Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => Spellbook Design and Construction => Topic started by: Charmyna on July 27, 2013, 04:50:05 AM
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The idea of this build is to control the board via a combination of strong, tough creatures and crowd control (teleport, force push, tanglevine, wizard tower+surging wave for slam etc).
There are a couple creatures which work with this idea, but from my games I have the feeling that necropian vampiress and guardian angel is an awesome combo. Both have nice defensive stats and can heal themself without an action of your mage! Therefore it is really difficult to kill these creatures. The synergy with both is great because the vampiress can do alot of damage while the angel is great in protecting. Additionally, they are a ground and a flying unit, so hinder both ground and air units. The vampires can get the flying trait, so both units can attack flying creatures and cant be blocked by walls. If you give both creatures bear strength that’s 7+5 dices which in combination with wizard tower and good timing allows you to kill even tough creatures in 1-2 rounds.
A strength of the wizard is that he can easily include a couple teleports, tanglevines and other sources of crowd control in his build (force hold, enfeeble, surging wave for high chance on slam and moderate chance on push). This helps to lower the damage of your opponents strong creatures and to allow your own hitters to attack the opponent mage or to focus an isolated target.
I cant stress enough how useful wizard tower is! It gives you an extra action which can be used before or after a friendly units action phase. Therefore, your opponent cant interrupt between the towers cast and your creatures action. For example, this allows you to cast surging wave with the tower on a guard, which has a 5/6 chance to slam the target and thus removing the guard marker. Now, your creature can attack whatever you want in that zone unless your opponent had 2 guards. Without the tower, your creature would have to attack the guard and after that its your opponents turn. Therefore, he can use another creature to guard and your next creature has to attack this new guard. But, if you use the tower to remove the guard marker, your opponent cant react to that.
So what about the opening? I prefer to summon the guardian angel in round 1. The reason is, that the angel greatly increases your chances against a wizard/warlock throwing fireballs/lightning bolts. The intercept trait means that your opponent has to use an action to get around the guardian angel in order to hit your mage (he can use force push, restrain the angel etc). But still, this means that your opponent has to use an action per round to remove the angels guard marker or to push him, which lowers his damage output dramatically!
If the opponent seems to focus on damage spells, I cast defensive stuff in round 2 (dragonscale hauberk, rhino hide, nullify etc) and I often use the voltaric shield. In combination with the guardian angel this makes it very difficult to damage my wizard. Sure, casting defensive stuff slows down my own strategy. But, against rushes its often not important to build up your own stuff quickly. In most cases, its enough to survive the first assault, since most rushers put all one's eggs into one basket. If you survive the first rounds, rushers often dont have enough breath for a longer game.
If the opponent summons strong creatures or a spawn point I use my standard opening:
Round 1:
Guardian Angel + Mana Crystal
Round 2:
Arcane Ring + Mana Crystal
Round 3:
Necropian Vampiress + Mana Crystal
So after round 3, you have 2 tough creatures, 13 channeling and the ring to lower the cost of your dispels etc.
If there seems to be a fight in round 4, I cast two bear strength, which results in 7+5 dices from the Demon Angel combo.
If the opponent rushes with his creature(s) and doesn’t cast stuff which increases his channeling, it might be necessary to use round 2 for reactive stuff instead of arcane ring and mana crystal. But, since your opponent will not have increased channeling, it wont matter.
How does this build work against different kinds of other builds?
This build is strong against rushes, because the angel greatly slows down the opponent.
It is also great against slow builds which focus on building up channeling and summoning big creatures, because your Demon and Angel can protect your crystals well and your crystals/arcane ring/harmonize etc will allow you to keep up in a mana race.
Mana denial builds will also have a problem since your channeling is high enough to have enough freedom of choice to react accordingly.
Against swarm builds the Demon and Angel combo is great too since they often one hit small creatures. If not, a zap or a cast of the wiz tower will make sure that many of your opponents creatures die before they use their action.
Solo mages will have a difficult time getting around the guardian angel while protecting themself against the 7 dice hits from the vampires and the damage/annoying slam from the wiz tower.
To summon up, the vampire and angel combined with the versatility of the wizard and especially the wizard tower allows this build to perform really well against most common builds that are played these days.
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I can testify, from several very painful personal experiences, that this is a nasty, nasty build.
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Yeah, I rue turning him on to the Wizard Tower.
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That looks like a FUN deck! :D
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Interesting! I've been working on a Vamp + Intercept creature Wizard book myself (I went w/ Gargoyle). I'm not even done with the first draft, but it's shaping up to be more combo than control. Still, we'll need to compare notes!
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Interesting! I've been working on a Vamp + Intercept creature Wizard book myself (I went w/ Gargoyle). I'm not even done with the first draft, but it's shaping up to be more combo than control. Still, we'll need to compare notes!
Charmyna and I each developed a book like that entirely separately, then laughed as we faced each other. I tried a gargoyle in earlier builds, but the angel worked out a lot better.,
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I'll have to try that combination of creatures sometime. It certainly sounds strong.
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Yeah, I rue turning him on to the Wizard Tower.
Atm I think wizard tower is one of the strongest cards of the whole game :). Especially with all those nice spells that add some utility to the damage, like jet stream (push), surging wave (slam and push) and arc lightning (stun and daze).
Interesting! I've been working on a Vamp + Intercept creature Wizard book myself (I went w/ Gargoyle). I'm not even done with the first draft, but it's shaping up to be more combo than control. Still, we'll need to compare notes!
Charmyna and I each developed a book like that entirely separately, then laughed as we faced each other. I tried a gargoyle in earlier builds, but the angel worked out a lot better.,
That was one of my best moments in MW! :)
Gargoyle is nice given its an arcane creature. But, the angels set of defensive abilities is just insane! Defence is great against rolls with many dices (fireball, strong creature) while aegis is great against low dice rolls (flame blast, small creatures). Flying means you cant use surging wave on Angel (unless he is guarding) which is an awesome spell I usually use against creatures with defence. Now add to this that guarding gives the angel a benefit even if he is not attacked (assuming he got some damage). This is different for the other interceptors, gargoyle and dwarf panzergarde, which get no benefit of guarding if they are not attacked while doing so.
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That was one of my best moments in MW! :)
Lol, mine too
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The most annoying aspect to the Wizards tower is that is has no weaknesses to certain damage types. So you really have to get in their and blow it up quickly or else the Wizard gains control of a good part of the board and the game quickly goes down hill for the opposing mage.
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Agreed.
Last game I played vs Charmyna, I ran in and took out the Tower as priority number one...
He immediately cast a second!
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The most annoying aspect to the Wizards tower is that is has no weaknesses to certain damage types. So you really have to get in their and blow it up quickly or else the Wizard gains control of a good part of the board and the game quickly goes down hill for the opposing mage.
Actually, the MOST annoying thing is that it can swap bound spells for free. You can bind just the right spell for each turn ahead, and it keeps the opponent guessing every time.
It is a strong spell indeed.
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This is very true also, and I think makes the WT the best offensive conjuration now that the ToL has been so terribly nerfed.
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The most annoying aspect to the Wizards tower is that is has no weaknesses to certain damage types. So you really have to get in their and blow it up quickly or else the Wizard gains control of a good part of the board and the game quickly goes down hill for the opposing mage.
Actually, the MOST annoying thing is that it can swap bound spells for free. You can bind just the right spell for each turn ahead, and it keeps the opponent guessing every time.
It is a strong spell indeed.
This and the fact that you can use the spell as much as you want.
Want to do some focused damage this round? Prepare Flameblast. Want to push away a dangerous creature? Jet Stream. Want to stun Brogan? Arc Lightning. Want to remove a guard or a defence? Surging Wave. Its versatility is out of reach of every other spell!
This is very true also, and I think makes the WT the best offensive conjuration now that the ToL has been so terribly nerfed.
I totally agree!
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To be HONEST, I reckon it should have cost 5 but not be allowed to swap bound spells, or at least pay 3 to swap, like a wand.
