Marked for Death is important, because you want to roll a lot of dice. Why? If the enemy has 2 armor, 2 normal damage will be absorbed, meaning all of the next dice you roll will go through the armor and damage the enemy.

That's why Rust is probably a better Curse on a Creature with 2+Armor.
MfD will give you an average 1 extra damage while Rust will give you an average +2 extra damage.

Meditation Lair is a Spellbook for my Straywood Beastmaster.

The idea behind the book is to use the [mwcard=DNQ10] Meditation Amulet[/mwcard] and the [mwcard=MW1J10] Lair[/mwcard] to quickly summon a "critical mass" of [mwcard=MW1C38] Timber Wolf[/mwcard] empowered by [mwcard=MW1C29] Redclaw, Alpha Male[/mwcard] and then rush the enemy Mage.

Contrary to a common swarm strategy which uses cheap creatures like [mwcard=MW1C04] Bitterwood Fox[/mwcard] and [mwcard=MW1C37] Thunderift Falcon[/mwcard] this book tries to summon more or less the same amount of creatures but of the more durable kind.

The Beastmaster's 9 Channeling + 2 mana from the Lair + 3 mana from the Amulet gives him 14 mana per round which allows him to deploy a Timber Wolf (9) and Quickcast a Bitterwood Fox (5) every turn while meditating for 3 mana per round.

The idea is to build up your forces for about 4 turns, then go on offense, including your Beastmaster.

If the opposing Mage closed in on you in the meantime, all the better, since this means you don't have to cover a lot of ground anymore with your dogs.

The book has a secondary strategy in that it runs very few Enchantments of its own and that is because it intends to lay down a [mwcard=MWSTX2FFJ01] Harshforge Monolith[/mwcard] near the battlezone to take away as much mana as possible from the opposing mage while he is under pressure from the dogs.

These two elements combined should be enough to down the opposing Mage.

Of course there is no guarantee as to how much Enchantments ( if any ) the opposing Mage will play, but looking around at all the various Mage books on the net tells you that most ( if not all ) use plenty of Enchantments.
Thus, building an enchantment-poor spellbook with the intention of slapping down a Harshforge Monolith at the most (in)opportune time makes sense to me, especially in a swarm book which rather casts a new Animal instead of empowering one with an Enchantment.

So in short, the book wants to Rushbuild, attack and manasuffocate the opposition.

This is where the build currently stands.

Please, feel free to comment and make suggestions.


[spellbook]
[spellbookheader]
[spellbookname]Meditation Lair[/spellbookname]
[mage]Beastmaster[/mage]
[/spellbookheader]
[spells]
[spellclass]Attack[/spellclass]
[mwcard=FWA04]1 x  Hurl Boulder[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNA01]3 x  Acid Ball[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Conjuration[/spellclass]
[mwcard=mw1j10]1 x  Lair[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1j22]3 x  Tanglevine[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1j03]1 x  Tooth & Nail[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX2FFJ01]1 x  Harshforge Monolith[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNJ03]1 x  Etherian Lifetree[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1j19]1 x  Deathlock[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Creature[/spellclass]
[mwcard=mw1c38]4 x  Timber Wolf[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1c04]6 x  Bitterwood Fox[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1c29]1 x  Redclaw, Alpha Male[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKC02]1 x  Dire Wolf[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKC03]1 x  Galador, Protector of Straywood[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1c36]1 x  Tarok, the Skyhunter[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1c37]1 x  Thunderift Falcon[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNC16]1 x  Spitting Raptor[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNC06]1 x  Kralathor, The Devourer[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Enchantment[/spellclass]
[mwcard=MWSTX2FFE07]2 x  Rust[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1e27]2 x  Marked for Death[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1e10]1 x  Decoy[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Equipment[/spellclass]
[mwcard=DNQ10]2 x  Meditation Amulet[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q25]1 x  Ring of Beasts[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ06]1 x  Eagleclaw Boots[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q23]1 x  Regrowth Belt[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q02]2 x  Bearskin[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Incantation[/spellclass]
[mwcard=mw1i06]2 x  Dispel[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNI04]1 x  Renewing Rain[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1i12]2 x  Force Push[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1i28]2 x  Teleport[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX2FFI06]2 x  Defend[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1i23]2 x  Rouse the Beast[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1i07]3 x  Dissolve[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1i15]2 x  Knockdown[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1i03]2 x  Call of the Wild[/mwcard]
[/spells]
[cost]Total cost: 120 pts[/cost]
[/spellbook]

