This isn't very clear to me based on the existing rulebook. Logically speaking I would think that Drain Life should work like Vampiric (No overkill allowed) but it is never explicitly spelled out that way.

Death Link is very specifically worded to allow overkill, so it is not relevant to the Drain Life question.

On the other hand, Drain Soul also seems to be worded to always grant 6 Life. This makes it an excellent way to finish off an enemy creature while also gaining life.

At the end of Round 3, I had a dark pact slayer and a flaming hellion in the zone adjacent to Temple of Light. ToL attacked the same round it entered play and rolled 7 critical damage + a stun on my Dark Pact.

Fourth round, pillar of light dazed my hellion, it rolled and failed to attack. Dark pact was still stunned. My warlock summoned an imp and put on some armor. Priestess meleed for 6 dice and left my Darkpact with 1 HP. At this point, I hadn't been able to get a single attack off.

Fifth round, priestess finished off Darkpact with a 4 dice melee (1 hand for damage, 2 for armor). Temple of light rolled and stunned my flaming hellion and did a lot of damage. Flaming imp and warlock each got a melee off.

Sixth round, priestess finished off Hellion with a 6 dice melee and Temple one-shot imp.

So I lost 31 mana worth of creatures and got a single attack off. It was pretty disgusting.

So Origins 2013 is over. At least 2/3 of the Tournament of Champions builds ran large numbers of Hands of Bimshalla plus Temple of Light, and the undefeated winning build (Steve Walters priestess) used 6x Hand and 3x Temple.

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So here's what is interesting about a Temple Build. The Hand of Bimshalla is only mildly overpowered by itself. The temple of light is worthless without Hands (you'll never get enough Dawnbreakers to buff it). However, the combo of Hand plus ToL proved to be absolutely over the top overpowered.

I am of the opinion that Mage Wars needs more strong combos, not less. However, Hand+ToL is not the right model to base them on, for the following reasons:
- Hand and Temple are both quick spells. You can have 3 hands + ToL and roll a 4 dice ranged attack on Round 2. This is far too fast of a combo, compared to how long it takes to get creatures or equipment out.
- Hand and Temple do not reward an opponent for trying to interrupt the combo. At 5 mana and level 1, it is easy to replace destroyed Hands. Temple is even worse. If your Temple attacks, then dies, recasting ToL lets you get a 2nd temple attack off on the same round! Ironically, killing the temple actually INCREASES its damage output.

However, I am all for combo cards being stronger. They just need limitations. Any combination of the following will work:
1) requires time (every-upkeep-phase effects)
2) requires map control (must control X outposts, Y zone exclusives, etc)
3) requires specific creatures (all soldiers gain X. Requires an Angel, a Knight, and 2 Clerics)
4) requires another card type (effect multiplied by number of temples, of walls, of mana Conjurations, etc.)
5) requires specific "combo points"

Some hypothetical examples:
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(1, 3) Mithril forge - generates Blade tokens each round and after X tokens gives a +Piercing or + melee bonus to Soldiers.

(2,3,4) Temple of Protection - Any time an attack is declared against a friendly creature within 0-2 range and LoS, you may pay 2 mana to use Temple of Protection as a defense. (d12+X) 10+, where X = number of Clerics you control.

(1,2,3) Idol of Desecration - Every upkeep phase, gain a Desecration token for every zone that contains a Demon creature you control. When a friendly Demon creature enters play, you may spend 9 Desecration tokens to teleport him into a zone with any other Demon creature you control, and activate his action marker.

(1,5) Hive - Generates an Insect token every round.
Thousand Stings - Attack spell. You must pay 2 Insect tokens as part of the casting cost. High damage zone Poison attack.
Insect Swarm - Enchantment. You must pay 3 Insect tokens as part of the reveal cost. Inflicts Poison damage every round. When target creature is destroyed, you may immediately cast and reveal Insect Swarm for no cost on any other creature in the same zone.
Hive Queen - Creature. Unique. You must pay 6 Insect tokens as part of the casting cost, but this creature does not cost mana. Generates Insect tokens every round.

(1,4) Quickened Mind - Enchant. During the Upkeep phase, gain a Thought token for each Psychic card you control. Gain a Thought token every time you cast a Psychic incantation. Maximum 6 Thought tokens. Immediately after any of your action phases, you may spend 6 Thought tokens to reset your Quick Cast marker.

(3,4) Entrench - Incantation. Until the end of the round, all your Soldier creatures gain Aegis X while Guarding, where X = the number of Walls you control.

(3,4) Malediction - Incantation, targets enemy creature. Performs an X dice Poison zone attack centered around target creature, where X is the total number of revealed Curse enchantments on the creature.

(2,4) Rain Cloud - Conjuration, Cloud, all Corporeal objects in this zone, or corporeal Walls bordering this zone, gain Flame -2 and Acid -2
Thunder Cloud - Conjuration, Cloud. Every upkeep performs a 2 dice Lightning zone attack with Flying +1
Smoke Cloud - Conjuration, Cloud. Blocks Line of Sight to or from all objects within this zone. Does not affect walls bordering this zone.
Hurricane - Unique Conjuration, Cloud. Every upkeep phase, pay 3 upkeep to perform an X dice Wind zone attack (-3 vs Clouds) against every zone containing a friendly Cloud, where X = total number of Clouds you control.

Most people seem to agree that slow builds (those that accumulate lots of mana generation and spawnpoints/familiars) are generally underpowered compared to fast builds ("rush", "beatdown"). I certainly agree with this; my experience in playing a "rush" mage against high-mana-income mages is that your superior number of damage-dice-per-round will usually overwhelm whatever the other guy plays.