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Now if only a future mage was Dark/Holy. That would make for some nice set ups. Angels, Demons, Vampires etc all together.
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The cost is only 2x for a Wizard so though a bit on the expensive side, still decently affordable....
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The cost is only 2x for a Wizard so though a bit on the expensive side, still decently affordable....
Actually the cost for the vampiress angel combo is nearly the same for every class except Forcemaster. Warlock has to pay 13 Spellpoints, Priest(ess) 15 Spellpoints and all others 14 Spellpoints.
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So what you are saying is: ironically it's cheapest for the Warlock to run this combo.
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So i got to play Charmyna's described spellbook today.
First of all. Thanks for teaching me the few not so obvious Things about MW on OCTGN - and thanks for a good match.
I played a non-standard FM build pre CoK release and without any promos.
Its focused on Grimson deadeye turn 1 + mana crytal start zone. Round 2:Archers Tower 1 zone to the left of my starting zone and a potential pull (which happened this game) on grimson because my enemy moved out of his starting zone resulting in a 5 dice attack round 2.
From here on i have the option of walling in Grimson letting him snipe outside walls with Archers Tower, or summening the royal Archers.
Unfortunately i mis-played round 3 by summening the royal Archer and my grimson was teleported 3 zones away into the vampiress and the guardin angel.
The vampire stroke hard and left my grimson without hope (2 hp left or perhaps 3), and i was now facing a serious setback even though he payed 9 mana to port the sniper.
Hereafter Charmyna only ran those 2 creatures while spending either his QC or Quickaction from the action marker to buff himself with the following:
Leather gloves, Rhino hide, Dragon scale hauberk, Boots of standground (no push / pull) and my thought spore only got off 3 dissolves. He also managed to purge magic my bearstrength AND my forcefield.
Meanwhile my thought spore was taking Down so the invisible stalker i had summoned was rendered half useless because the time i had initiative he would save his QC to arcane zap (ethereal), so i had to stay invis in those rounds.
After necro vamp got bear strengthed my royal Archer died which didnt matter much because i faced bad rolls so his wizard hardly had to use volt shield after all the armor buffed and 0 crits rolled.
Now my stalker with quite alot damage taken was forced to stay invis all the time because i had the fewest action markers.
Charmyna also dropped a wizard Tower (which in imo never repayed itself), that i sacrifised my stalker on to finish on after i double striked it with my FM equipped with galvatar.
Now my FM is alone without forcefield, and the wizard still have clawboots equipped and 1 zone away from me.
Because of the necro vamp hindering my FM and the fact i had to get rid of boots and THEN pulling , we decided that the game was over.
My deck was build pre CoK and intercept seriously screws it over - which is fine.
However... the guardian angel seems broke beyond repair. (incredibly strong)
Seriously... it cannot die, and its either gonna prevent alot of damage or force you opponent to spend a massive amount of ressources to get rid of its guard.
Im still very unexperienced, and i realize i could have done some thing different, but only 2 Things would have mattered much:
1)
i could have focused on the vamp while it was 3 zones away = no healing from vampiric for a while.
2)
Cast walls straight away Thus sticking to original opening (i got greedy in this game because of his opening with 1 big 1 medium - with original opening i would delay royal 1 round).
The opening Charmyna has come up with is incredibly powerful because its extremely hard to do anything of the following:
1)
focus on the enemy wizard. Volt shield and the ever living angel will TREMENDIOUSLY reduce the damage on the wizard with all the armor (5 when maxed this game i played).
2)
Focus on the angel... good luck: 3 armor? (not sure of the armor), aegis 1, 12 hp?, heal 2 every guard action, and ofcourse a defense as well....
3)
Kill the vampiress. It has vampiric and soon enough a bear strength. It has 3 armor and 15 hp (you need serious hard hitters and good rolls to take this Down) AND.... angel of doom protects it when possible.
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Welcome to the book I have been playing against, every time I came up with a counter to his book it would evolve to be even more deadly. Honestly the trick is to stay focus on his mage. On your initiative use Force Push/or Pull his Mage when all three are in the same zone and whack him. The next round Force Wave his creatures from you.
As for the WT, it might not of paid off in this game, but it is usually it builds on his action advantage, he uses Zap (1 mana) and then has the WT use the rest of his mana. Now he basically has four actions per round and it is quite brutal. You should of seen this build before the Nerfing done last week. ToL + 6 HoB, game over.
Believe it or not the best I have done against him is the with the Warlord and a bunch of Ballista's, that is why he is a Fire Wizard now...
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Welcome to the book I have been playing against, every time I came up with a counter to his book it would evolve to be even more deadly. Honestly the trick is to stay focus on his mage. On your initiative use Force Push/or Pull his Mage when all three are in the same zone and whack him. The next round Force Wave his creatures from you.
As for the WT, it might not of paid off in this game, but it is usually it builds on his action advantage, he uses Zap (1 mana) and then has the WT use the rest of his mana. Now he basically has four actions per round and it is quite brutal. You should of seen this build before the Nerfing done last week. ToL + 6 HoB, game over.
Believe it or not the best I have done against him is the with the Warlord and a bunch of Ballista's, that is why he is a Fire Wizard now...
Ballista seems incredibly strong atm, and i do believe you could stand up against this combo with ballista, perhaps a FM running these would be strong? 10 channeling and the option to pull for 1 mana could seem to do well. Anyway, its a promo though, so i dont consider it allowed.
Full action move, then forcepull and have 3-4 ballista shoot. this would pretty much kill anything due to the pierce.
I could imagine ballista wouldnt ever get released? - WHO would ever want to cast a fireball vs a ballista?
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The Ballista are strong but very slow and against an experienced player they "might" get off two shots. If you play them wrong they get taken out quickly.
They are Flame +2 so a Fireball is quite effective in taking one out. I typically use the QC to hit it with the Fireball and then if needed melee it to take it out.
If a mage leaves them alone and given enough rounds they can turn the game in your favor.
Play with them in OCTGN and you will quickly learn the ins/outs of them. They are no where as near as powerful as the old ToL+Hobs combo.
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Agreed ref ballistae. They look very scary on deployment, particularly if there are two of them, but they are nowhere near as good as the old ToL + 4-6 x HoB.
If you look at damage output, it is 5 dice every two turns per ballista, so only 2.5 dice per turn. Granted, that usually means 10 dice from two when they first shoot, but they tend to be one-shot wonders. Get in and melee them to death, or rush the mage and keep him in his own ballista zone such that it can't be used. If you can achieve that, then it ends up a mana sink.
I am far more worried about the Wizard's Tower and the flexibility it brings. Arc Lightning for the cheap stun, Surging Wave to remove a guard, Jet Stream to push mage, fire spells for the burns etc, etc.
Tower plus Necro Vamp plus Guardian Angel is a very nasty combo. I can see Guardian Angel being a great card for any sort of build.
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So what you are saying is: ironically it's cheapest for the Warlock to run this combo.
Yeah it is, but only marginally. I still prefer the wizard, because of his flexibility and the wizards tower.
So i got to play Charmyna's described spellbook today.
First of all. Thanks for teaching me the few not so obvious Things about MW on OCTGN - and thanks for a good match.
I played a non-standard FM build pre CoK release and without any promos.
Its focused on Grimson deadeye turn 1 + mana crytal start zone. Round 2:Archers Tower 1 zone to the left of my starting zone and a potential pull (which happened this game) on grimson because my enemy moved out of his starting zone resulting in a 5 dice attack round 2.
From here on i have the option of walling in Grimson letting him snipe outside walls with Archers Tower, or summening the royal Archers.
Unfortunately i mis-played round 3 by summening the royal Archer and my grimson was teleported 3 zones away into the vampiress and the guardin angel.
The vampire stroke hard and left my grimson without hope (2 hp left or perhaps 3), and i was now facing a serious setback even though he payed 9 mana to port the sniper.
