I agree that what you term NPE should be avoided for starter sets like Academy (and I don't think that NPE exists in Academy). Then again if a single NPE counts as NPE for someone... I have no words... either read up on the cards beforehand, or accept you will be surprised.

I'd just like to offer an alternative viewpoint for players of non-starter sets though - what you call NPE, I call control, and honestly that's all I enjoy playing. Across any game, I would define the style of play I like playing is one that stops the opponent playing their game (how I win is the largely irrelevant part that comes at the end).

As the most easily relateable example - I've I've played MtG since 1993 until the last few years. My deck styles of choice - hand destruction, land destruction, counterspell, stasis, and various soft and hard locks.

In MW I like Mana Denial, Stun-lock, Jinx-lock, Taunt-lock... Tinkerbell and Banker archetypes... It's a game where control is hard, but it can be done.

I suspect this is a competitive vs casual player mindset. I've played half a dozen CCG's seriously, most to nationals standard, some to ProTour and money finishes (and know many players much better than me!). It's not just that I like playing what you would call NPE decks, I like playing against them too, and I don't see the difference between that and Ravager Affinity that just has me dead on turn 4/5... It's no different to uninteractive combo either, which whilst never really floating my boat, is just as valid to play or play against.

Now I concede that in a game with no random draws you have to be careful, because I essentially have my god draw every game. I have dozens of spreadsheets for my spellbooks mapping out my first ten turns against control, against aggro, building in options and decision forks - the reason I love MW so much is it's an optimisers dream game.

Just be aware that one mans NPE is another's fun. Keeping the balance is as ever the hard part, and product separation is one viable route. That's maybe the first vaguely credible argument I have heard for why Academy should exist...

I also added a Surging Wave as the Daze chance is even higher with this one but it's somewhat trickier to use because of the potential push effect you may not want.
However, if the target is unmovable anyway or if there's a wall along a side of the zone your target is in Surging Wave may be even more effective ( higher Daze chance and potential unavoidable bash attack but no Stun chance )

Slam doesn't do what you think it does...

Slam is removed at the start of the recipients action...

So.. the new ruling is clear, and makes it explicit you can't use Adramelechs Touch as we have been because Events are no longer relevant.

The fact you can't reveal and use Adramalech's Touch in response to a dice roll, but can reveal and use Akiro's Favour in response to a dice roll is unintuitive. I understand why, but I definitely understand people ruling them both the same.

Okay... I don't often post over here, but I'm a good MW tournament player (dropped one game in the last three tournaments frex) I'm good on rules, I've played various CCG's to national and ProTour level (and money finishes), and have had Judge and Rules Guru levels for some. None of that means anything for Mage Wars directly, I'm just pointing out that I'm not just a casual player, and I am quite used to picking apart rules and wordings, and reversing a whole card's effect based on the position of where the colon or comma is...

Now that I think of it, I think most people know intuitively that adramelech's touch needs to be revealed BEFORE rolling blanks for burns, not after, in order to have an effect on those burns. When the burns roll blanks and adramelech's touch has not been revealed yet, the automation on octgn causes the burns to immediately disappear, and I've yet to see anyone argue that they should have been allowed to reveal touch and preserve the burns after the fact. If you ask them, "why didn't you wait until you saw the result before revealing adramelech's touch?" they probably won't know exactly why. They likely will say that they weren't thinking about it and just playing normally. And yet they will consistently play it that way every time until you point it out to them. Or at least every time I can recall someone using Adramelech's Touch, that was how they played it. I do not remember anyone waiting until they saw the result of the burn roll before revealing adramelech's touch and paying for the burns to stay.

I have been playing this that the reveal will almost always be after a blank is rolled, but before it's applied. In just the same way as I will wait until after non-critical damage is rolled, before revealing Brace Yourself/Rhino-Hide.

Intuitively, that makes complete sense to me, and is in keeping with everything else I know (or knew, until the world just blew up!).

I'm pretty sure I've quoted the "event" language before, and it's what I've relied on. I'm firmly on the "yes, you can reveal after anything happens" faction.

Indeed.