Plan :

Lair in starting corner vs aggressive opposition ( eg Forcemaster, warlocks )
Play Lair 1 zone up vs medium aggression ( eg Priest )
Play Lair in NC or ( quite risky imo ) in FC vs defensive opposition ( eg Priestess, Wizard )

Personally I prefer to stay in my starting corner and cast Lair there as I want at least two uninterrupted turns to start the game.

T1 : 19
- Lair (4)
- Ring of Beasts (2)

T2 : 11 + 2
- Dep Pet Bitterwood Fox (6)
- Meditation Amulet (2)
- Meditate (5)

T3 : 14 + 2
- Dep Timber Wolf (7)
- Meditate (10)
- Bitterwood Fox (6)

T4 : 15 + 2
- Dep Redclaw (1)
- Meditate (4)
- Bitterwood Fox (0)

From this point on you're ready to advance the dogs and you can Dep a Timber Wolf every turn for a steady stream of pressure.
QC a Fox or use the remaining 5 mana to anticipate the gameboard situation.

Hurl Boulder is a finisher.

Acid Ball, Rust, Spitting Raptor, Tooth and Nail and Dissolve are supposed to keep the opposing Mage's as well as some lvl 3+ creatures armor at 0.
Different circumstances dictate which of these choices is the best answer.

Rust is an enchantment I'll gladly pay upkeep for, as well as Marked for Death.
Their benefits outweigh the small upkeep.

Tanglevine is especially useful early on for keeping the opposing Mage out of Dissolve range for 1 or two more turns so I can get the most out of the Amulet during my build-up.

Etherian Lifetree makes my critters even better vs non-living.

Deathlock comes into play vs regenerators ( Druid ) and Healing builds ( Priestess )

The Monolith, as explained already, is supposed to hit the game when my opponent is high on enchantments and low on mana

Dire Wolf makes a great Second Pet during midgame when damage has been dealt already ( and vs living opposition, of course ).

Tarok is a Flyer counter, while the Thunderift Falcon is supposed to go after small flyers like Felella or Thoughtspores.

Galador is an anti flyer counter, as well as a counter to Lightning +2 creatures.

Kralathor has Reach, thus can take care of Flyers and is a natural Necromancer counter.
He has to be played by the Beastmaster himself though but I don't consider that too much of a handicap as that is where the Rouse the Beasts are put to good use as well.

The Knockdowns can take care of Flyers and work around Defenses.

This turned out to be a longer than anticipated write up but I guess every spellbook deserves some explanation and clarification ...

Quote from: Borg on October 09, 2014, 03:27:27 AM

Lately, I've been adding [mwcard=MWSTX2FFJ01]Harshforge Monolith[/mwcard] to quite a few of my Books especially my near enchantmentless Beastmaster deck, specifically to counter the overuse of enchantments of many books.
It looks like Harshforge Monolith could hurt this deck real bad all at once or am I seeing this wrong ?

Harshforge is for sure nice against my build! So far noone used it against me. Since it effect has only range 1, my Mage and Fellella should be able to stay out of range. If the Harshforge is played during the last QC phase, I might not be able to avoid its effect though, so it might cost me 10+ mana during the next upkeep round. This is more than the Monolith cost itself (6 mana) and considering I have only 10 Channeling, if I spent all my mana in the previous round I might not be able to pay the upkeep for all enchants. So yeah it will be a really good spell to use against this deck. If more players will start using it, I might include Mana Prism in this deck. It will not completely counter Harshforge Monolith but will make it hurt less. The downside will be that I would need to cast Mana Prism before Monolith has been cast which doesnt seem to be a really good move since the opponent might not cast the Monolith at all after that. Then again Mana Prism helps against other stuff as well. In the end, I need to see how it works in a real game .

Range is (luckily) only one for the Monolith (otherwise it would be way too powerful imo) but played in a centre zone it still covers 5 zones and of course the Monolith player will for sure carry some Force Pushes/Teleports to push the main enchantment carrier back into the Monolith's zone of effect during final quickcast of the following turn. Getting out of this stranglehold can be quite painful in the end, either let go of a number of enchantments ( meaning lost mana and actions in the process ) or continuing the fight with a minimum of mana ( not a great option either ).