Hereafter Charmyna only ran those 2 creatures while spending either his QC or Quickaction from the action marker to buff himself with the following:
Leather gloves, Rhino hide, Dragon scale hauberk, Boots of standground (no push / pull) and my thought spore only got off 3 dissolves. He also managed to purge magic my bearstrength AND my forcefield.
Meanwhile my thought spore was taking Down so the invisible stalker i had summoned was rendered half useless because the time i had initiative he would save his QC to arcane zap (ethereal), so i had to stay invis in those rounds.
After necro vamp got bear strengthed my royal Archer died which didnt matter much because i faced bad rolls so his wizard hardly had to use volt shield after all the armor buffed and 0 crits rolled.
Now my stalker with quite alot damage taken was forced to stay invis all the time because i had the fewest action markers.
Charmyna also dropped a wizard Tower (which in imo never repayed itself), that i sacrifised my stalker on to finish on after i double striked it with my FM equipped with galvatar.
Now my FM is alone without forcefield, and the wizard still have clawboots equipped and 1 zone away from me.
Because of the necro vamp hindering my FM and the fact i had to get rid of boots and THEN pulling , we decided that the game was over.
My deck was build pre CoK and intercept seriously screws it over - which is fine.
However... the guardian angel seems broke beyond repair. (incredibly strong)
Seriously... it cannot die, and its either gonna prevent alot of damage or force you opponent to spend a massive amount of ressources to get rid of its guard.
Im still very unexperienced, and i realize i could have done some thing different, but only 2 Things would have mattered much:
1)
i could have focused on the vamp while it was 3 zones away = no healing from vampiric for a while.
2)
Cast walls straight away Thus sticking to original opening (i got greedy in this game because of his opening with 1 big 1 medium - with original opening i would delay royal 1 round).
The opening Charmyna has come up with is incredibly powerful because its extremely hard to do anything of the following:
1)
focus on the enemy wizard. Volt shield and the ever living angel will TREMENDIOUSLY reduce the damage on the wizard with all the armor (5 when maxed this game i played).
2)
Focus on the angel... good luck: 3 armor? (not sure of the armor), aegis 1, 12 hp?, heal 2 every guard action, and ofcourse a defense as well....
3)
Kill the vampiress. It has vampiric and soon enough a bear strength. It has 3 armor and 15 hp (you need serious hard hitters and good rolls to take this Down) AND.... angel of doom protects it when possible.
Im glad you are playing in OCTGN now! That game was alot of fun :).
The guardian angel is strong, but I dont think it needs repair. It does very low damage compared to other level 3 creatures. It is heavily focused on defensive stats, which is fine and was needed, since there is no such creature in the older packs. It helps to turn the game away from the rush meta. The other interceptors are good too, its just that the angel is a bit tougher if you ask me (which is fine too since its a holy creature and tough creatures is one of the strength of the holy ones).
@Ballistae:
They arent as powerful as the prenerf ToL+Hand combo, but I think they need some adjustments before they become legal. 1-2 ballistae are no problem, but 3-4 are (reminds me of the hands ;)). You can have 4 ballistae in round 3 which will instantkill even the strongest creature. So you just need to teleport whatever is annoying you and good bye.
One problem is that they use the ready-marker mechanic, which does not allow the opponent to react (e.g. move away the creature). IMO this ready marker mechanic is the core of the strength of ToL+hand, Wizard Tower and Ballista. If you just have 1-2 of those conjurations its fine, but if you stack them its deadly. So I would suggest to make ballista unique just as the hand.
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@Ballistae:
They arent as powerful as the prenerf ToL+Hand combo, but I think they need some adjustments before they become legal. 1-2 ballistae are no problem, but 3-4 are (reminds me of the hands ;)). You can have 4 ballistae in round 3 which will instantkill even the strongest creature. So you just need to teleport whatever is annoying you and good bye.
One problem is that they use the ready-marker mechanic, which does not allow the opponent to react (e.g. move away the creature). IMO this ready marker mechanic is the core of the strength of ToL+hand, Wizard Tower and Ballista. If you just have 1-2 of those conjurations its fine, but if you stack them its deadly. So I would suggest to make ballista unique just as the hand.
Agreed. A single ballista is a worry, but the worry grows geometrically (exponentially?!) with additional ballistae.
Unique would be good. The lack of mobility balances with the hitting power and action benefit when there is only one out.
You are bang on ref the ready mechanic. It seems a bit easy to stack up a bunch of combo's using Ballista, Wizard's Tower, Temple of Light, for example. Yes, you have limited your mobility by deployoing these, but it is tough to face.
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@Ballistae:
They arent as powerful as the prenerf ToL+Hand combo, but I think they need some adjustments before they become legal. 1-2 ballistae are no problem, but 3-4 are (reminds me of the hands ;)). You can have 4 ballistae in round 3 which will instantkill even the strongest creature. So you just need to teleport whatever is annoying you and good bye.
One problem is that they use the ready-marker mechanic, which does not allow the opponent to react (e.g. move away the creature). IMO this ready marker mechanic is the core of the strength of ToL+hand, Wizard Tower and Ballista. If you just have 1-2 of those conjurations its fine, but if you stack them its deadly. So I would suggest to make ballista unique just as the hand.
Agreed. A single ballista is a worry, but the worry grows geometrically (exponentially?!) with additional ballistae.
Unique would be good. The lack of mobility balances with the hitting power and action benefit when there is only one out.
You are bang on ref the ready mechanic. It seems a bit easy to stack up a bunch of combo's using Ballista, Wizard's Tower, Temple of Light, for example. Yes, you have limited your mobility by deployoing these, but it is tough to face.
I have been playing these quite a lot as you two know. Yes you can have 4 out by turn three but only two will fire in a given round. unless you do not have a target on a certain round, then it would become quite nasty. I would see making these unique as quite a nerf with unique and would basically make "it" useless. As Fentum said they are quite a mana sink and typically do not last that long, do not fire that quickly, and as you well know are quite easy to counter. If AW does think they are over powered, I would think the best solution is to increase their mana cost. Power wise, I would much rather have one WT vs. two Ballistae any day.
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@Ballistae:
They arent as powerful as the prenerf ToL+Hand combo, but I think they need some adjustments before they become legal. 1-2 ballistae are no problem, but 3-4 are (reminds me of the hands ;)). You can have 4 ballistae in round 3 which will instantkill even the strongest creature. So you just need to teleport whatever is annoying you and good bye.
One problem is that they use the ready-marker mechanic, which does not allow the opponent to react (e.g. move away the creature). IMO this ready marker mechanic is the core of the strength of ToL+hand, Wizard Tower and Ballista. If you just have 1-2 of those conjurations its fine, but if you stack them its deadly. So I would suggest to make ballista unique just as the hand.
Agreed. A single ballista is a worry, but the worry grows geometrically (exponentially?!) with additional ballistae.
Unique would be good. The lack of mobility balances with the hitting power and action benefit when there is only one out.
You are bang on ref the ready mechanic. It seems a bit easy to stack up a bunch of combo's using Ballista, Wizard's Tower, Temple of Light, for example. Yes, you have limited your mobility by deployoing these, but it is tough to face.
I have been playing these quite a lot as you two know. Yes you can have 4 out by turn three but only two will fire in a given round. unless you do not have a target on a certain round, then it would become quite nasty. I would see making these unique as quite a nerf with unique and would basically make "it" useless. As Fentum said they are quite a mana sink and typically do not last that long, do not fire that quickly, and as you well know are quite easy to counter. If AW does think they are over powered, I would think the best solution is to increase their mana cost. Power wise, I would much rather have one WT vs. two Ballistae any day.
I havent used Ballistae for a while since many players dont play with promos atm. But, I used the 4 Ballistae in round 3 opening against my own ToL+Hand opening (prenerf), which was pretty strong as you know ;). And the Ballistae build easily won. Guess we need to play together with one of us using the 4 ballistae in round 3 opening to see how good it really is.
