Sardonyx- Ever used?

[TeenageWargamer]

Title says it all, awesome card but losing two life everything round seems too impractical when combined with the huge cost.

[RomeoXero]

Your right, he sucks, he's rarely used ever for reasons like banish costs you 6 life. Turn to stone is just as bad. He just doesn't have a place outside of a possible sacrificial altar book. And even then he's pushing impractical.

[Halewijn]

He's a fun gimmick, nothing more. His ability should be arena wide or be combined with poison damage or something. Then everybody would be dying and not only the caster.

Probably the best way to use him:

Skeleton swarm with graveyard and meditation amulet. Save some mana each round to cast him. Once the time is ripe, summon him and support him a little.

Use him a couple of rounds but not too long, once you have enough use out of him, sacrifice him with the altar, boost another skeleton with 8 dice and do 1 amazing attack. While doing this, make sure to get the effect of the graveyard (8 mana). The round afterwards you can probably summon mort.

This strategy is pretty weak in tournament-play, but it can be devestating in a casual battle due to the effective use of recources.

The hardest part of this deck is protecting your mage. Ive had decent succes with this strategy but I always struggle to find the time to protect my mage.

Also, if the opponent is not giving me any room to breath, I use the saved mana on mort and armory instead, boosting my swarm.

Make sure the book has some command spells like charge and battle fury and at least a couple of teleports.

[Donovan]

Title says it all, awesome card but losing two life everything round seems too impractical when combined with the huge cost.

I'd say if a mage can spend 24 mana on a card, something might perhaps already be very wrong in the game. This means the other mage has done at least 2 main and 2 quick actions more than you before you bring this card.

If you can spend that much Mana and (Life - Damage) of the mages is about equal, you can surely do a spectacular finish with that card. You just have to deal more than 2 dmg to the other mage each round + dmg you took yourself.

First spreading rot in the zone attack. Then sweep through a few creatures with 5 dice - including the other mage of course. And then finish off the other mage in 3-4 turns.

Perhaps some Eagle Wings... Or Bear Strength... Or Lion Savagery for the fleeing mage... =;-)

[RomeoXero]

He's undead. Eagle wings, bear strength, and lion savagery do not apply along with a host of other spells that won't work on the big dead dragon

[Donovan]

He's undead. Eagle wings, bear strength, and lion savagery do not apply along with a host of other spells that won't work on the big dead dragon

Shoot! Forgot Aboutaleb that!

[TeenageWargamer]

So if we were to fix him (I might be pushing this beyond the boundary of this thread now...) what should be changed?  I feel he needs to stay undead (he is a skeleton after all), maybe reduce attacks a bit and drop the -2 life?

[Halewijn]

Leave the -2 life every round. It's cool that the mage needs to be invest to summon a dragon, just as the golden dragon demands someone to worship her before she lifts her holy ass.

I'd try:
Finite life for the entire arena since you can now move a zone and heal. I find it a shame that his zone attack is that weak. Maybe it should be critical damage? or 5+ rot or something.

[Milevan_Faent]

Leave the -2 life every round. It's cool that the mage needs to be invest to summon a dragon, just as the golden dragon demands someone to worship her before she lifts her holy ass.

I'd try:
Finite life for the entire arena since you can now move a zone and heal. I find it a shame that his zone attack is that weak. Maybe it should be critical damage? or 5+ rot or something.

The Rot is the real problem with that Zone Attack. It's useful.... if it does anything. But it just doesn't do anything right now. Buff the Rot and make Finite into Arena, and yeah, I think people might actually use him.

[Kelanen]

Yeah, he's useless. The Finite Life is too easy to dodge, and his attacks are lacklustre. Even without losing life he wouldn't be seriously playable, he needs buffing and remove t6he Life restrictions (or MAJOR buffs and leave them). Unfortunately he's one of a small (but too big) list of cards that are garbage implementations of a good idea, and all should have been obvious before printing.

Super-casual play only. Where you don't want to win!

Adramelech is awesome (about double the damage!), Sardonyx is terrible!

[Reddicediaries]

Yeah, he's useless. The Finite Life is too easy to dodge, and his attacks are lacklustre. Even without losing life he wouldn't be seriously playable, he needs buffing and remove t6he Life restrictions (or MAJOR buffs and leave them). Unfortunately he's one of a small (but too big) list of cards that are garbage implementations of a good idea, and all should have been obvious before printing.

Super-casual play only. Where you don't want to win!

Adramelech is awesome (about double the damage!), Sardonyx is terrible!

