Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => Strategy and Tactics => Topic started by: webcatcher on January 22, 2014, 08:11:49 AM
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So how good is corrosive orchid? Is there any way to defend against its dissolve effect?
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Thank you for doing this. 8)
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;)
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Intercept protects you from the "dissolve" effect off the orchid. Oddly enough as Forcefield cancels the rest of an attack it would also protect you from the "dissolve" effect. Other than that, I don't really know anything else that can.
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Divine intervention can cancel the attack.
But you cannot stop the destruction of the equipment if you let the attack hit you.
(force enemy to waste mana.)
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Divine intervention can cancel the attack.
But you cannot stop the destruction of the equipment if you let the attack hit you.
(force enemy to waste mana.)
Good catch on Divine Intervention.
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Surprise Armor Ward could help, but only if your opponent doesn't have the extra 4 mana.
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Those things are tricky. I haven't fought a Druid or anyone using them yet but I'm not looking forward to it.
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No Shift Enchantment tricks?
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What would you shift? Unless you've got Armor ward and enchantment transfusion out, which is a lot of work for a card most people don't use and which can be countered by having four extra Mana.
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What would you shift? Unless you've got Armor ward and enchantment transfusion out, which is a lot of work for a card most people don't use and which can be countered by having four extra Mana.
I was being a bit cheeky to my forum fiends, someone almost always comes up with a shift enchantment solution. Reminds me of this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULmmmUPf3LU) note a bit of cussing...
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Enchantment Transfusion + Jinx delays it...
That same Enchantment Transfusion will also bring Nullify, Force Hold, Ghoul Rot, depending on set-up time
Then just get out of the way whilst they divert attention on those lovely enchants buffed by Wardstones
The Way of The Wizard is indeed subtle (and often boringly slow to put you out of your mana starved misery)
Just being facetious: when Orchid was previewed, I applauded the way the designers stuffed Wizard Control with it (no Nullify or Block defence). Much needed. However, I think it has actually weakened other builds more. Why? Because Wizard Control plays Armour Ward. Period. With Mana Siphon and all the other mana drain effects, Orchid is a setback (how many Teleport Wands for your Slow?) but all that mana saved to cast it is all the enemy has cast for 2 turns. That's quite a lot of tempo loss when my recharging Forge simply recasts another copy of Teleport Wand. I will take that trade-off anytime...
Yeah. Orchid is great Equipment kill, especially at vine range. But I think it hurts other builds far more.
(I expect it was also designed for anti-Lash and anti-Fireball Wand vs. Warlock to protect Druid's plants which it does admirably).
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Oh, and the best defence for Corrosive Orchid is to cast your own and stay in that zone!
Or just weather the 2 dice Acid attack where he has already cast one (that's what Gargoyles are for).
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Everybody always talks about Corrosive Orchid's dissolve effect, but it is also a vine conjuration with an attack, which I consider to be the more important aspect of it (think about the power of Wizard's Tower or Temple of Light). When I cast it, I often don't bother with the dissolve effect at all. An extra conjuration-timed unavoidable attack with corrode can be extremely useful in many scenarios:
- Removing Voltaric Shield, Block, Forcefield tokens, and other mandatory defenses right before attacking with something else
- Attacking low-health flyers or creatures with defenses
- Comboing with push/pull effects like Thornlasher's snatch (or corroding armor right before a shove through a wall of thorns)
- Abusing creature suppression effects (conjurations are immune to the obelisk, idol of pestilence, and other such effects, allowing you to get around their limits). This is one reason my Druid deck runs Mordok's Obelisk - True, there aren't enough conjurations with attacks yet to have a pure "conjuration swarm", but between the orchid and the lotus you can supplement your creatures enough to have significantly more attack actions than your opponent.
On top of this, you have the one time dissolve effect - a nice bonus, but certainly not the main reason for running Corrosive Orchid.
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IMO, the best counter to Corrosive dissolve is to maintain a tempo advantage, such that it is painful for your opponent to spend Mana dissolving your (Wand, Armor, etc).