Btw I would take 2 ballistae over Wizards Tower. Sure, Wizard Tower is great, but 2 ballistae is so much focused damage if you add it to the attack of a creature. With vampiress+bear strength+2 ballistae you can oneshot nearly everything! I know positioning is a problem for ballistae, but still if you play a wizard and have a couple teleports and force pushes its not that bad.
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Hey Charmyna,
Youvoughtvto run on line strategy tutorials and charge for them ! ;)
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Hey Charmyna,
Youvoughtvto run on line strategy tutorials and charge for them ! ;)
Cool idea! :P
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Oh that is a great idea. I'd pay for some lessons from you master mages! Us little magelings like myself could learn so much.
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Lol.
I just had a CRAZY game via Charmyna. Both running that deck. Both on 27 damage when we had to stop. I think he squeaked it! Very close though.
Great fun.
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Lol.
I just had a CRAZY game via Charmyna. Both running that deck. Both on 27 damage when we had to stop. I think he squeaked it! Very close though.
Great fun.
Games against you are often CRAZY like HELL :D and I always learn something new! Not sure if I squeaked it but it was damn close and many interesting turns. Need to replay tomorrow!
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Interesting build, but it has some obvious counters like Poisoned Blood and Spiders. Spiders in particular work well against Guardian Angels in my experience, since they cut flying, make defenses worse (via Restrain, for those unaware), and give unhealable damage.
Could be worth it to use the Priest instead, since the Holy Avenger trigger doesn't specify Holy creatures. Would help make up for the GA's main weakness; low dice count.
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Interesting build, but it has some obvious counters like Poisoned Blood and Spiders. Spiders in particular work well against Guardian Angels in my experience, since they cut flying, make defenses worse (via Restrain, for those unaware), and give unhealable damage.
Could be worth it to use the Priest instead, since the Holy Avenger trigger doesn't specify Holy creatures. Would help make up for the GA's main weakness; low dice count.
I dont see how poisoned blood is a counter. Sure, its annoying but many things are :P. You will need poisoned blood+alot of focused damage to kill the vamp/angel before I react accordingly. And that damage /actions wont target my wizard. So even if you kill the vamp, it prevented much damage and took up a couple of your actions.
The spider might be a threat but the question is: Will the spider place enough conditions on the angel/vampire before she is killed by the 12 dice per round? Btw teleporting, force hold, tanglevine, block etc all help to prevent your spider from hitting the vamp/angel. Sure, you can use the same spells to control my creatures, but as a wizard I often have more crowd control and anti crowd control stuff than the opponent (most of my games during the last few days were focused on crowd control and anti crowd control). My guess is that in most games the spider will put one condition marker on a creature unless you are really lucky with rolls or really good with positioning.
The priest might be an interesting choice paired with the angel. But IMO the holy avenger cant make up for the flexibility of the wizard (spellbook wise, in respect to his innate abilities and dont forget the wizard tower!).
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Poisoned blood is a counter because the Vampire and Angel rely on healing abilities for a lot of their resilience. The vampire is somewhat less since it has higher life, but against other similarly-costed creatures like apes/bears/BR slayers/Pet Dire Wolves/etc that swing for significantly more dice and have more armor and health, especially with Bear Strength, they're rather lackluster without vampiric.
And gaining 12 dice over the course of 3 turns really isn't that impressive. There are many openings which produce higher dice counts without the threat of Dispels over the same number of turns. I just don't see why the Wizard is a good choice when you could be producing stronger anti-creature openings with the Priest/Johktari BM/Warlock/Warlord without actually having to invest so many actions/mana/spellbook points. It just seems like a fragile choice.
I guess I'm just wondering why the Wizard when there are other mages that naturally do what you're trying to do but seemingly better? And if your build relies on the Wizard, why devote enormous amounts of spellbook points when you could just choose Gargoyles? The intercept creatures all pretty much function the same way (I think the Dwarf is the best since it can gain Vet, just my opinion) after all.
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Poisoned blood is a counter because the Vampire and Angel rely on healing abilities for a lot of their resilience. The vampire is somewhat less since it has higher life, but against other similarly-costed creatures like apes/bears/BR slayers/Pet Dire Wolves/etc that swing for significantly more dice and have more armor and health, especially with Bear Strength, they're rather lackluster without vampiric.
Sure poisoned blood stops the self healing, but only for one round till it is dispelled. I know dispelling is reactive, thus not always a good choice. But the same applies to many other effects that make creatures less useful (tanglevine, force hold etc). So I count poisoned blood into the same category: It slows down the opponents strategy, but its not a full counter (unless you have more poisoned bloods than the opponent has dispels/seeking dispels, which I doubt).
And gaining 12 dice over the course of 3 turns really isn't that impressive. There are many openings which produce higher dice counts without the threat of Dispels over the same number of turns. I just don't see why the Wizard is a good choice when you could be producing stronger anti-creature openings with the Priest/Johktari BM/Warlock/Warlord without actually having to invest so many actions/mana/spellbook points. It just seems like a fragile choice.
Sure, there are creatures that build up more damage, but they cant self heal. So either you let them die or need an action to save them. The angel/vamp can survive often without the need of a mages action. Additionally both can attack flying units and fly over walls. And btw my goal is not to produce an anti-creature opening! There are openings that are better focused on that for sure. My goal is to produce an opening that performs well against a lot of build.
My build might not be focused as much on a special strategy as others, but its very versatile and allows me to react accordingly to many strategies, which in the end increases the chances of winning against most builds.
I guess I'm just wondering why the Wizard when there are other mages that naturally do what you're trying to do but seemingly better? And if your build relies on the Wizard, why devote enormous amounts of spellbook points when you could just choose Gargoyles? The intercept creatures all pretty much function the same way (I think the Dwarf is the best since it can gain Vet, just my opinion) after all.
You need to play against a wizard which really makes use of voltaric shield, zap and arcane tower. The voltaric shield saved my mage in over 80+ damage races (i mostly play wizard), its just awesome. The wizard tower often is as helpful as a 2nd quick action marker! Actually, i wouldnt be surprised if the WT or the ready marker mechanic is nerfed after the next tournament.
Btw, since most meta cards that are neccessary in all builds are arcane, the wizard has more free spellpoints to put into stuff from other schools, like the various sorts of crowd control. Additonally, you need crowd control spells from different schools (nature for tanglevine; mind for block, force hold, foce push; arcane for teleport (trap). And btw sticking to only one of these schools isnt a good idea, because in many situations you wont have the correct answer to your opponents strategy. So why do you think another mage can perform better in crowd controlling stuff?
@interceptors: The angel has a much better set of traits against many types of attacks than gargoyle/dwarf. And as i wrote, it gets a benefit from guarding even if it doesnt get attacked. If I use surging wave on your dwarf, your action to guard is just wasted since the wave is unavoidable.
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1. Sure poisoned blood stops the self healing, but only for one round till it is dispelled. I know dispelling is reactive, thus not always a good choice. But the same applies to many other effects that make creatures less useful (tanglevine, force hold etc). So I count poisoned blood into the same category: It slows down the opponents strategy, but its not a full counter (unless you have more poisoned bloods than the opponent has dispels/seeking dispels, which I doubt).
2. Sure, there are creatures that build up more damage, but they cant self heal. So either you let them die or need an action to save them. The angel/vamp can survive often without the need of a mages action. Additionally both can attack flying units and fly over walls. And btw my goal is not to produce an anti-creature opening! There are openings that are better focused on that for sure. My goal is to produce an opening that performs well against a lot of build.
My build might not be focused as much on a special strategy as others, but its very versatile and allows me to react accordingly to many strategies, which in the end increases the chances of winning against most builds.
3. You need to play against a wizard which really makes use of voltaric shield, zap and arcane tower. The voltaric shield saved my mage in over 80+ damage races (i mostly play wizard), its just awesome. The wizard tower often is as helpful as a 2nd quick action marker! Actually, i wouldnt be surprised if the WT or the ready marker mechanic is nerfed after the next tournament.
