, could be a better idea and less painful on your 120 point book limit.  I think an "Animal Cult" build like your has potential, but I would recommend starting small with Clerics.  I'd also recommend the combination of Wand of Healing and Staff of Beasts; it would make your bear nigh-unkillable.

I thought we were talking about teleport.  

You're right that the Valshalla costs 6 more deck points over another Steelclaw. And actually, if I cut the angel I'd probably add in an Eagle Wings, another Force Hammer (or maybe 2 Geysers), a Poisoned Blood, and I'd swap the Bearskin for a Dragonscale Hauberk.

But in mana cost during play, Valshalla is actually a point cheaper than a pet Steelclaw (the book's other major opening), and the opportunity cost of the Eagle Wings on the Griz is Vampirism or Bear Strength or whatever on Valshalla.

My thinking is that I pay for book choices at the end of the game, when I run out of spells that I want to cast. I pay for creatures at the start of the game, and if I can win the first engagement decisively I can end the game before I have to pay for my book at all.

Similarly, in this book, I'd rather have 2x Heal than 1x Heal and 1x Mage Wand. Wands make sense for control books because they're re-useable and more versatile, but they're also slower and more mana-expensive than just stacking an extra heal in the deck, so I'm not in love with them for an agro book that needs to prioritize economy and speed.

Also, maybe things are different in other metas (mine's small and new), but wands seem to be choice targets for enemy dissolves. This deck, for example, packs 4x Dissolve, and has no intention of allowing an enemy to use a wand unless it's very late game (and if it's very late game, I've probably lost anyway).

All that said, here's a rough outline of the plan with Valshalla:
[ol]
  [li](19) Walk, Ring of Beasts, Fox. -6[/li]
  [li](22) Walk, Fox, -4[/li]
  [li](27) Walk, Fox, Disruption to their anti creature strategy, whatever it is. (Agony or Disolve or Teleport, depending on who the enemy is). Foxes get into combat. [/li] -9 or -10.
  [li](26) Valshalla. -21. First fox probably dies, Valshalla hopefully gets a counter. Nullify or Vampirism depending on available mana.[/li]
[/ol]

The version of this that uses the Falcons is similar, but with less disruption or less falcons.

Valshalla can obviously be cast on turn 3 if there's no good disruption target, but the goal is to provide the tension you talked about between killing foxes and attacking Valshalla. Asyran Clerics have healing and armor, but Foxes and Falcons have teeth and talons. And in this book, with no Lair, no Mana Flowers, and not even a Harmonize or a Moonglow Amulet, I'm looking for every point of damage I can get.