Corrosive shares a "problem" with Explode in that you have to spend extra mana over a straight Dissolve. In the case of Explode, the 6 Mana buys a decent Unavoidable attack. In the case of Orchid, the 8 Mana buys an attack and a persistent (though fragile) Orchid. However, it's still Mana that your opponent can't spend on other things, like Raptor Vines that hit much harder than Orchids.
Even though your opponent dissolves your wand or Armor or weapon, if you have enough of a tempo advantage, you will get further and further ahead every round because he used his Mana on equipment destruction instead of reclaiming tempo.
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I like the comparison of Corrosive Orchid to Explode. Fortunately, a 7 mana "hasty" conjuration that does 2 dice +50% corrode is much more useful than a 4 die flame attack on a mage. I often find that even the threat of a Corrosive Orchid can make it pretty unappealing to play Leather Boots, Leather Gloves, and often even the torso pieces!
That said, the additional threat and flexibility of corrosive orchid (dissolve at vine range is pretty handy) does come at a steep cost. When I build Druid books, I tend to skew heavily toward Dissolve, since the extra mana is not available early game, and honestly, rarely late game either.
I think the ideal mix is somewhere in the 1-2 orchid:2-4 dissolve range.
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Interesting. I have never run as many as 4 dissolves in a deck, because I have a hard time justifying spending so many actions on equipment removal. If my opponent spends that much mana on equipment, it is often easier just to overpower him with more creatures+Conjurations instead of trying to remove Equipment.
The one time where removal is absolutely necessary is Mage Wand + Teleport. Everything else can be played around or brute forced through, but repeated Teleports are pretty close to GG against Druid.
One huge advantage that Orchids provide is that they don't have to use one of your Mages actions. Orchids can be deployed via seedpod or Vinetree, freeing your other two actions for other things.
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If you solve most problems by brute forcing, I like your style. The community seems very keen on Equipment, Enchantments, Incantations, and Attacks, but mostly I just want to Summon.
The last game I played was Druid vs. Necromancer. Early in the game I used one Dissolve on a Necro Ring, because it represented a huge mana advantage over the course of time. I feel like if both players are going to go the attrition route, that kind of card is dangerous over a lot of tuns. Late in the game I dissolved a Teleport Wand and a Cloak of Shadows, both because they interfered with keeping the opponent in my heavily planted square. I never used my Corrosive Orchids, but I was sure glad to have them since opponent could have easily had another Teleport Wand. (I almost used an Orchid instead of Dissolve to get the Cloak "unexpectedly" at Range 2.)
Would you have left the Ring alone? Maybe so many Dissolves makes me too aggressive with them?
I think there are other equipment worth destroying:
* Warhammer (that thing does a lot of damage/daze every round!)
* Healing Wand (they usually just have one, and then you can load on the conditions)
* Lash (just if you are the Druid, the Fire is just too effective)
* Eagleclaw Boots (when you have a way to exploit moving the enemy mage)
I mean, yeah it costs you some tempo, but it cost them tempo too. Reactive cards mean they get one round with their toy, but in the case of some toys, the long game is what it's about.
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In my opinion the cost of corrosive orchid is to high, I rather just use a dissolve to get rid of pesky equipment and focus on beating the other mage down with raptor vines and pulling/pushing him through my walls.
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In my opinion the cost of corrosive orchid is to high, I rather just use a dissolve to get rid of pesky equipment and focus on beating the other mage down with raptor vines and pulling/pushing him through my walls.
This is mostly true, the [mwcard=DNJ02] Corrosive Orchid's[/mwcard] dissolve is un-counterable at this time. My Necro yesterday was [mwcard=MW1I12] Force Pushed[/mwcard] into a zone with one by a Druid and my [mwcard=MW1A06] Flameblast[/mwcard] [mwcard=MW1Q08] Elemental Wand[/mwcard] was sadly dissolved and there was nothing I could do about it.
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Because you cannot counter the orchid it might be worth putting one into a druid spell book, but I could never really see putting 2 or 3 into a spell book.