Btw, since most meta cards that are neccessary in all builds are arcane, the wizard has more free spellpoints to put into stuff from other schools, like the various sorts of crowd control. Additonally, you need crowd control spells from different schools (nature for tanglevine; mind for block, force hold, foce push; arcane for teleport (trap). And btw sticking to only one of these schools isnt a good idea, because in many situations you wont have the correct answer to your opponents strategy. So why do you think another mage can perform better in crowd controlling stuff?
4. @interceptors: The angel has a much better set of traits against many types of attacks than gargoyle/dwarf. And as i wrote, it gets a benefit from guarding even if it doesnt get attacked. If I use surging wave on your dwarf, your action to guard is just wasted since the wave is unavoidable.
1. The point isn't that I have more Poisoned Bloods than my opponent has Dispels, it's that I certainly have enough enchantments that my opponent won't likely have enough Dispels to deal with them all. It's really not even a probability; I can't imagine that players only run 4 enchantments in a given book, which is the max number of Dispels you can even have.
And the other examples don't mean much because Restraining creatures is inherently a good move based on game mechanics. It's not like I can just throw a Poisoned Blood on something and expect it to be good like Tanglevine or Force Hold/Crush; it's a specific card for a specific situation that pretty well hard-counters healing, which is your opening's main strength. Healing happens every game, but having an entire opening that gets significantly worse if your opponent plays only one kind of card isn't a good sign of a strong build.
2. Healing is a secondary concern to dice count, really. You should protect your creatures, obviously, but base life, armor, and attack dice is most important. And the actions you say healing saves aren't really being saved, since you have to spend 2 additional actions and 10 mana for the couple to roll a relevant amount of dice. And even then, you aren't getting the dice counts you could be getting, especially if your opponent Dispels them early on.
I didn't really know how else to interpret "Vampire and Angel Wizard Control Build" other than what the name means; you are using an angel and vampire as the Wizard to control. Control builds usually focus on, well, controlling, most effectively in the form of destroying creatures because that is the best way to set your opponent back mana and actions.
3. I don't see what Arcane offers that others schools absolutely need other than Mana Crystals perhaps, but the Nature school has Flowers so it's whatever. It's not like builds need Reverse Magic or other marginally useful cards; the Mind and Dark school have plenty more to offer between curses and control enchants than Arcane's rather scant control card pool. Teleport/Teleport Trap are good cards, but they're hardly specific to control builds.
4. That seems like a pretty arbitrary opinion. I'm not sure which traits you're valuing so high (Aegis 1, I guess?), since they all accomplish the same goal of defense. Any differences they have are pretty minor, because their best trait is Intercept by far, which they all obviously have.
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1. Sure poisoned blood stops the self healing, but only for one round till it is dispelled. I know dispelling is reactive, thus not always a good choice. But the same applies to many other effects that make creatures less useful (tanglevine, force hold etc). So I count poisoned blood into the same category: It slows down the opponents strategy, but its not a full counter (unless you have more poisoned bloods than the opponent has dispels/seeking dispels, which I doubt).
2. Sure, there are creatures that build up more damage, but they cant self heal. So either you let them die or need an action to save them. The angel/vamp can survive often without the need of a mages action. Additionally both can attack flying units and fly over walls. And btw my goal is not to produce an anti-creature opening! There are openings that are better focused on that for sure. My goal is to produce an opening that performs well against a lot of build.
My build might not be focused as much on a special strategy as others, but its very versatile and allows me to react accordingly to many strategies, which in the end increases the chances of winning against most builds.
3. You need to play against a wizard which really makes use of voltaric shield, zap and arcane tower. The voltaric shield saved my mage in over 80+ damage races (i mostly play wizard), its just awesome. The wizard tower often is as helpful as a 2nd quick action marker! Actually, i wouldnt be surprised if the WT or the ready marker mechanic is nerfed after the next tournament.
Btw, since most meta cards that are neccessary in all builds are arcane, the wizard has more free spellpoints to put into stuff from other schools, like the various sorts of crowd control. Additonally, you need crowd control spells from different schools (nature for tanglevine; mind for block, force hold, foce push; arcane for teleport (trap). And btw sticking to only one of these schools isnt a good idea, because in many situations you wont have the correct answer to your opponents strategy. So why do you think another mage can perform better in crowd controlling stuff?
4. @interceptors: The angel has a much better set of traits against many types of attacks than gargoyle/dwarf. And as i wrote, it gets a benefit from guarding even if it doesnt get attacked. If I use surging wave on your dwarf, your action to guard is just wasted since the wave is unavoidable.
1. The point isn't that I have more Poisoned Bloods than my opponent has Dispels, it's that I certainly have enough enchantments that my opponent won't likely have enough Dispels to deal with them all. It's really not even a probability; I can't imagine that players only run 4 enchantments in a given book, which is the max number of Dispels you can even have.
And the other examples don't mean much because Restraining creatures is inherently a good move based on game mechanics. It's not like I can just throw a Poisoned Blood on something and expect it to be good like Tanglevine or Force Hold/Crush; it's a specific card for a specific situation that pretty well hard-counters healing, which is your opening's main strength. Healing happens every game, but having an entire opening that gets significantly worse if your opponent plays only one kind of card isn't a good sign of a strong build.
2. Healing is a secondary concern to dice count, really. You should protect your creatures, obviously, but base life, armor, and attack dice is most important. And the actions you say healing saves aren't really being saved, since you have to spend 2 additional actions and 10 mana for the couple to roll a relevant amount of dice. And even then, you aren't getting the dice counts you could be getting, especially if your opponent Dispels them early on.
I didn't really know how else to interpret "Vampire and Angel Wizard Control Build" other than what the name means; you are using an angel and vampire as the Wizard to control. Control builds usually focus on, well, controlling, most effectively in the form of destroying creatures because that is the best way to set your opponent back mana and actions.
3. I don't see what Arcane offers that others schools absolutely need other than Mana Crystals perhaps, but the Nature school has Flowers so it's whatever. It's not like builds need Reverse Magic or other marginally useful cards; the Mind and Dark school have plenty more to offer between curses and control enchants than Arcane's rather scant control card pool. Teleport/Teleport Trap are good cards, but they're hardly specific to control builds.
4. That seems like a pretty arbitrary opinion. I'm not sure which traits you're valuing so high (Aegis 1, I guess?), since they all accomplish the same goal of defense. Any differences they have are pretty minor, because their best trait is Intercept by far, which they all obviously have.
1. You are right that poisoned blood is a good spell if timed well, both against the vampiress and the opponents mage. But still, its not a counter to the vampiress. Even if not dispelled , the vampiress will be a 5 dice creature with 2 armor and 15 health for only 11 mana (if you substract the mana the opponent spent for the enchantment). Doesnt sound as an inefficent mana investment for me.
Anyway, most decks wont have more than 1-2 poisoned bloods and the opponent might want to save them for my mage instead of using it on a creature. Btw if they use it against the vampiress, steal enchantment is a nice way to remove it while gaining an action advantage.
2. Healing is secondary, but it helps to make sure the creatures stay on the board as long as possible and repay the invested mana. Sure, some creatures might do more damage per round. But, if they die early while the angel survives, they are a worse investment.
Btw, in many situations the bear strength on the angel is not needed. Often he will guard my mage or the vamp while the vamp does the damage. The bear strength on the angel is for those situations in which I am free to attack with the angel.
Btw, from my feeling defensive stats in MW cost less mana compared to agressive stats. Therefore, a defensive+agressive creature should win against two agressive creatures for the same amount of mana.
With control I mean using crowd control and guard to prevent the opponents creatures from doing alot of damge while attacking his mage or while focusing on his creatures (depends on board situation, equipments and enchantments casted etc).
