Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => Strategy and Tactics => Topic started by: residualshade on January 14, 2013, 08:30:21 PM
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so after skimming the opening move thread and seeing the necropian intervention and Valshalla opening videos i have been inspired to start discussions on opening moves. i think opening moves are not only a fun but valuable discussion topic. i want to share one i have been brainstorming lately.
Turn 1 | 20 Mana
Temple of Asyra -10 Mana
Harmonize on Temple -4 Mana
End of Turn | 6 Mana
Turn 2 | 16 Mana | 2 Mana on Temple
Asyran Cleric -3 Mana -2 Mana on Temple
Asyran Cleric -5 Mana
Harmonize on Mage -6
End of Turn | 2 Mana
Turn 3 | 13 Mana | 2 Mana on Temple
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This is meant to be a hard mana ramp opening. if the enemy mage gets aggressive on you early you have enough mana to drop a brogan starting turn 2 and every turn their after.
assuming i am not forced to go on the defense i have no clue as to what to cast for my last spells on turn 3.
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You know you can only have two Clerics put mana on the Temple each turn right? With that in mind I'm not sure why'd you want so many Clerics. If I'm reading this right, you will have four of them out, which seems like overkill.
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wow. idk how i missed that line. tweaking time.
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I love the temples and clerics. Clerics act like Mana crystals that can heal angels.
And i love the laser shooting temple. If only i had a playset of those :(
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Well, the "laser shooting temple" is unique(only one in the arena at a time), I have two in my currant priestess book and that's all I would recommend, just one for a back up if the first one gets destroyed.Now hand of bim-shala, I need a play set of that! I have two now and that card is just so useful its not even funny. Temple of asyra and temple of light are my opening moves, followed by a battle forge with harmonize, then have temple of asyra summon a cleric, with you playing two hands of bim-shala. then I want to equip the priestess as much as possible and I try to save up for an angle, or some archers. Im just going off the top of my head,and this is NOT exact turn order, I am saving mana between turns,using the prestess to attack when not casting spells, but this been going well for me. Some times I get the Staff of Asyra out sooner, since my play group likes to mana siphon me first turn alot.
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I like putting out a melee unit prior to the Clerics. The Priestess is always going to be at a disadvantage in terms of raw fighting power and putting a Royal Archer into play sooner gives your opponent something to deal with while you put out the rest of your defensive conjurations and clerics
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My problem with this approach is that when you are fighting against a Warlock you do not have the kind of time to get this stuff out. They typically put out a Death Lock out the gate so your main advantage as a Priestess is out the window for at least several rounds why you send something over there to kill it. All the while the Warlock himself is up in your grill bashing away with his LOH. Very nasty and doesn't give you the time to build up the temples that you would like to get out.
What the Priestess does have in this scenario is big bad creatures that can put a hurt on him and his critters, but they demand mana and lots of it. So my open now for the first couple of moves is to lay out a couple of mana crystals/flowers move and set some traps. On round three the archer comes out and on round 5 a Knight and basically every other round after, I bring out a critter. Everything else done while this is happening, is to not die while getting all of my creatures out. Once I have my small army out an Archer, Knight, Angel, Unicorn (along with some buffs), and I have survived that long, the game is now mine as long as I can heal a couple of times. Typically my Priestess will armed with a Mage/Elemental Wand with a minor heal/geyser combo to deal with the hurt and the burns.
I have come to find out with this approach if I can make is past the first 10 rounds the game really tilts in my favor.
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Playing the priestess, I like to use at least one Gray angle,(12 mana for a flying 4 damage dice dealing, plus its a free minor heal when the chips are down, that card is great!) if not Angle of light. That lash of hell fire is the first to be dissolved, I run two and will use two for a back up LOH if need be. Otherwise I use the second dissolve on Helm of Fear.....I HATE helm of fear! Traps are a good strategy, I use teleport traps around my temple of light and will use Decoy to make them think twice. I run 4 decoys, I just use them so much, especially with the warlock, since he will often use nullify to protect his equipment.
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Against the Warlock, I would not use this strategy. This is against slower build decks, where you are both setting up your engines. Against the Warlock, who's strategy is to kill you as fast as possible with fire, melee, and all around badassery, I would go on the offense with a Vampiress hooked to a divine intervention on turn one. Turn two, you are swinging on their side of the board with a 15 life 2 armor five dice damage with a self healing ability. This will allow you to stall them out while you NOW set up your engine with no problem at all, of course starting with the hands of bim shalla.
