tournament viable necromancer?

[drmambo23]

I have been playing the game for a while and I'm looking to start playing competitively. I am fond of lady warlock and have seen some excel with her when majority said she wasnt that great. But what I really love is the concept of a necromancer and being able to play one in mage wars. His abilities, while they are decent, do not seem to be up to par, in my opinion, with just about every other mage.  Also, from just about everything I have tried it seems his setup is very slow and gets destroyed against rushes, beast master swarms, other necro builds since they are poison immune, and wizard tower with any attack that burns.

Has anyone had similar results or thoughts? And what strategies have you guys been using that are successful with the necromancer?  Do you think he is going to stay "squishy" until the warlock academy set when more curses, creatures, and dark spells are released?

[SharkBait]

drmambo! Dark mages are where it's at!

So that being said, there are a few people/places I would look to for help with the Necromancer. Normally I'd provide a few links, but since I'm at work, half of the links won't load. I may be able to edit them in when I get home later. Anyways...

GW won the Thunderdome I tournament on OCTGN using the necromancer. I believe that Schwenkgott was the one who broadcast those games and you can find them on his youtube channel. Look for "Schwenkgott Thunderdome" and specifically the matches that involve gw's necromancer. Don't worry if you don't speak German, Mage wars is the common language here .
I also believe that Charmyna won the Thunderdome II's grand finals match with a necromancer, though I'm not sure if there is video of that one or not. You may want to ask around about that one/if anyone who knows anything about the book wouldn't mind posting it here please do.
I know that JasonBourneZombie is a big necromancer player too, so checking out a few of his books in the design forum can at least give you some ideas to run with. I'd also recommend checking out intangible's sacromancer videos on the Arcane Duels page for some fun ideas as well.


This is in no way a comprehensive list of Necromancer knowledge, but it could be a good kick in the right direction until the real Necro experts can chime in. I'm more warlock flavored myself, but find the necro to be a fun mage to use.


Edit: I forgot to mention Coshade's really mean necro book too. Check the Soul Reaper out

[drmambo23]

Thanks man! Yeah I really like the warlock and I agree that dark mages are the best!

And thanks for the insight. I'll definitely check out that channel and watch those videos.

[Coshade]

Hey drmambo!

I'm glad you want to look into the Necromancer for being competitive. Welcome to the competitive community! He's seriously a scary mage to bring. There are a ton of ways to play the Necromancer and I think I need some more information before I can give you any advice. Here's some questions that may help guide this conversation -

How do you want to win the game? Swarms of creatures? A few big creatures? Solo?

Do you want to run a Graveyard, Libro, Battle Forge, or a combination of these conjurations? (or something not yet explored/ something that catches your eye)

Do you want to run skeletons, zombies, or go for a wider range of mixed creatures (in or out of school)?

I'd be glad to train with you over OCTGN sometime if you want to test some books!

[silverclawgrizzly]

Welcome to competitive play! The Necromancer in my view is a legit threat to any tournament when played well. He's definitely a "finesse" mage though. With Dark mages you can not lolly gag around, you need to be bringing the hate hard and heavy. At our last big fund raiser we had 12 mages enter of which 5 were Dark with a Necromancer taking 2nd place. 

You gotta decide on whether to go with zombies or skeletons. In my experience zombies are a slower build up that eventually just wipes the board clean. Skeletons you can get bigger threats out faster with though and that can mean a lot.

[ringkichard]

All of the 10 channeling mages are potentially competitive. Necro and Priestess are probably 2 and 3 in popularity among that group.

[drmambo23]

@Coshade
How do you want to win the game? Swarms of creatures? A few big creatures? Solo?
In mind I have either a few big creatures or a buddy build

Do you want to run a Graveyard, Libro, Battle Forge, or a combination of these conjurations? (or something not yet explored/ something that catches your eye)
i was toying with the idea of bim shalla or dawnbreaker (i know they are out of school and costa good amount of sbp but are tools that could help a buddy or few creature build)

Do you want to run skeletons, zombies, or go for a wider range of mixed creatures (in or out of school)?
So far I am thinking grey wraith, dwarf panzergarde, bridge troll, mort.  I'm still in the book building stage and getting a solid idea to stick with.