3. Some spells that are really important metas in most spellbooks:
- dispel
- seeking dispel
- teleport
- nullify
- jinx
- enchantment transfusion (allows many cool combos, e.g. transfusion+jinx on one of your creatures which you can reveal during the counter spell step to counter any quick cast spell you wish whenever you want)
lesser important but really useful in many builds as well:
- purge magic (can win the game against builds which focus on many enchantments)
- dragonscale hauberk (ok its fire, but many wizards are fire)
- mage wand
- elemental cloak
- steal enchantment (gives you an action advantage and doesnt cost extra mana if the opponent casts wardstone, since you dont destroy the enchantment)
- teleport trap
even lesser important but still often included in decks to counter mana denial or to keep up with decks that are focused on increasing channeling early on:
- mana crystal
- harmonize
- moonglow amulet
So tell me any school that has as much important metas as the arcane school?
As a result of many important metas being arcane, the wizard has more spellpoints for his main strategy. Now add, that there is no school which costs triple. All this allows the wizard to play the costly vamp angel combo and still have enough points to include all other spells that help gaining and sustaining board control.
4. If all three creatures have a guard marker on them and are attacked without the unavoidable trait, you are right and the differences between their defensive stats are pretty minor. But, that rarely happens. Often the guard marker is removed (I cant stress enough how useful wizard tower+surging wave is or arc lightning against the dwarf for 50% chance to stun). Sure, you can say that the intention of those creatures is to guard, but on the board its not always like you planned it.
So lets compare the creatures if they have no guard marker on them:
Gargoyle has 14 life, 1 armor versus angel with 12 life, aegis 1, armor 1 and defence (if both used guard as their action and it got removed the angel still healed 2 damage). So tell me whats better?
The dwarf has a worse defence than the angel, but thats only marginal. He has 3 armor and lighting + 2 versus aegis 1 armor 1. I think thats pretty equal. So whats left? The angel has flying and the potential to heal himself even if he is crowd controlled! Flying is great btw because it prevents the angel from being targeted by surging wave (which is an awesome spell against defences since it slams the creature). So in the end, the angel is much more difficult to focus and you can decide to attack with him and still have nice defensive stats to make sure he survives being focused.
Maybe you argue that if the creatures get hit and soak up damage/actions, it doesnt matter which interceptor you summon, since all fullfill this job. But, the angel will soak up more damage/actions in the majority of games.
On the paper the three interceptors might look equally tough, but on the board the angel is much better suited in many situations.
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Some thoughts about the lightning + 2 trait from the dwarf panzergarde:
If you use arc lightning against the panzergarde thats 5 dice and a 50% chance to stun. So on average you do 2.5 crits and some normal damage. I havent done the math, but lets assume you do 3.5 total damage on average. So what about the effect? Most of the time the panzergarde will be on guard, so if you stun him he looses 2 actions (the guard marker is removed and he cant use his next turn to do anything). So on average one arc lightning will make the panzergarde loose 1/2*2=1 action.
Now, compare this with surging wave: Surging wave does 3 damage. So on average thats maybe 2 damage against the panzergarde and 5/12 chance to push. Lets assume the dwarf is pushed into a wall so thats another 5/12*2=10/12 damage on average (the math is not 100% correct, its an approximation). So the total damage of surging wave against the dwarf is 2+5/6 on average. Now, the effect: Surging wave has a chance of 5/6 to slam the target, which also removes the guard. But, it does not prevent the panzergarde from using its next action to guard again. So on average one surging wave makes the dwarf loose 5/6 actions.
In the end, arc lightning does more damage and makes the guard loose more actions than surging wave, which already is an awesome spell against guards/defences!
Why I tell you this? Because I want to show that +2 lightning is quite a weakness which should not be ignored.
To further illustrate this, think of the following situation which is simplified for sure, but it helps understanding the weakness of the panzergarde and the strength of the guardian angel:
Assume both mages are wizards and have wizard towers. During three rounds, the wizards focus each other with their spells and both towers shoot 3 times with a 5 mana spell on the guarding creature of the opponent (in one case its a panzergarde, in the other its a guardian angel) to remove its guard and therefore get around the intercept.
First, the panzergarde:
The tower casts an arc lightning (cause its even better than surging wave against panzergarde) 3 times, which on average will make the panzergarde loose 3 actions and will do a total amount of 10.5 damage (approximation).
Next, the guardian angel:
The tower will cast surging wave since its the best spell to remove guard markers unless the guard has +2 lightning. With 3 casts surging wave will make the angel loose 15/6=2.5 actions on average. Additionally surging wave will do 1.5 damage on average versus the angel (thats no approximation, at least if i did the math correctly) and with 5/12 chance it will do another 1.5 damage if the angel is pushed into a wall. So thats a total of 1.5+5/12*1.5=2.125 damage per spell. Now, you need to include the self healing of the angel.
To sum up: In these 3 rounds both wizards used the same amount of mana to get around the interceptors and only used the towers action. At the end of this example the dwarf will have lost more actions on average and will be nearly dead! While the angel lost less actions and is nearly at full health.
This is just a simplified example and im talking of average values, but situations like this happen in many games in some way or the other and thinking of average damage/action loss helps to understand which side has a higher chance of winning in situations like this.
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Between the Flying, Aegis, and Self healing, the Angel is a much studier and versatile creature than the Dwarf. I typically have to focus 3-4 actions to kill her. That is a lot of time and mana to get rid of her. The best thing I have found is to be 3 zones away from her and make her move twice in one round, then you focus on her.
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Another reason why the angel is harder to kill then the panzer dude is because it has flying.
After the first attack vs the angel, only ranged and flyers can hit her because she stops guarding and gains flying back.
And btw the panzer dudes defense is +6 when guarding - or equal to.
I realize you use unavoidable in your example to stun it, but in the cases where it only gets dazed it has better defense than the angel.
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Another reason why the angel is harder to kill then the panzer dude is because it has flying.
After the first attack vs the angel, only ranged and flyers can hit her because she stops guarding and gains flying back.
And btw the panzer dudes defense is +6 when guarding - or equal to.
I realize you use unavoidable in your example to stun it, but in the cases where it only gets dazed it has better defense than the angel.
Yeah, you are right, it has better defence if only dazed and guarding. Still, in my example I just cared about if the guard is stunned/slammed or not. Actually the possibility of arc lightning to daze makes the situation I described above even worse for the wizard with panzergarde.
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Ref angel vs panzergarde...
Flying makes the angel way more versatile. Particularly useful if a wizard is building walls as part if the control tactic. Same with flying on Nec Vamp. Many useful synergies and abilities going on with a decent wizard build.
Gargoyle is similar, but the casual healing really helps in practice. More so than in theory craft.
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1. Your point on the vampire is kind of an oversimplification of what's actually going on. It's not as if you somehow gain mana when your opponent controls your creatures, you still payed 16 for your vampire, and it's still significantly worse round after round with PB on it. You could say the same thing for many creatures affected by a control card, true, but it's more the fact that your opponent doesn't really need a variety of spells to deal with what you're doing between the Angel and the Vampire.
The vampire's base stats are decent for 16, but comparatively, other creatures at that cost have better.
Overall, all I am saying is that I don't think it's a good idea to go into a game consistantly casting creatures that require only one line of interaction (Finite Life). If it's working for you, that's fine; do what works if it wins you games. The Vampire and GA are certainly strong enough creatures to support what you're trying to do. I'd just advocate being a little more flexible in your openings, and to consider a combination of creatures that require your opponent to interact on different axes in an effort to round out the build.
2. I'm kind of skeptical that you only need a Vampire to attack. At least in my games, even a Pet Steelclaw or Adramelech needs some kind of additional creature support in order to effectively go on the offensive against a group of large creatures plus the enemy Mage. I don't really know what kind of builds you play against, so I can't say for sure though.
The only one posted here is a "pre CoK" FM sniper build, which is pretty odd honestly. Pre CoK I would say that Grimson is an awful card, but with the new line of intercept creatures, he has become significantly better since it's much harder to just efficiently nuke him down with a Fireball/Hurl Boulder.
3. Well, here's my opinion on the "very important" cards, with a "yes" for it should be included in every book and a "no" for it's not that important:
Dispel: yes.
Seeking Dispel: no.
Teleport: no.
Nullify: no.
Jinx: no.
