Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => Mages => Topic started by: sIKE on January 24, 2014, 10:38:56 AM
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In the game as is he is a mediocre tanker, Warlock, FM, and Priest do it much better. He probably has some of the best creature selection out there that synergies with his special ability. There in lies his biggest issue, Flock of Falcons? Make one a pet?
I drop Orb and Obelisk game over. I win with the Warlord.
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(http://semiaccurate.com/assets/uploads/2012/03/I-See-What-You-Did-There..png)
And it seems that as a swarm, he might start to be outclassed by the necromancer.
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And to top it all, not only does he have such mediocre abilities, nobody ever steals the Beastmaster's spells!
You never see Grizzlly, Bear Strength, Regrowth (Belt), Eagleclaw Boots, Mongoose Agility etc in other books...
Just compare Lair to Temple of Asrya, Pentagram or Barracks, it's so inferior!
Why have a Fast Flyer cast in Final QC when you can have a Slow Crawler?
Why have a QC Defence 8+ next turn guard when you can have a Block?
The Straywood is sooo mediocre, sooo 2012-2013 fashion....
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Wow you got my point, his creatures are so good that they work just as well with the other mages. You swarm I Orb & Obelisk you, I win.
Cold hard truth. Get a little piercing, and that bear goes down much quicker than you would ever expect.
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ANd lets not get started on that stupid looking beard he's got.....
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Oh, it's ON now!
--Except I got beaten to the punchline. Bah!
*sits back down, mumbling to himself*
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Are Obelisk and Orb that widely played?
It seems like they are troublesome cards, but maybe countering with Force Hammer and some small hit(s) wouldn't be so bad?
To me the biggest problem is that there are three very different ways of attacking a swarm of weenies: Mana taxes (Orb/Obelisk/Cloak), area attack (Ring of Fire, etc.), or Mass Sleep. Each requires very specific counters, and in particular area attack is tricky as the best counter is a pre-emptive Etherian Lifetree.
That said, swarms are really potent. Being able to get 12 dice of damage into the far corner on T3 is nice, and adding ~6 dice a turn from there is nothing to shake a stick at.
If your opponent doesn't have any good anti-swarm plan, they will definitely lose.
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If you drop 2 mana flowers you are now channeling 11, if you have 3 creatures (and it is even worse with more) out after Channeling then after Upkeep you are at 8 and not have enough to cast it and if you did carry mana some over and had the mana to cast, you would then have to get into range costing mana.
While you are struggling with this, I do nothing to your creatures other than avoid them use pushes and teleports to keep your pain up while moving a few big around to kill your mage. It is a slow and painful death, unless you don't pay the Upkeep on your creatures and then it is a quick and painful death.
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Swarms can become ridiculous very quickly when you use cards that buff all your creatures at once. My current beastmaster deck is based on this concept - swarm with level 1 creatures and use global buffs like lifetree, the totems, and Call of the Wild to drastically increase their efficiency. Against control builds, my strategy is Mana Prism to compensate for temporary loss in tempo coupled with targeting the source of my woes and destroying it as soon as possible. Stack a few global Charge + 1 and Piercing + 1 and Orb/Obelisk will melt like butter before the combined might of a (primarily fox-based) swarm. Also contains corrosive orchids and dissolves to deal with pesky suppression cloaks and armor. With Altar of the Iron Guard, you can even quick summon bobcat guards during quickcast to protect your beastmaster that turn. This build has been effective for me in past games.
I would say that the beastmaster is pretty good. No other mage really has the same swarming capabilities from the start of the match - closest comparison is the necromancer and the druid, but they take a little while to build up. The beastmaster can not only swarm faster than any other mage from the beginning of the game, but (crucially) has more global buffs available cheaply for his creatures than any other mage. In addition to his excellent global animal buffs, he also has cheaper access to holy and war zonal buffs than the druid or necromancer - he can use both fortified position and sacred ground at only double-cost. Also, Rajan's Fury combos very nicely with zonal enchantment buffs because if they stay in the zone your creatures get the buff and if they leave the zone, your creatures charge. Overall, I would say that this ability to globally buff creatures is the beastmaster's greatest strength (along with the ability to pump them out quickly)
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I think the current best way to stop the obelisk/orb combo with straywood is to give your beastmaster fast and then use force hammer on the obelisk as soon as you are in range. Intercepting creatures will probably shut down this strategy though. You could try using a push effect to move the interceptor(s) out of the zone, them casting force hammer. After that, your beastmaster needs to make a quick getaway so they can summon more creatures. Unfortunately, a complicated trick like this will probably cost like twenty mana.
