Thanks for the Replies Everyone.

While I appreciate your detailed analysis Nihil, anytime you have to preface a statement with I am not intending to be rude generally means you are about to be rude. Perhaps you need to take a step back and reevaluate your approach to talking to people, especially if you are this interested in bring more people to the game. There were one too many condescending statements in there for my tastes.

Irregardless, you are correct that this game might not be for me, which is a real shame. I will play some more games with friends and see how it goes. Its funny, I have no problems with dice rolling in Pen and Paper, Miniatures, and board games, but when it involves cards it just feels wrong.

Thanks,
Korvanus

Try not to let the dice get you down.  While you can certainly be unlucky, I personally don't feel that the dice are overly swingy.  Strategy, tactics and spell book design are FAR more important than the dice.  I think that if you develop your overall strategy and tune your spell book you will find that the dice will rarely be the deciding factor of a game.  Sure, they can and will be the deciding factor on a single attack, but overall it really will average out and you should be fine on a game by game basis.

I haven't seen this issue yet.  Wand's tend to just be Dissolve bait so they don't tend to stick around long (even with Nullifies and Reverse Magics protecting them).  If you are running out of Dissolves and/or Explodes then you are probably destroying too much equipment.  Those kinds of cards should be reserved for equipment that is a direct hinderance to your strategy or is really, really good (Wands, Suppression Cloak, etc).  Don't just toss out the Dissolves as soon as your opponent plays some equipment, wait for the big stuff and you should be fine.

Technically Seeking Dispel cannot be countered by Jinx since Seeking Dispel prevents the enchantment from being revealed as soon as it is cast.  Not that that's a big deal since it amounts to the same effect (except the player of Jinx saves one mana since they don't have to pay the reveal), but I'm just pointing it out.

Your argument is assumption backed by applied mathematics, but it doesn't make your argument any less an assumption.

I'll explain:

You are stating that X is always true, so Y is the conclusion. However, X is not always true, so your "always" conclusion is a logical fallacy.

Your examples of the "best" means of harassing an opposing Mana Crystal only take creatures into account. Your examples play the assumption that you are never going to move your mage by the time it takes a Mana Crystal to break even. These are unrealistic expectations of gameflow.

Your logic, within the confines of your defined parameters of "best" is sound, but your parameters, themselves, are false.

-nihil

While what you say is true, I think he was just looking at the fastest and most efficient way to go after a crystal that is on the opposite side of the board.  Sure, you will be moving your mage during this time, but what are they going to do to the mana crystal that is cost efficient?  They could use an Incarium Longbow (I've seen this done and it's not a bad play), but other than that I don't see a lot of efficient options.  Surely you wouldn't waste mana on an attack spell to go after a crystal would you?  I don't think that's a wise use of your mana, IMO.  Even if you "only" spent 4 mana on a Jet Stream or Geyser, that's still almost the cost of the crystal itself...so you're not really gaining anything.  

You could get the fast trait on your mage and haul ass straight for the crystal and start whacking it in melee, which would be cost effective, but then you aren't attacking their mage so I'm not sure that's the best play either (it's not necessarily a bad play, just questionable)  

I think it's a legitimate question.  Is it worth devoting resources to going after a mana crystal or mana flower?  IF, and this is the question, you can take it out BEFORE they break even on the mana cost of casting it, it's a great play, but it seems pretty hard to do that without spending more resources than you are denying your opponent, or dedicating too many attacks that could be (theoretically) targeting their mage.

People who are discounting spawnpoints based solely on mana cost alone are overlooking the action advantage it provides.  Mana cost vs. mana generated is a logical calculation to be made when considering things like Mana Crystals / Mana Flowers, but I would argue that the number of actions you are able to preform per turn is a more important resource than mana is.  Spawnpoints allow you to continue to summon creatures into the game without spending an action to do it, and having more creatures out gives you more attack actions per turn.  Spawnpoints basically create an ever increasing tide of action advantages that cannot be overlooked when calculating their usefulness.

I love the Gorgon Archer as well for all of the points you mentioned.  Sure, she's expensive and Slow, but she's a beast, and tends to survive a long time with her her innate regeneration.  The ability to inflict Weak is awesome and in my last game I reduced Brogan to one die per attack (the lowest it can go).  Forcing your opponent to spend valuable resources on removing those stacks of Weak is great, especially since you are (hopefully) doing damage while you are inflicting the Weaks.  Love her.

As for the Wizard's familiar...he is VERY good.  Normally casting a "counter" spell such as Dispel, Dissolve, Seeking Dispel, etc is generally a wash resource wise (on average both mages spend the same mana and the same number of actions).  But with the familiar casting these spells, you are gaining a mana advantage AND an action advantage...that's HUGE in my book.  Having that thing flying around and knocking off other mage's equipment and enchantments is crazy good.  However, that bird is a big target because of this as well.  As soon as it hits the table, it will be target number one for me.  Enjoy that Jet Stream to the face!

Quote from: "Koz" post=1494

By the way, I'm not sure why this is, but maybe you can answer this as well Arcanus.  I bought the Core Spell Tome from my local game store, but it cost $30.  I asked him why it cost so much, when it's only $20 online, and he said that he paid $20 from the distributor himself.  At first I thought it was just an online only product and the distributors were paying full price, but when I read your comment about your plan to "sell through the retailer" I was a bit confused.  Do you have any insight on why there is such a cost difference for that product between online sales and my local game store?

Hello Koz, sorry for the delayed response. That is weird!  We sell the Core Spell Tome to ALL distributors for $8.  That is our standard price worldwide.  They, in turn, sell it to retailers for $10 (25% markup).  We sell to the 8 largest  distributors in the USA.  Retailers should be able to buy the Core Spell Tome from any USA distributor for $10.  Retailers in turn, double the price to $20 when they sell to customers.  Those margins are standard throughout the industry.

If your retailer pal would like to contact us, our phone is 972-429-4791. If a distributor is unfairly marking something up we can take care of that very quickly!  

Thank you very much for the honest and straight forward response.  Very refreshing for a game company (you guys remind me of AEG with your frankness, and they are a company that I love).  I will pass this info along to my local store owner and see what the deal is.  He is a long time friend of mine so I know he was telling me straight when he said how much his cost was on the product.  

Thanks again!

I thought Jinx was amazing the first time I saw it too, but then I thought about it.  You are using an action to cast Jinx and ultimately spending 3 mana (2 if you have Arcane Ring equipped).  Your opponent gets his mana back, plus the spell goes back to his spell book, so all he loses is an action...you lose an action, 3 mana and a spell.  Not exactly a winning proposition for the mage who played Jinx.  There are certainly a few times I can see it being used effectively, such as when you have your opponent on the ropes and you are trying to prevent healing/escape, but it's not nearly as good a card as you would think at first blush.  

So, yeah, definitely not a six per book kind of spell for any mage, unless you enjoy spending resources so that both you and your opponent can lose an action.