Or, if you don't want to waste 12 points on the Vampire, you could spend your first three rounds casting gray angels with divine protection on them. This will buy you some time as well, but honestly, NOTHING beats an intervening vampire....
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I am playing Temple of Asyra Opening right now.
Due to I have only 1 core set, I am limited on Angels (Gray Angels).
My side
- First few rounds, I had the Temple of Asyra + 2 clerics + 1 Gray Angel out + Crown.
- 1 Gray Angel sent out to harass = given her 1D from the Crown
- Another Gray Angel Spawn
- A Royal Archer Spawn
- About 2 Knights Spawn too
- Then about 3 temples
Opponents side:
- Heavy equipment Warlock
- Elemental staff (with Fireball)
- demonic armor (the one with damage barrier - reason why my 1st Angel went down fast)
- ring of fire
- The conjuration that makes everybody finite
- a curse on my mage face down (most likely the curse that gives my mage finite life)
- Nullify face down
- Lash
First few turns were mana generation then the Warlock started to build equipment, I got the temple working. Then started harassing him with Gray Angel. He quickly destroyed the Gray Angel, then I sent another Gray Angel and so forth. Then he started positioning properly where my Gray Angel can't hit him on a move + attack while he does that Elemental staff attack on my Mage. With the finite life conjuration I cannot heal.
Who do you think would win?
I have 1 Gray Angel attacking him, a Royal Archer, 2 Knights and 3 temples (without the attacking one). I have about 10~12 life left while he has about 5. The turn before the potential last round, He cast FLY on his mage on a quick cast before creature action. Basically rendering both my Knights useless. This round I cast Dissolve on the Elemental staff (he nullified it).
He has initiative with potential burning spells like fireball + a full action attack spell.
Now 10~-12 life (for Priestess) versus 5 life (Warlock) with him with initiative for the last round.
I have no anti-attack spell cards or protection cards that would potentially nullify burns.
I know he will burn me (twice) but my 2 cards are:
1) The temple that attacks for my Quick Cast Turn - I have a place to put it down in range of his mage (potential quick attack on him with potential stunning I have 4 temples if this gets executed)
2) Another Royal Archer
I am guessing he has: 2 more burns..
1) Burn (Quick Cast - Elementalist Staff)
2) Burn (Probably a full action fire spell)
Who would win? It's all in the dice now..
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Hey all. New to the forums.
I play against my brother mostly, who rocks the Priestess while I play Warlock. We haven't been playing too long, so grain of salt and all that, but I have noticed that the Priestess can't simply summon cleric after cleric early on successfully with the temple, or theyll just get slaughtered. A better idea is definitely what Pixel hinted at, which is setting up some defensive units early on, and maybe a wall too.
A Knight of Westlock and the Priestess with her staff and/or Deflection Bracers guarding the zone is pretty potent and relatively efficient...both have a good defense that protects against range attacks, and both punish attacks within their zone heavily; the Knight with his defense and 5 dice counterstrike and the Priestess with her ability to Daze a unit into its NEXT action phase (I believe that's how it works if a unit gets dazed AFTER activating), and swing back for 4 dice.
This goes doubly if the Knight is still on guard for the next action phase...he can effectively put TEN dice on a unit that is dumb enough to attack in his zone. Pretty much means I have to take him down at range and hope for crits, since his armor is pretty high, or feed him an imp so my bloodreaper Dark Pact Slayer can do some real damage to him. There's other ways to deal with it, like Knockdown or Force Push-ing him out of the zone, but that's one less attack or spell I have towards killing the valuable targets in the zone, so he's already achieved his goal...and then still swings for a ton.
Yet another reason why I like the Fire school in combination with demons. All fire spells except Fireball are unavoidable, so defenses won't help, and demon's fire immunity/resistance helps keep the pressure up in a particular zone without the need to retreat them. Still a tough fight, but very balanced.
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@ Dexmark What spell did he cast on his mage to give him flying? I ask because as far as I know there aren't any.