E. T.: no.
The only card I've found I can't live without is Dispel, because enchantments are just too important. The rest on your list I obviously have very different thoughts than you about, but they're all just meta-pick cards that no book needs from the start.
There are many more cards from other schools that I could list that are strictly more relevant than 95% of the cards you list there. Rhino Hide, Bear Strength, Bull Endurance, Regrowth, Cheetah Speed, Agony, Ghoul Rot, Marked for Death, Chains of Agony, various heal/protection spells from the Holy school, a few from the Mind school like the Push spells and Block...those are all cards that don't need a really specific situation to be good. Cards like Purge Magic, Mage Wand, and Elemental Cloak aren't inherently worth their cost and are not worth playing unless youre in a very specific situation. Dispel is really the only Arcane card that I can guarantee I'll use every game, or at least have a very high chance of using.
4. I could say a lot here, but I'll suffice with this: flying on these intercept creatures isn't terribly relevant, because creatures lose flying when they guard, which they should be doing because they aren't good at attacking. The angel especially only actually heals when it chooses to forgo its flying and guard, so I don't get the correlation you're making. I've played against these cards, and really, you don't need to explain it out on paper to get a good idea that they're pretty much all the same card, albeit tweaked in fairly irrelevant ways.
TLDR: There's a lot here we disagree about, but my main on-topic thought is that I'm going to respectfully recommend that you try to include some creatures that require different answers into your opening, as a way to be less predictable and cover the weaknesses of your creatures. Right now, they share the same weaknesses, and my own experience has told me that it doesn't take long for your opponents to adapt to that and punish it.
Not saying your opening is really weak, because I did the math and you seem to be optimizing the amount of mana you're spending (which is good), just that adding some variety in the types of creatures you play would make your opening harder to attack.
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. I'd just advocate being a little more flexible in your openings, and to consider a combination of creatures that require your opponent to interact on different axes in an effort to round out the build.
try to include some creatures that require different answers into your opening, as a way to be less predictable and cover the weaknesses of your creatures.
I find this a fascinating discussion as I often play using and against the Wizard / GA / NV build. My thinking is largely aligned to Charmyna and not really Reddawn, but I worry that I may be blinded by local meta.
It might help if Reddawn could share a few examples of the quoted bits above? No offence here, I am genuinely interested in reading a different perspective.
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I have been wondering the same thing myself. The meta that we have been playing (Charmyna's) has been quite the challenge. I often wonder when I have debated others in the past (Koz/Koy) what they are seeing that I am not. With that said, until I bumped into Charmyna on Octgn I thought that I had a very decent handle on the game and rather solid spell book. He proceeded to blow it out of the water. So, I pay much attention to other player who opine on the topic. I just don't have the clarity to understand why it is what they say :)
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For my build, I'm struggling with creature variety, too, though I still haven't had a good chance to test my first draft. Bridge Troll is an option, and he benefits from many of the same tricks Vamp does and he heals without requiring a living target to trigger Vampirism. Also, Gorgon archer could add in some much needed anti-swarm (ranged is better than melee for this because you really want to get the first hit against small creatures).
But a book that runs Bridge Troll, Vamp, Guardian Angel, and Gorgon Archer is just begging to get shut down by Deathlock. At this point I'm probably going to include it in my 4golem Warlord metagame book. It'll shore up the matchup with Vamp books, (including that pinned 3vamp Warlock with Drain Soul and life ring) and it's lovely to have against Priestess, if she ever comes back as a control book. I suspect it'll also be critical against the Druid for regenerating plants, so it's good to be prepared.
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Honestly Deathlock is not that frightening. Yes it gets dropped and you deal with it. You use the creatures you have to kill the mage or Deathlock. I would rather face Deathlock vs. the Gorgon Archer any day.
Having Finite Life on the GA/Vamp only takes away one aspect of their main strengths, yes they don't heal but the flying still makes them much superior than the other creatures out there. I have tried both the Dwarf and Gargoyle's with not much effect.
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Really? My usual solutions to Gorgon are to teleport her into danger, block her line of sight, or play non-living creatures, and none of those strategies really work on Deathlock. To me, Deathlock seems a lot harder to disrupt, which means you actually have to kill it if you can't ignore it.
Angel + Vamp is what, 28 mana and two full actions? With only 5+3 attack dice it isn't a great way to race. Beastmaster can get that with a Dire Wolf and a pet Bobcat, and for less actions and less mana. Vamp + Angel is good because it's hard to kill, not because it's especially deadly.
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@Fentum: I'd like to give examples, but without knowing what else in the spellbook, it's pretty much a shot in the dark. The only thing I do know is that he's already devoting 14 spellbook points to non-arcane creatures as the Wizard, and really, I haven't have good experiences doing something like that. 14 or more spellbook points on only 2 cards is very costly, which is fine if it's actually working; I personally just don't see the need to devote almost a 1/5 of a spellbook to those creatures.
Basically, I can't give specific advice unless I see the entire book. Right now, I'm rather skeptical that it works against decent builds, and frankly, I don't consider winning against pre-CoK Forcemaster "sniper build" relevant in any way, which is the only thing I have to go off of here.
And yeah, I don't see the Gorgon being nearly as impressive as posters make her out to be. Being naturally Slow is a pretty significant disadvantage, her melee dice suck, and her Ranged dice aren't all that great either. She might get a Weak off before something big beats the hell out of her, but a Weak or two and below a below average dice count isn't really worth a massive 16 mana.
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I will say, however, that the new Intercept creatures are breathing life into the competitive viability of ranged creatures, so maybe I after I do some post-CoK testing with the Gargoyle w/Gorgon and so on, I'll have a better opinion of her. I expect so, since I've found that Royal Archers and Grimson are much better with their respective Intercept guards, along with additional muscle in Thorg or Knights.
Intercept seems to be encouraging fortifying a particular zone, though, and I've found Zone attacks to be more relevant as well. It's a good balance so far, since Intercept doesn't interact with Zone attacks, but I myself am still learning the ins and outs of the new cards a month after their release, even though I've played pretty every day since then.
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@ringkichard - IOP drops and you either change tactics and kill it OR continue on and adjust with the understanding that their is no healing (for both sides), it is a very reasonable to take the 2nd path and just live with it.
However, if you do not alter your tactics and strategy for the GA you will rue the day. This to me, means that I am off plan and playing into my opponents strategy. Much worse than not being able to heal. I now HAVE to take actions and mana to remove the threat from the board or at least something that nullifies it.
I am sure there are other ways of seeing this, but that is my take away at least. Now back to the Vamp/Angel Wizard build.
As was pointed out within 3 points of each other any mage can run this duo. I am not sure if their are better synergies with the combo than the pairing with the Wizard. I can tell you that the pairing + Wizard's Tower is quite a handful to deal with. The opening when well timed and executed is very hard to counter. I would like to devise a way to disrupt it, but though I try very hard, I still haven't quite got the mix right to counter......
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1. Your point on the vampire is kind of an oversimplification of what's actually going on. It's not as if you somehow gain mana when your opponent controls your creatures, you still payed 16 for your vampire, and it's still significantly worse round after round with PB on it. You could say the same thing for many creatures affected by a control card, true, but it's more the fact that your opponent doesn't really need a variety of spells to deal with what you're doing between the Angel and the Vampire.
The vampire's base stats are decent for 16, but comparatively, other creatures at that cost have better.
Overall, all I am saying is that I don't think it's a good idea to go into a game consistantly casting creatures that require only one line of interaction (Finite Life). If it's working for you, that's fine; do what works if it wins you games. The Vampire and GA are certainly strong enough creatures to support what you're trying to do. I'd just advocate being a little more flexible in your openings, and to consider a combination of creatures that require your opponent to interact on different axes in an effort to round out the build.
2. I'm kind of skeptical that you only need a Vampire to attack. At least in my games, even a Pet Steelclaw or Adramelech needs some kind of additional creature support in order to effectively go on the offensive against a group of large creatures plus the enemy Mage. I don't really know what kind of builds you play against, so I can't say for sure though.