So I was thinking about basic game mechanics and deck-building rules and suddenly realized:
In general, a level-X card costs around 4*X mana.
The converse of this is that if you have 40 mana to spend, you will use 10 spell levels from your spellbook.

This means that a Mage with 16 total Mana income: 13 channeling and a 3-channeling Spawnpoint, will burn through an average of 4 spell levels per round. Meanwhile, a Mage with 9 total Mana income will only burn through 2 spell levels per round. This is a striking disadvantage for a high-income build. Even though you are supposedly a "lategame" buld, you are far more likely to run out of cards in the lategame.
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I think it would be really helpful to "lategame" builds if there were cards that had disproportionately high power compared to their spell level. These could come in three flavors:
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1) Trade mana-efficiency for level-efficiency: Straight up efficiency trade
Phase Door: Level 1 Arcane
X+2 Mana, 0-2 range, Zone
Identical to Teleport but costs 2 more mana and 1 less spell level.

Novice Dispel: Level 1 Arcane, Novice
X+1 Mana, Quick, 0-2 range, Enchantment
Identical to Dispel but costs 1 more mana and is a Novice spell.
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2) Trade timing for level-efficiency: Delayed action effects
Steelclaw Cub: Level 2 Nature
10 Mana, Full, 0-0 range
1 Armor, 9 Health, Frost -3
Quick Melee 2 dice, Piercing +1
Full Melee 4 dice, Piercing +1
During every Upkeep phase Steelclaw Cub gains 1 Age token. At 3 Age tokens it matures into a Steelclaw Grizzly. Gain Level +2, Melee +3, Armor +2, and Health +6.

Mithril Forge, Level 1 War Conjuration
8 Mana, Quick, 0-1 range
4 Armor, 6 Health, Unique
During every Upkeep phase Mithril Forge gains 1 Blade token, up to a maximum of 4. For every 2 Blade tokens on Mithril Forge, all friendly Soldier creatures gain Piercing +1. Once per round, immediately before a friendly action phase, you may remove 3 Blade tokens from Mithril Forge to give a Soldier creature Melee +2 and Piercing +2 until the end of the round.

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3) Trade prerequisites for level-efficiency: Combo type effects
Wailing Revenant: Level 2 Dark creature
12 Mana, Full, 0-0 Range
0 Armor, 14 Health
Fast
Quick Melee 4 dice, 7+ Tainted
Full Melee 3 dice, 9+ Tainted, Sweeping
Wailing Revenant may only be summoned if you control 2 or more Dark Conjurations and 2 or more Curses. During the Reset phase, if you do not control 2 or more Dark Conjurations, Wailing Revenant's action marker remains inactive. When Wailing Revenant is activated, if you do not control 2 or more Curses it loses Fast and gains Slow.

Temple Guard: Level 1 Holy creature
10 Mana, Full, 0-0 Range
1 Armor, 8 Health, 11+ Defense (1x)
Quick Melee 4 Dice
Defense Rolls +1 for every Temple you control.
Armor +1 for every Cleric you control.
Gains Regenerate 2 if in the same zone as a Temple or Angel.

Boiling Oil: Level 1 War Incantation
7 Mana, Quick, 0-2 Range, Friendly Non-Flying Soldier Creature
Quick Melee, Fire, 6 Dice, 4+ Burn, 9+ 2 Burn
Target creature may make the above attack as a free action, so long as it is in the same zone as a friendly Outpost. Destroy this incantation after one attack, or at the end of the round, whichever comes first.

Healing Charm can triple-dip from Divine Favor (priestess ability), Ring of Asyra and Enchanters Ring. This in and of itself makes it far superior to Bull EndurAnce.

The other notable thing is that while Healing Charm can be seeking dispelled, it is "resistant" to purge/destroy. When a purge or destroy is declared, you can reveal healing charm and resolve the healing prior to the Resolve Spell step.

The main reason you'd keep healing charm unrevealed is if your creature hasn't taken 8 damage yet. (Since there is a 0.4% chance you could roll 8 healing) The other reason is to trick your opponent into not killing your unit, for example if it has 1 health left and is stuck in a poison gas cloud. Your opponent might not bother finishing it off if he thinks it will die anyways, so you save healing charm until just before the next Upkeep phase.

From the preview thread:

What happens if you attempt to transfuse a pile of enchantments to a creature with a hostile Nullify? Does it trigger at all? If so, does it nullify the entire Transfusion? Or does it only nullify the very first thing that you attempt to shift? If so, do you get to pay another X mana and attempt to shift it again?

I personally don't think that Nullify should trigger at all. Here's why:
- Nullify only works during the Counter Spell Step of casting an enchant or incantation.
- There's no such thing as a Counter Spell Step to revealing an enchantment.
- Therefore, nullify should not trigger at all.

It definitely sounds like you are ready for the non-apprentice mode of the game.

Grizzlies have tremendous amount of health, armor and damage, but it is a single big creature. Control spells such as Force Hold and Turn to Stone can totally neutralize it. So can stuns and dazes.

Like any nonflying "big", a flyer-heavy deck can simply ignore the Grizz and swarm overhead.

Compared to other "bigs" the Grizzly is relatively vulnerable to swarms, as it doesn't have Sweeping or Counterstrike or Vampiric. While 3 Armor will soak a lot of damage, it can at most kill one weak creature per round, and if it rolls badly and fails to kill one its round is essentially wasted.

Also like all "bigs" the Grizzly doesn't actually hit that hard compared to an equivalent-cost swarm.  The Grizz costs as much as 4 goblin grunts, or 4 ring of beasts bitterwood foxes, but either of the 4-creature swarms can roll 12 dice (3x4). Depending on your tactical situation you may be better off ignoring the Grizzly and going straight for the Mage. (the same cannot be said for swarms, swarms do too much damage to ignore)