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He probably means the Eagle Wings enchantment. Though I'm not sure how that would render the knights useless...the warlock will lose flying after he goes to attack. I guess the warlock could pass creature activations until most of the priestess' creatures are done activating, but a smart priestess will just guard with a knight. I could see a combination Evade/Eagle Wings with lots of passing of activations working though.
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Eagle Wings targets Non-Mage Living Creature.
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Oh. Well theres the reason I've never thought of putting it on my mage...you can't, lol. Maybe there's a forcemaster spell for it? Dunno.
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That one sticks in my mind because early on I thought I was going to make my mage fly with eagle wings too. Fortunately I realized my mistake before I tried it in a game. There were plenty others that I didn't catch. The enchantments has been the biggest learning curve for me.
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My biggest learning curve has been around learning the difference between additional attacks and additional strikes, like the difference between Battle Fury and doublestrike. It's really important to how I play the Warlock because I try to leverage Goran heavily, and learning how all his abilities work together, or don't, is pretty important. Usually I save up battlefury for something that rolls an effect die and has high melee skill, like the warlock with his Lash. Or a Flaming Hellion bloodreaper. That's a lot of dice and burns.
Im surprised I don't see much talk about Goran, tbh. He's got to be the most efficient creature for his cost and stats and for how many dice he can roll (8 with his full action attack if you do it right), and effectively allows you to have two bloodreapers out. Also gets around defenses easily too.
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The priestess Vs. Warlock is a tough match. For the temple with clerics, I have walled them in a corner once and only summoned flyers, In my games decoy has been worth its weight in gold for nullify, If I geyser the battle forge quickly the game can swing in the priestess' favor. The best hope for me with the priestess is her staff and the angle of light plus temple of light and just keep on him with stun, any solo aggro build is going to hate stun. equip the priestess with a elemental cloak and the dragon hide for -4 fire and get that lash gone asap. And always save a dispel for vampirism. The fact that the warlock can get 9 attack dice in turn three makes vampirism target number one.
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I haven't played that many games either as or against priestess, but out of all her Conjurations the Temple of Asyra is my least favorite.
It costs a TON of mana to get up and running (because you need 2 Asyran clerics) and it is so vulnerable to zone attacks, it isn't even funny. While 3 mana per round (4 with harmonize) is nice, the Priestess also doesn't have the most massable units and doesn't have the best army support incantations or Conjurations. The hands of bimshalla and dawnbreaker temples are single target buffs, as opposed to a Rajans Fury or ToothandNail which are army buffs. And healing is best when you have only a few units, as opposed to mass army vs army engagements where units can be killed off in a single round, before you have the chance to heal.
For all of the above reasons, as a priestess I would much rather go without a Spawnpoint, and force an engagement in the early game so that I am fighting with small army size vs. small army size, not huge horde vs huge horde.
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I am playing Temple of Asyra Opening right now.
Due to I have only 1 core set, I am limited on Angels (Gray Angels).
My side
- First few rounds, I had the Temple of Asyra + 2 clerics + 1 Gray Angel out + Crown.
- 1 Gray Angel sent out to harass = given her 1D from the Crown
- Another Gray Angel Spawn
- A Royal Archer Spawn
- About 2 Knights Spawn too
- Then about 3 temples
Opponents side:
- Heavy equipment Warlock
- Elemental staff (with Fireball)
- demonic armor (the one with damage barrier - reason why my 1st Angel went down fast)
- ring of fire
- The conjuration that makes everybody finite
- a curse on my mage face down (most likely the curse that gives my mage finite life)
- Nullify face down
- Lash
First few turns were mana generation then the Warlock started to build equipment, I got the temple working. Then started harassing him with Gray Angel. He quickly destroyed the Gray Angel, then I sent another Gray Angel and so forth. Then he started positioning properly where my Gray Angel can't hit him on a move + attack while he does that Elemental staff attack on my Mage. With the finite life conjuration I cannot heal.
Who do you think would win?
I have 1 Gray Angel attacking him, a Royal Archer, 2 Knights and 3 temples (without the attacking one). I have about 10~12 life left while he has about 5. The turn before the potential last round, He cast FLY on his mage on a quick cast before creature action. Basically rendering both my Knights useless. This round I cast Dissolve on the Elemental staff (he nullified it).
He has initiative with potential burning spells like fireball + a full action attack spell.
Now 10~-12 life (for Priestess) versus 5 life (Warlock) with him with initiative for the last round.