I wouldn't worry too much about Meditation Amulet getting Dissolved. If I get to use it twice, I've already made mana on the investment, and I should have a board advantage already, since my opponent moved 3 spaces in order to get to me to Dissolve my Amulet. Even if I can only use it once, I'm ahead of my opponent on economy and board presence.

Hi Scott, I tried this approach in a game vs Priest.
Sprinted out to NC and cast the Lair in NC as well (as I like to keep the Lair and Beastmaster together in the same zone so I can better defend both early on.
The Meditation Amulet got dissolved on T2 and T3 and this really took the speed out of the build up. The key to this strategy imo is to remain unhindered in the first few turns to build up the "critical mass", then let it loose. So the surest way to achieve that is to remain in the starting zone and keep the distance between you and your opponent as large as possible.

I wouldn't Harmonize the Lair in that type of opening. It makes the Lair a bigger target, and slows you down. You probably already have enough economy from Lair + Meditation Amulet, and I would rather supplement with rings than with enchantments.

Completely agree with that. The Harmonize is not necessary as you have the targeted 14 mana from Channeling+Amulet+Lair already and it consumes 4 mana which you cannot afford to spend if you want to use this build up.

I think you have to look at this game more from a turn by turn perspective.
Meaning, what did my opponent do this turn and how did I counter it ?
Did I get ahead in this exchange ?
Mage Wars is very much about reacting to what your opponent does and trying to get ahead in this exchange.

Opening the game with a Crystal/Flower can be a good play for instance to counter a situation where you're channeling less than the opposition.

Suppose you channel 9 and your opponent channels 10 mana.
This means that in ( for example ) a 15-turn game you will channel 15 mana less than your opponent.

By playing a Crystal/Flower on T1 you make a 1-time 5-mana investment to even the channeling from T2 on. Sure you invested 5 mana on it but you countered an opposition's advantage with it for every following round.

Following that same Logic, playing a Crystal/Flower can also give you an advantage if you had the same channeling rate to begin with.

As I already mentioned, the game is about making the best plays in any given round, countering your opponents's actions and trying to get an edge on him and playing a Crystal/Flower at some point may be just that play.

EDIT ADDED

And consider this situation :

A Mage Channeling 9 mana per turn wants to spend 10 mana every turn.
He can do this for 10 turns ( until his starting 10 mana are used up )
From turn 11 on he will no longer be able to spend 10 mana a turn as his mana pool is empty and he channels only 9/turn.

That same Mage playing a Crystal/Flower on T1 upping his channeling to 10 can spend 10 mana every turn all game and has 5 remaining mana to boost.

However, I don't think that an opponent who realises what you are trying to do (Lair+Amulet) and who decides to attack you early as a consequence would go for the Amulet. Hyper-aggro enemies (Solo Forcemaster/Warlock, Big Buddy builds...) go for your Mage's throat, the intention being that the game will be over after turn 8 at latest (and they can hurt you badly as early as turn 3).

I hope I can counter that early agression by throwing Foxes at the opposition while at the same time pumping out more Wolves. The book also runs a couple of Dire Wolves as a counter to solo mages.
Tanglevine and Eagle Claw Boots also help in this situation.

Certainly include 2 to 3 [mwcard=MWSTX2FFE04]Brace Yourself[/mwcard]
With the Enchanter's Ring these cost only 1 mana and can be activated at the exact right time (when your defense fails)
I also prefer [mwcard=MW1E33]Retaliate[/mwcard] over Battle Fury.
BF will only give you an additional 4-dice attack, useful maybe to finish a creature in one attack.
Doublestrike + BF + scimitar can be lethal, however, a retaliate can be used as a surprise and at the right time for a much higher damage output.

I also run a [mwcard=MW1C18]Gorgon Archer[/mwcard] and a [mwcard=MW1C34]Steelclaw Grizzly[/mwcard]
Both creatures have nice synergy with the FM's force pull.

As an additional defensive measure [mwcard=MW1E12]Divine Protection[/mwcard] can be useful, especially against swarms.