Just curious, what creatures do you list under the big garbage umbrella?

[Halewijn]

I think these are the ones I find the worst:

Cerberus (WAY too expensive for a guard dog without intercept)
Earth elemental in the current meta. (could change in the future with a new mage)
Goblin bomber (I don't get why he is not level 1 and 4-5 mana instead of 8 )
Infernian scourger (Other people like him, but I think he sucks. Art is cool though)
Makunda
Moonglow Fairy
Psylock
Selesius (could also change with the meta if more flyers get used)
Tarok (Same as selesius)

[bigfatchef]

I think these are the ones I find the worst:

Cerberus (WAY too expensive for a guard dog without intercept)
Earth elemental in the current meta. (could change in the future with a new mage)
Goblin bomber (I don't get why he is not level 1 and 4-5 mana instead of 8 )
Infernian scourger (Other people like him, but I think he sucks. Art is cool though)
Makunda
Moonglow Fairy
Psylock
Selesius (could also change with the meta if more flyers get used)
Tarok (Same as selesius)

I would not agree with goblin bomber but add the poor mountain gorilla instead. Rage is just useless.

[iNano78]

I think these are the ones I find the worst:

Cerberus (WAY too expensive for a guard dog without intercept)
Earth elemental in the current meta. (could change in the future with a new mage)
Goblin bomber (I don't get why he is not level 1 and 4-5 mana instead of 8 )
Infernian scourger (Other people like him, but I think he sucks. Art is cool though)
Makunda
Moonglow Fairy
Psylock
Selesius (could also change with the meta if more flyers get used)
Tarok (Same as selesius)

I generally agree, but I often put Tarok in Beastmaster books because the BM has relatively few ways to deal with flyers (e.g. aside from attack spells).

Other less-than-stellar creatures (imho):

[mwcard=MWSTX1CKC09]Giant Wolf Spider[/mwcard] (cool theme, but way too costly in terms of mana, sbp and the effort needed to activate the Stuck gimmick)
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKC03]Galador, Protector of Straywood[/mwcard] (not objectively bad, but high sbp cost when you could just have Cervere or Bridge Troll or something; might see more use if Priest/Priestess/Paladin become more viable - e.g. if creatures with Lightning +X see more play)
[mwcard=MWSTX2FFC12]Talos[/mwcard] (seems OK if you could hard-cast him, but when you put in the ridiculous work to get him in play (which I've done several times for giggles), he just doesn't do enough to warrant the ridiculous work needed to get him in play)
[mwcard=MW1C40]Whirling Spirit[/mwcard] (upkeep for a creature that dies vs Wizard; might get better now that Wizard sees less play AND since Wizard must be trained in Air... and seems like it might be good in Domination, where board control and Push effects are very important)
[mwcard=DNC18]Togorah, Forest Sentinel[/mwcard] (despite being Vigilant, he doesn't counterstrike, and a Guardian Angel is almost always a better option)
Actaully, pretty much any of the 20+ mana creatures except for Adramelech (e.g. all the big legendary angels, Togorah, Earth Elemental, etc)

As for the topic at hand, I think Sardonyx would be OK if he only cost you 1 life per turn, and if his zone attack was 3 attack dice and dealt Rot on a 5+.  As it stands, you'd generally rather have him using one of his [mwcard=FWQ04]Galvitar[/mwcard]-like melee attacks and sticking close to his opponent for his Poisoned Blood effect.  Actually, I rarely find the Poisoned Blood thing useful as I generally have Deathlock running anyway.  But maybe that's why Sardonyx usually kills my mage before the opponent: I'm too busy doing other things rather than supporting Sardonyx with Restrain effects (on his targets), walls, etc.

[Halewijn]

I agree with tarok. I was thinking of taking him of the list. Compared to him, selesius has the big disadvantage that the holy school has many other good flyers.

Galador has ethereal which is hard to find for nature mages.

I personally find the spider, togorah and even talos pretty good but i get why you mentioned all of them. Talos needs 9 mana investment, with construction yard you get 2 back. Most of the time the enemy goes after my warlord and I dont need to invest more into talos, he simply comes to life 4 rounds later. If they would go for talos, it will cost them much more recources to destroy it than me to protect it. And IF they fail, it was all for nothing.

About sardonyx, i agree, maybe buff the zone atack and instead of finite life, 1 poison damage for the arena. Even if you would run idol of pestilence, it would still be helpfull. I would rather see his ability buffed than his life upkeep smaller.