I have no anti-attack spell cards or protection cards that would potentially nullify burns.
I know he will burn me (twice) but my 2 cards are:
1) The temple that attacks for my Quick Cast Turn - I have a place to put it down in range of his mage (potential quick attack on him with potential stunning I have 4 temples if this gets executed)
2) Another Royal Archer
I am guessing he has: 2 more burns..
1) Burn (Quick Cast - Elementalist Staff)
2) Burn (Probably a full action fire spell)
Who would win? It's all in the dice now..
The game was decided.
The winner: Warlock.
The potential final round went to the Warlock.
The priestess tried the temple that attacks but:
- I rolled a 12 on it dazing the opponent instead of stunning.
- The warlock successfully burn twice leaving the priestess burning
- it went for another round where the priestess got burn with attack spells.
To: Reddawn, I didn't realize that you can't cast Eagle wings on the mage. It was a mistake that I learned. Without that wings the Warlock definitely lost about 4 turns early.
This Temple of Asyra opening is a good and viable opening. That Eagle wings saved him (not a valid action) where I have 4 guys on top of him with two Knights ready to wail on him with 10 dice. He got saved because of casting Eagle wings on the Quick Cast round.
Overall: I think the Priestess should win but due to a lack on understanding on Eagle Wings. The Warlock won. We just decided it was not a valid win due to a misunderstanding of the card.
Thanks to those who commented about the Eagle Wings.
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I play mainly against the Priestess, so here's my spin on it...
While it's true that you can zone attack the temple and the clerics, the Priestess has the spells to deal with zone attacks.
Sacred Ground is a very efficient way to deal with them, for example; for only 6 mana (5 with her ring) you give Aegis 1 to living creatures in the targetted zone, reducing the total number of dice by a good bit.
Temple of the Dawnbreaker also helps too, letting you reroll lethal dice or high effect rolls (very, very annoying when I roll 11s and 12s for 2x burn...).
Holy attack spells are also the most efficient mana-wise in the entire game for dazing your opponent; with her Dawnbreaker Ring, her Pillar of Light has an 80%+ chance (still a 75% chance without the ring) to daze for a mere 5 mana. With how expensive zone attack spells are, being upwards of 9+ mana, you really do not want a 50% chance to waste you mana.
She also has Group Heal, even if you do successfully cast your zone attack spell.
The way I see it, the Priestess is similar to the Wizard in how she wants to gain advantage. A lot of her spells are geared towards gaining a large mid/late game mana/combat advantage, which is when she is strongest with her assortment of temples and high-powered angels (one of which punishes you for slaying clerics). The Wizard and Priestess, imo, are the two control mages in the base game while the Warlock and Beastmaster are the two aggro mages.
Sure, you could opt for an early-game slugfest against the opposing mage (being on the receiving end, it's actually more effective than you'd think if you're not prepared), but I don't think the Priestess or Wizard does that as well as the other two. Arcane and Holy creatures lack the piercing needed to bypass early armor (Brogan as a notable exception) and arcane creatures in particular usually have the slow trait, so they're not good at attacking outside of their range/initial zone anyway. Besides, those Knight of Westlock are probably the best guards in the game, so I don't see the reason to go aggro with the Priestess early on.
Granted, I nearly got the crap beaten out of me against two Knights, but when push comes to shove, Slayers and other demons are better attackers.
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Not that it changes the discussion but I thought I would mention that the Dawnbreaker Ring does _not_ affect the chance that Pillar of Light has to Daze. Ranged +X and Melee +X don't modify the Effect Die, only [Damage Type] +X and +X vs [Creature Type/Trait] modify the Effect Die.
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Checked the rules and sure enough you're right. Strikes me as kind of odd...it makes sense that a fire ring would give a slightly better chance for all your fire spells to burn. Oh well, in either case, the percentages are pretty significant without the +1 to the effect die.
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I think it's mostly for balance and simplicity. The ring gives Ranged +1 because there's no trait for "extra damage and bonus to effect die with x damage type". And you don't want to give Ranged/Melee +1 the bonus to the effect die because then it's too powerful. Imagine a Lash of Hellfire on a Warlock with a Fireshaper Ring and Bear Strength. That's already Melee +4, giving a 3-6 Burn, 7+ 2 burns.