I think it might need reminding that the advantage with using swarm is sheer number of actions. A good swarm is one that either 1. overwhelms the enemy by sending more creatures after them than can be dealt with at once other than with a zone attack, or 2. Makes a smaller swarm strong enough to still have a good action advantage and buff it. I think swarms should ideally go after the enemy in waves, with the size of the wave depending on the number of attacks the enemy can make against it in one round. Unlike the Necromancer, the beastmaster likes to buff his swarm, and I think he could like it more than the Druid too. I propose that another conjuration like Rajan's fury and Tooth and nail be made, but for giving animal creatures armor +1. The straywood beastmaster should be using a smaller swarm and supporting it with buffs to give them more armor, better attacks and even healing.
This doesn't completely solve the orb/obelisk problem of course. I'm wondering if perhaps the straywood beastmaster could lessen orb/obelisk impact by not summoning their entire swarm right away. Let's do some calculations.
If you summon 6 Bitterwood foxes it costs 30 mana. Add in Rajan's fury/tooth and nail for 7 mana a piece. So now you're at 37 or 44 mana. Way too much to spend as quickly as possible.
But wait a minute, the beastmaster channels 9 mana per round! Why not split it up more over time?
Round 1: (19 mana) cast a mana flower, and ring of beasts (-7)
Round 2: (22 mana) move, cast a Bitterwood fox and a conjuration or zone enchantment that raises their armor; -12 mana (in whatever order is optimal)
After this, use your judgement to decide when to summon more. You need action advantage and buffs to beat the enemy mage. If your opponent has no creatures guarding them, and you have a mana flower, ring of beasts, two foxes and a Rajan's fury (-22 mana out of 39) go ahead and send them in to attack already. Your opponent will have to spend their actions dealing with your two foxes, giving you the chance to summon more of them. And since there's only two of them, your opponent probably won't use a zone attack or orb/obelisk. If your opponent does have a powerful creature, chances are it won't be able to stop both of your foxes from reaching the enemy mage, and if they send their big creature at you instead of your swarm, be ready with a block. (-22 + -4 out of 39) If they have two creatures, you should either summon another level 1 animal, or you could tanglevine one of the enemy bigs (-26 + -5 out of 39.)
If and when they do put down orb/obelisk at least part of your swarm should already be in or adjacent to the enemy mages zone, and therefore between 0 and 2 zones away from either conjuration.
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This thread cant be serious....
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All good points Imaginator, however Orb+Obelisk would require more than just a single Force Hammer. When played, what I like to do is drop Obelisk at the end of the round of the opposing mages initiative, preferably when there is little to no mana pool on his side. Then I would skip casting during First Quick Cast Phase and my first action would be to activate my mage and quick cast (if needed when opposing mages creatures are 1 zone away) Force Wave, then drop orb using my mages Action.
I haven't played a mana denial deck in a while, but once it became legal Altar of Piece would be dropped when you finally got your creatures in place to attack Orb/Obelisk/Altar and I think a couple of Pacify's on your fatties and it would be lights out. Such a long, boring, and yucky games they are though.
This is why BM is not wining competitions or serious games.
@jacksmack - fo real it is!
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Beastmaster with Pet & Grizzly is perfectly capable of winning serious games. Competitions are for Wizards only though.
Beastmaster Swarm can't win against competent players without a serious imbalance in the dice rolls, because there are far too many cards that each counter a Swarm build almost single-handedly. Damage shields, zone attacks, and mana denial are the main ones. Place two cards in any combination of those dozen+ options available in your spellbook, and your opponent's entire Swarm build is shut down hard--at the cost of 4 - 8 of your own spellbook points. Those cards are often useful against non-Swarm builds as well, so there isn't even really a tradeoff to consider when including a few anti-Swarm cards in your book.
That's the main reason why Swarm just does not work.
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I've been using the Force Hammer, my mage, and my swarm to take down the Obelisk. Maybe I'm just new at this but it doesn't scare me that bad. Been playing one to two games a day for a little over a month now against about a dozen different players and yes swarm works. Either the Obelisk comes out early game when I don't have that many creatures thus it isn't as effective or it comes out late game when I probably have enough creatures to just bum rush it. The orb makes it irritating yes but once I have my beasts in place I don't really need to move them anymore do I?
Mind you all my friends and I are new to the game like I said but thus far we haven't seen any one mage/style just dominate totally. We're starting tournaments at a local game store next month though so who knows.
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If you're playing twice a day for a month you're not new anymore. Your group strategies may (or may not) be sheltered, but you personally have plenty of experience.
