First, I know its not all about spell points. But, I will show that its really important to take them into consideration when making strategic/tactical decisions.
Let me start with a statement: A well played wizard cant be defeated in early or mid game. Voltaric shield together with some armor and cheap teleport/mage wand allows the wizard to escape every rush. Therefore, if you play a wizard yourself or if you play against a wizard, you need to be prepared for late game!
Btw, late game is a complex word. What exactly is late game? I would say it’s the part in the game when you feel like your options or your opponents options during planning phase shrink. Lets say, you or your opponent is about to run out of cards from a category that is really important for his strategy (with category I mean: creatures/enchantments/incantations/attack spells/conjurations/equipment).
So the question is: What matters the most during late game? Here are a few possible answers:
Having higher channeling.
This does matter for sure. But, if you run out of cards (i.e. options), especially if you run out of creatures, your mana wont help you at all.
Board control.
Sure, it helps having more and stronger creatures than your opponent or lowering his channeling enough so that he can cast a costly spell every other round only. But again, if you run out of good cards while your opponent still has some nice options to choose from, you wont keep board control for much longer!
In my experience from over 300 games I think what matters the most are spell points. Let me give you a few examples to demonstrate what I mean. They will be somehow simplified but still they illustrate the point and things like this happen quite often in some variation:
Example 1: In school vs out of school creatures.
In your build (wizard) you focus on in school creatures. Lets say you have 4 hydras. Your opponent is a wizard too and focuses on out of school creatures. He has a grizzly and a grimson sniper. Both of you invested the same spell points, but you can bet, at some point during late game his two creatures will be gone while you still have 2 of your 4 hydras on the board. GG!
Well, someone might argue that the sniper and grizzly put you under enough pressure to pay for their spell points and will kill your wizard quicker than you can make use of your bigger creature pool. I don’t think so. Even with a sniper and/or grizzly its really hard to kill a wizard that has some armor+voltaric shield +regrowth on him and is supported by hydras/gremlins/gargoyles. In the end, the sniper/grizzly will die at some point without putting your wizard under enough pressure to finish him off. I had enough of those games.
What does this have to do with the topic of this thread? Its all about spell points! The grizzly/sniper costs twice as much spell points compared to the hydra. Therefore loosing the grizzly/sniper will hurt much more than loosing a hydra and at some point the out of school wizard will have no creature left while the in school wizard still has some.
Example 2: Equipment vs Dissolve.
Your opponent likes having more life. Therefore, he includes two sunfire amulets (which give +1 life each round) in his spell book for 8 spell points. You are a water wizard with 6 dissolves. During the game he will cast the amulet twice and you dissolve it soon. He will still get 2 or more life from it, but in the end he will have paid 8 spell points while you paid 2 (with mage wand even less). I cant stress enough how important this is! Two life, heck even six life, really don’t matter if your opponent spent six spell points more than you did! Late game is not decided by six more life (and, as I said, as a well played wizard or if playing against a formidable wizard you will reach late game for sure). Its decided by who has the better options to choose from.
Example 3: Essence Drain vs Dispel.
Your opponent casts essence drain four times during the game. You dispel all of them and some of those dispels come from a mage wand. You will have lost 8 or more mana, but your opponent will have spent 4-8 more spell points than you did. This is really in your favor! A reason I do not include essence drain at all in my wizard spell books. Another reason is that I prefer to just kill his creatures quickly. Therefore, an essence drain won’t pay off. A similar example is ghoul rot vs dispel. Although I have to say that ghoul rot is a much bigger threat than essence drain since direct damage hurts a lot more than lost mana.
Example 4: Mind Control vs Dispel.
Your opponent casts mind control four times on your hydra and you dispel it asap. Your hydra will be stunned a lot but in the end the Forcemaster will have paid 20 more spell points than you did. You will win late game!
But be aware: If the Forcemaster uses mind control+obelisk to kill your big creature, this can be a real problem. It costs you spell points as well and might put you under a mana disadvantage which hurts so much that in this case it’s the mana that matters, not the spell points. Therefore, against a FM a mage wand with dispel is quite useful. Mind control has to be revealed between action phases. The latest point he can reveal it is before the final QC phase. If you have enough mana, a dispel wand and no jinx on you, you can dispel the mind control before he can use it to kill your creature during next upkeep phase. You need to save quite a lot mana to do this and need a nullify on yourself to protect against jinx, but it can really be important to let your creatures survive this threat.
Example 5: Attack spells vs creatures.
Your opponent is a wizard that relies on attack spells instead of creatures. He cant focus you while you have a couple creatures out since killing a wizard with attack spells takes really long (if it ever works at all) and during that time your creatures will kill his wizard. Therefore, he needs to take care of your creatures first. But, on average he has to spent more mana than you did and even more importantly, he usually has to spent more spell points (if you dissolve his elemental wand and destroy wizard tower quickly). At some point during the game he will run out of attack spells while you have creatures left.
Something that is closely related to this topic is the question whether to have two distinct strategies or to focus on one strategy. For example, as a warlock having two strategies could be going the curse route while including some melee orientated enchantments/equipments. On the other side you could forget about melee and just put more curses into your spell book.
At first glance it might sound strange, but I believe its often better to focus on one strategy instead of having multiple. The reason is that if you go the curse route half-heartedly you wont reach the point at which your opponent runs out of dispels/purifies. Sure, you will be able to melee, but your opponent will be able to counter that without the need of dispels/purify (i.e. armor+guards).
Another example: You play an earth wizard. Is it better to have a turn to stone and a tanglevine or two turn to stone? Lets neglect that the latter costs more spell points for the moment. Often its better to have two turn to stone! The reason is that turn to stone and tanglevine have different counters (dispel and teleport). Therefore, if you have both spells, its likely that your opponent has enough cards to counter both. But, if you focus on one strategy (i.e. only turn to stone), it is more likely that you reach the point at which your opponent runs out of counters.
Let me summon up: If you think that your games will often reach late game, you really need to consider spell point cost when thinking about your strategy. Be aware that equipment with high spell point costs (e.g. sunfire amulet) will put you under a spell point disadvantage (especially if facing a water wizard which I am sure will become quite popular with Druid vs Necro). If your mage is not a wizard, mage wand will cost a lot too. Still, unlike sunfire amulet, I would advice to take one or even more mage wands into your spell book. They are just too good at conserving spell points.
Maybe even more important than high spell point cost equipments are big out of school creatures. If you have two or more of those creatures, you really don’t want to reach late game! Therefore, if playing a wizard, I think it’s best to take as few out of school creatures as possible since it’s the late game the wizard shines at!
For all other mages this discussion still is important. If you often play non wizard vs non wizard, it matters to think about spell points too. Your games might be quicker as compared to playing against a wizard, but still its not too unlikely that one of you will run out of good options at some point. If you don’t want to be that player, during spell book creation make sure to check whether that out of school card really is worth the extra spell point cost. Maybe you can substitute it with an in school card for nearly the same benefit or maybe digging deeper into an in school based strategy is better compared to having a backup out of school strategy.
