My only worry with Barbarian is that they have really done this sort of character before with the warlords. This worry also carries over to Paladin. All extra War mages have the power to make the warlords, and especially the bloodwave warlord, superfluous.

Oh look I have this all the access to war, the war mage only cards, and I do not have to restrict myself to that ability set. This is compounded in the case of a dual school mage, such as Paladin. Eaxctly how much war and holy does it get? Minor only but thats enough to depower the warlords, and potentially the priest as well.

Illusionary Construct
School Mind level 4
Type: Construct - Creature
Subtype: Illusion
Cost: 12
Armour: 0
Life: 9
Attack: 3 Dice
Non-living, Pyschic resistant, Ethereal
During the upkeep phase the controlling mage may pay 2 mana per ability, to gain any of the following, until the end of turn:
+2 Melee, Fast, Ellusive, Unavoidable, or may Heal 2 damage. 
Each ability may only be chosen once per turn and do not count as upkeep costs.

"An Iron Golem may serve to defend your body, but a creation of the mind will never rust." - Laddinfance, Primus of the White Spires.

Quote from: Beldin on April 10, 2016, 09:37:00 AM

I actually did not see another wizard at the event.

That's so not true Matt! You beat my Wizard... which was galling since it was a an anti-Wizard Wizard, but the dice did hate me!

So I did. The problem is Jon that you are my main opponent. I am sorry, but it blurred into the numerous games we have played against each other, including the one on the train upto the tournament. #Magesonatrain

This is the book that I played at the second London Tournament at Darksphere, where I came in 2nd place.

[spellbook]
[spellbookheader]
[spellbookname]Deadly Hydro Mage Offensive[/spellbookname]
[mage]A Wizard (Water) Spellbook[/mage]
[mage]built by the OCTGN SBB[/mage]
[/spellbookheader]
[spells]
[spellclass]Attack[/spellclass]
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKA01]2 x Surging Wave[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNA01]4 x Acid Ball[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1A06]2 x Flameblast[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX2FFA02]6 x Hurl Rock[/mwcard]
[mwcard=FWA04]1 x Hurl Boulder[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1A04]1 x Fireball[/mwcard]
[mwcard=FWA05]1 x Invisible Fist[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Conjuration[/spellclass]
[mwcard=MW1J07]1 x Gate to Voltari[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1J12]3 x Mana Crystal[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKJ02]2 x Wizard's Tower[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Creature[/spellclass]
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKC08]2 x Gargoyle Sentry[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1C05]4 x Blue Gremlin[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1C18]1 x Gorgon Archer[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1C21]1 x Huginn, Raven Familiar[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Enchantment[/spellclass]
[mwcard=MW1E20]1 x Harmonize[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E15]2 x Essence Drain[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E29]2 x Nullify[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX2FFE04]2 x Brace Yourself[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E36]1 x Rhino Hide[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E32]1 x Regrowth[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E21]1 x Hawkeye[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Equipment[/spellclass]
[mwcard=MW1Q15]1 x Leather Boots[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1Q07]1 x Elemental Cloak[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1Q06]2 x Dragonscale Hauberk[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWA01Q09]1 x Wispwillow Amulet[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1Q16]1 x Leather Gloves[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNQ07]1 x Veteran's Belt[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWA01Q04]1 x Leather Chausses[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Incantation[/spellclass]
[mwcard=MW1I28]2 x Teleport[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1I07]4 x Dissolve[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1I06]4 x Dispel[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX2FFI03]2 x Disarm[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX2FFI05]2 x Ignite[/mwcard]
[mwcard=FWI14]2 x Heal[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1I17]1 x Minor Heal[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1I20]1 x Purify[/mwcard]
[/spells]
[cost]Total cost: 120 pts[/cost]
[/spellbook]

Cards sitting at the 120-130 point range:

Eagle Wings (for the Gorgon), Purify, Hurl Boulder, Hurl Meteorite, Mage Wand, Hand of Bim-Shalla, Hawkeye

Opening:

Turn 1
QC: Gate (B1)
Move: None
FC: Mana Crystal (A2)

Turn 2
QC: Mana Crystal (A1) 
Move: A1 > B1
FC: Mana Crystal (C1)/Harmonise for Gate

From here the idea is get out all 4 Gremlins and then switch into hurl rock mode, optimised with Hawkeye. The rest of the book is a toolbox of spells to answer specific problems.