I have run a necro with enchanters ward stones, essence drain, and rise again.  When the decide to not pay the upkeep for the creature I can reanimate it with rise again or animate dead (on a mage wand).

Also, I would love the help in testing books on OCTGN

@silverclawgrizzly

You gotta decide on whether to go with zombies or skeletons. In my experience zombies are a slower build up that eventually just wipes the board clean. Skeletons you can get bigger threats out faster with though and that can mean a lot.

If i chose to swarm then I would probably go with zombies, mainly for resilient and zombie frenzy

[Intangible0]

@drmambo23
The Necromancer is full of surprises and possible builds. I find that usually when I'm testing a core idea out for a build, the necromancer is always the one that I never prepare for enough. Simply being resistant to certain book strategies alone makes him tough to deal with.

[Coshade]

It sounds like you want to go with a more non traditional Necromancer. Drmambo this is fantastic! Right now the Necromancer Meta usually revolves around the Necromancer only spawnpoints, but in the recent Thunderdome tournament we saw Keejchen play a very unexpected Necro that was very competitive.

Here's some links for reference to this very odd, yet very effective necromancer. Keej was brought down after 2 wins by the legendary Charmanya book, but still put up a very effective fight. This may give you some ideas for your buddy build.

Thunderdome II Keejchen matches
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqH3Hz0v4Rs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmLJJpq5egE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OsABOBrZPo

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Using Bim Shalla or the Dawnbreaker is pretty effective with a buddy build. The armor +1 is great when dealing with swarms! Dawnbreaker usually doesn't get enough credit for it's ability to reroll damage which can save your buddy's life (lookin at your high dice fireballs ). A big question to bring up is that if you run those conjurations, is the Necromancer appropriate for mage to use? What will the Necromancer bring that you would wish to use those conjurations? The poison immune and ability to deal Direct damage during upkeep are a huge part of him and if you want to combo it with the temples it's gonna take some work (but I think it could work). I would love to suggest looking at Malacoda as a body guard buddy.

Grey Wraith is a cool choice. It combos with your poison mastery ability and helps you survive longer. Very similar idea with Mort except you are exchanging survivability for faster kills. The Dwarf Panzergarde is interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about it as the spellbook points are quite high (but they may allow you to get the damage through). I would love to see what your decisions are for creatures in this book!

The Mage wand idea with Animate Dead is fun trick for the dark mages. If you run a creature like malacoda it can be super effective. Not to mention you turn their swarms into your swarms with it I imagine with a buddy build you will want a few buffs for them. Depending on what you choose, it would dictate if you need/how many enchanter's Wardstones you require.

Anyway I would love to see a book! Go in assuming it's just version 1 of many to be a competitive book. Hope this helps!

[gw]

Bit late to the party but just in case a copy/paste from the thread including vid links :

The games all were interesting to be honest :

The mirror match showed the function of the walls very nicely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msslaGLtbMk

The game vs HairyPoppins was interesting because it showed the idea and theme of the deck (clock : Idol of Pestilence and maybe Deathlock) in the clearest way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMtAaDc2ZgM

Also the above mentioned game vs Keejchen was nice because I think it was the one where I did play best - not making sloppy plays, mistakes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urSp-4YQpgw

The final vs Gdieckhaus was another Priestess. Actually, the Necro was designed as an answer to the question "How can one possibly kill a defensive 4 GA Priestess ?", so I was quite optimistic here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhrKG1Ybo-A
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QafnHsDVOA   (English version)

from http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=15571.0

Thread includes the spellbook and some afterthoughts although those are of course outdated.

 

[drmambo23]

Thank you guys for all the help and direction of information!  I haven't really had any time to do anything with this build lately with the holidays and we just moved.  But hopefully I'll have a few builds put together within the week and I can start testing them out on octgn and see which one I prefer and then go from there as far as fleshing it out more!