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Yeah, I play twice a week and I feel like that's a lot.
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I live with two gamers and am an active member of gaming club based on UNCC campus(I'm alumni though.) It aint hard to find matches. Also we're all trying to learn the game so we're playing like crazy. Even working full time and playing about six games of hero clix a week it's not been that difficult to get games in. There are about 6 or 7 core sets and about 5-6 copies of every expansion floating among the group right now with about 3 more core sets coming in this week and next. I should honestly buy stock in Arcane Wonders :)
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"In the game as is he is a mediocre tanker, Warlock, FM, and Priest do it much better. He probably has some of the best creature selection out there that synergies with his special ability. There in lies his biggest issue, Flock of Falcons? Make one a pet?
I drop Orb and Obelisk game over. I win with the Warlord."
Give the beast master the force bash, teleport, mage wand, summon grizzly: YOU WIN unless opponent is FM or wizard, rock
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Opening with Lair in near center + Ring means that you can summon a big creature once every other turn at least.
Second turn is either a pet timber wolf if the opponent gets close or battleforge + harmonize if the opponent doesn't. Then simply alternate playing creatures when the opponent has initiative and equipment when you have it. Try to float 6 mana for teleports/dissolves/dispels, prepare utility or reaction spells.
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You know Ring doesn't work with lair right?
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Whoops. Make that harmonize then.
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I was going to build a Beastmaster till I realized the Necromancer swarms so much better
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Necromancer makes better for swarming, but enchanted pets is something to be feared
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The reason to swarm with the Beastmaster instead of Necromancer is flying. Falcons rule. Until every mage starts packing multiple mage staffs that is...
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I can't tell if this thread is serious or facetious...
[...]This is why BM is not wining competitions or serious games.
But, Alex West won the Gen Con Master's Tournament with a SBM Flyer Swarm.
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Look at the dates. This tread was serous when it was written 10 months ago.
It just goes to show the game has a lot of buried potential and any current ideas about what the best strategy is are likely to be proven wrong in the future.
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But, Alex West won the Gen Con Master's Tournament with a SBM Flyer Swarm.
Ok. But that can mean 2 things, not just one.
The obvious thing is: alexander west played really good with the beastmaster, so it seems the beastmaster isn't weak.
The other thing is: his opponents weren't that strong at all.
I consider the beastmaster very strong because his abilities add up really well. Summon animals with the lair or the quickcast ... Attack together with your pet to safe mana and maximize the damage. Thats a pretty good synergy.
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I can't tell if this thread is serious or facetious...
Heh. Actually, sIKE is being facetious, yes. It was his tongue-in-cheek response to my post about the Malakai Priest:
http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=13586 (http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=13586)
My post was serious though. And I still think he (Priest) isn't a very good mage. ; )
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I can't tell if this thread is serious or facetious...
Heh. Actually, sIKE is being facetious, yes. It was his tongue-in-cheek response to my post about the Malakai Priest:
http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=13586 (http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=13586)
My post was serious though. And I still think he (Priest) isn't a very good mage. ; )
So says you! >:) I still think the BM isn't very good. Looking at his "synergy" is all fine and dandy, but it is waaayy too easy to flip that synergy and take his head just like the Kurgan. Fun matches he is ok to play, a throw back surprise at a tournament, you will get a way with it once, but not a real contender overall. The Priest is still my favorite :) though I really do like that new Dwarf Warlord.
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The Priest is still my favorite :)
I built a priest book that sets the world on fire and summons demons...
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Well, I made most of my points about the Priest in my original thread, and for the most part that hasn't changed. (Except maybe casually insulting the Warlord, looks like now it's going to be the Johktari Beastmaster that gets all the scorn. ; )
Actually, I think it's great that we can have such differing, yet logically supported opinions on this. Helps demonstrate that Mage Wars is a complex and fun game, with no single winning strategy.
My opinion is still the correct one, though! *ducks and runs*
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Okay... so... the straywood beastmaster won the tournament. He still looks silly with that beard!
I wish the warlord had fared better at Gencon. And did I miss it or was the Necromancer completely unrepresented? I'd like for all the builds to have a shot at winning so that player skill is the deciding factor. I think the beastmaster aviary is an affirmation for how balanced the mages really are. A single new card like Etherian lifetree can have a huge impact down the line. Here's hoping an overlooked card in some future expansion (or already released product) puts the Warlord over the top at the next Gencon. Goblin Aviary!?
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There were 5 Necromancer books at Gencon. along with 5 ForceMasters and 5 or 6 Wizards.
3 of the wizards made the final 4.