Now for an in-depth look behind a lot of the spells in the book.

Attacks

I have built a toolbox of spells to sit on my wizard's tower. I also hard cast these spells through hawkeye.

Surging Wave - I use this mainly for equipment rush decks, and warlords, that rely Battle Forge. Battle forge has Hydro +3 so I use this against my opponent and hit his forge with 12 dice in a single turn. I also use this as a slam generation part of my wizard tower toolbox to deal with guards.

Flameblast - Defenses are a problem for this deck as it effectively switches off the "hit it with a rock, if it doesn't work; use a bigger rock" mentality of this book. Remove the guarding creature with a defence with these if I can

Hurl Rock/Fireball/Hurl Boulder - Main Offensive spells.

Invisible Fist - Etheral spike Damage for when arcane zap on its own isn't enough.

Creatures

Gargoyle Sentry - Anti nuke books, also to guard the gate if I feel I can turtle due to the opponent coming to me more than me having to go to him. Intercept is golden.

Blue Gremlin - The Gremlins work in tandem with hurl rocks to be the main damage grind in this book. I also love to guard with these to play mind games with opponents who are not paying attention.

Gorgon Archer - Anti swarm device. This creature can drop a Falcon/Activation. Also can be used as a swarm distraction device, as while the opponent goes for the Gorgon I can ignore his swarm.

Hugin - I have thought about dropping his guy. He can be useful, but I am now leaning towards a mage wand or two, after realising the late game potential for a mage wand, especially if the match goes to time.

Other spells/tricks

Ignite and dispel/dissolve - Ignite is one of my favourite cards and of all of the nullify hunting cards out there, I feel it is the best one. Decoy is a great card, do not get me wrong, but what happens when its resolved? I get two mana back, yay? Zero Cost Purify? Meh. Id rather use it as a purge magic (see its section). Whereas with ignite if the spell completes I get a burn token on the opposing mage. If not then I pop a nullify and still get to remove the offending card I need gone.

Purify - This is another of those really interesting cards that I love. It removes a stack of rot tokens. One of the hardest to remove condition markers in the game, outside priest. Also I love to use this as a mini purge magic to remove a DOT clock with a single activation. Magebane, ghoul rot, plagued, etc are all poison so all can be targetted.

Wispwillow Amulet - For later game to counter the removal of a mana crystal.

And if you're trying to tell me that when building a deck you needn't worry about cards that aren't in your deck, you've got to be kidding.

Well yes to a degree. Metagame wins out here, I never worry about all of the cards in the current set just the good ones. Out of the entire set there is a toolbox of cards that every mage will use or atleast consider. For example a Gate of Voltari has more play than a Gate to Hell. I will always take in school mana source over out of school ones, same with chest armour. This is a game of building an efficient engine after all that also has a toolbox to deal with the greatest threats.

Can I suggest the wispwillow amulet instead of the moonglow? It will not slow you down as much. And maybe a second one for when the first one dies out.

Casting 2 Wispwillow amulets uses 2 actions and 6 mana, lasting only 12 turns. A Moonglow amulet uses 1 action, 6 mana and lasts infinite turns. Not saying it is a wrong move for some books, just it is action inefficient.

1. Arena has a lot more board game mechanics that Academy does not, in fact Academy only has 2 of the listed mechanics listed for Arena. This does indeed make it arena lite. Your argument against this is flawed. Academy lacks grid movement thus the skills of arena do not hold true in the lighter game. Also honestly are you telling me that the concepts of armour, damage levels, buffs, debuffs, defence vs armour, etc; do not have a place in Academy? if the there was not overlap in the card strategies then the cards would be a nightmare to design. You would have to design a card that was balanced in one game and then take it and rebalance it for the other, and in rebalancing it juggle carefully. Are you telling me that AW opened this can of worms for themselves?

2. with soo few spell book points the books will autobuild. Everything will be a core card and there will be little room to make it a rounded toolbox.

3. I am sorry but this is just wrong. You seriously cannot tel me that Academy can take on magic. This game has had 25 years of design and has a card pool of over 10,000 cards. I am not saying there is no point to make a card game in the current ccg/lcg market, jsut do not make grand claims that are just not true.

4. is just whining.