The only one posted here is a "pre CoK" FM sniper build, which is pretty odd honestly. Pre CoK I would say that Grimson is an awful card, but with the new line of intercept creatures, he has become significantly better since it's much harder to just efficiently nuke him down with a Fireball/Hurl Boulder.
3. Well, here's my opinion on the "very important" cards, with a "yes" for it should be included in every book and a "no" for it's not that important:
Dispel: yes.
Seeking Dispel: no.
Teleport: no.
Nullify: no.
Jinx: no.
E. T.: no.
The only card I've found I can't live without is Dispel, because enchantments are just too important. The rest on your list I obviously have very different thoughts than you about, but they're all just meta-pick cards that no book needs from the start.
There are many more cards from other schools that I could list that are strictly more relevant than 95% of the cards you list there. Rhino Hide, Bear Strength, Bull Endurance, Regrowth, Cheetah Speed, Agony, Ghoul Rot, Marked for Death, Chains of Agony, various heal/protection spells from the Holy school, a few from the Mind school like the Push spells and Block...those are all cards that don't need a really specific situation to be good. Cards like Purge Magic, Mage Wand, and Elemental Cloak aren't inherently worth their cost and are not worth playing unless youre in a very specific situation. Dispel is really the only Arcane card that I can guarantee I'll use every game, or at least have a very high chance of using.
4. I could say a lot here, but I'll suffice with this: flying on these intercept creatures isn't terribly relevant, because creatures lose flying when they guard, which they should be doing because they aren't good at attacking. The angel especially only actually heals when it chooses to forgo its flying and guard, so I don't get the correlation you're making. I've played against these cards, and really, you don't need to explain it out on paper to get a good idea that they're pretty much all the same card, albeit tweaked in fairly irrelevant ways.
TLDR: There's a lot here we disagree about, but my main on-topic thought is that I'm going to respectfully recommend that you try to include some creatures that require different answers into your opening, as a way to be less predictable and cover the weaknesses of your creatures. Right now, they share the same weaknesses, and my own experience has told me that it doesn't take long for your opponents to adapt to that and punish it.
Not saying your opening is really weak, because I did the math and you seem to be optimizing the amount of mana you're spending (which is good), just that adding some variety in the types of creatures you play would make your opening harder to attack.
First, im really surprised that you dont see nullify, teleport and jinx as necessary metas. You might have a much different meta game than I faced yet, so I would be curious how a game against you develops. IMO those three cards allow some really nice actions with immense effects on the board (e.g. teleport can allow your creatures to attack the opponent mage with 10+ dices or prevent 10+ from your mage in situations in which this were not possible otherwise).
I see your point that both, the angel and the vamp, have the same weakness (i.e finite life) and that in some situations its better to just have a creature with higher base stats (damage dice, life, armor, maybe piercing). Therefore I will try different openings that focus on creatures that have better base stats and see how they perform compared to the angel vamp combo.
So for now, I will try a grizzly+gorgon archer combo while building up channeling. The idea is that the increased channeling and the gorgon archer forces the opponent to attack while the grizzly makes sure the opponent get hits hard if he moves into the grizzlys/archers zone.
So here is the opening I thought of:
Round 1 (20 mana):
Grizzly+harmonize (face down), total cost 19 mana
Round 2 (11 mana):
arcane ring + mana crystal, total cost 6 mana
round 3:
before channeling phace reveal harmonize (will get benefit of the ring since its a new round, costs 3 mana). Therefore, this round I start with 14 mana.
Play 2 face down enchantments on bear or whatever.
Round 4:
Gorgon archer+mana crystal if opponent is slow or something defensive if he is quick
The downside of this opening compared to the angel opening is that I have no interceptor, which really helps against some kinds of rushes. On the other hand, I guess the grizzly will do quite some nice damage to the opponent while he is focusing me and I will build up defences quickly and use voltaric shield often if he is rushing. Have to see how it turns out in a real game.
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Steelclaw should be a good call; it really isn't afraid of any other creature in the game, especially after you apply buffs.
And just to be clear, I LIKE Nullify and Teleport a lot (undecided on Jinx) and often include them, but I have found that other cards can accomplish most of the things they are used for, and for a lower mana and spellbook costs. Teleport seems to be mainly used for positioning, which is fine, but cards like Charge and Force Push usually suffice, though Teleport is still the easiest way to get out of Restraining conjurations (Eagle Wings can actually counter Tanglevine and Quicksand if you're good at timing, though).
All this really means is that while I like what the Arcane school has to offer, I just don't hold it on the high pedestal that some players seem to. It's a school like any other, it just happens to offer easy-to-use spells like Teleport and Nullify that seem to solve all kinds of situations, when in reality, there are many ways to solve those same situations in other schools, and often at less of a premium.
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I had five games until now against five different players with the grizzly+gorgon+increased channeling opening (although i skipped the gorgon sometimes if necessary) and all went really well and most of them like I thought they would: The grizzly is a really threatening creature and the gorgon/channeling help to get an advantage even in an otherwise stalled situation. In a game in which the opponent casted gate of voltari the grizzly + wizard tower got down his gorgon archer before it could shoot once. The grizzly also has nice synergy with repositioning spells like teleport, force push, jet stream etc.
An interesting strength of the grizzly came to my mind:
Assume the following situation:
Z is an empty Zone, M is my Mage, O is the opponents mage (hes a wizard) and the grizzly is G.
I casted the grizzly in round 1 and the opponent casted some stuff a wizard who rushes early with fireballs would do (i will not talk about me realizing its a fireball cannon, but about positioning effects of the bear).
So in round 2 the opponent moves here and throws fireballs:
M/G Z Z Z
Z O Z Z
Z Z Z Z
As the last action in round 2 I move the grizzly to the opponents zone (without or with fast doesnt matter for now):
M Z Z Z
Z O/G Z Z
Z Z Z Z
The effect of the bear is that in round 3 the opponent feels under pressure to move out of the grizzlys zone. So lets assume he does:
M O Z Z
Z G Z Z
Z Z Z Z
This opens up my own Mage to flee:
Z O Z Z
Z G Z Z
M Z Z Z
I do not say fleeing is a good move, but I could. Especially if im fast thats great. If I have initiative in the next round, I dont have to move two zones in one round and still be able to be in the corner i showed above before the opponents next turn. That is important because it will make it more difficult for the opponent to chase me and to use explode/dissolve etc on me.
Now add the wizard tower with jet stream for a 75% chance to push and the opponent will really have problems to position himself well between staying out of the grizzlys zone, avoiding being pushed away from my mage and still being in range to put me under pressure.
To summon up: The grizzly is not only a good creature per se, but its full action attack has positioning effects which might help in a couple of situations. Most other creatures which make the opponent avoid their zone are slow btw!
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Yeah, I run a Steelclaw + Archer Beastmaster and the combo's pretty good. I haven't updated it yet for Conquest, but I'm probably going to have to add in some mana flowers.
Interestingly, Gorgon is weaker now than she used to be, with the arrival of intercept, but she still seems well suited to the new potentially slower meta.
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Hi Charmyna
Thank you for a very good explanation of your strategies with the wizard, it really have made me want to play him next time.
Can you please upload your deck ? I would love to try it out.
Thanks
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Hi Charmyna
Thank you for a very good explanation of your strategies with the wizard, it really have made me want to play him next time.
Can you please upload your deck ? I would love to try it out.
Thanks
Mhh im not really keen on posting my full deck right now. But if you watch my games live or the recorded ones, I cant blame you for looking into my spellbook :P. Here is the link if you are interested:
http://www.twitch.tv/charmyna
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Hi,
Thanks for the link. However i have spent some time trying to write down your deck from your play against reddawn. Its difficult when the names are microsmall and only 10 % of the card is visible while in the spellbook. Nevertheless i managed to get all of the cards written down, but noticed that you have not any vampires or angels in that specific build (?)
I have installed OCTGN, is there any way i may/ can check your decklist from there?