Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => Spellbook Design and Construction => Topic started by: Draznar on April 26, 2013, 01:00:31 PM
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I've often heard of people discussing the "Standard Priestess Temple", but I have not been able to find sample spellbooks. I'm assuming these spellbooks wold be full of Holy Temple cards, but I'd like to see what else is in these versions of Priestess that makes them so powerful.
Can anyone point me to a discussion on these types of builds or post an example spellbook below?
Thank you much!
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I have played the Priestess a bit. There are two types of temple builds. One I am familiar with and one I am not. The one I am not uses the Temple of Asyra and Clerics praying to generate Mana to build up a contingent of Holy creatures. I have never tried this.
The second I am more familiar with. It typically uses Temple of Light + Temple of the Dawnbreaker (for the re-rolls) along with a couple of Hand of Bim-Shalla added in to boost the power of the Temple of Light. Add in a couple of bigger creatures (Angles or Knights), Staff of Asyra, Ring of Asrya and other supporting cards and you have the build.
That's the basic's...
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I'm not sure what people mean by "standard" priestess temple build since there aren't enough builds posted for anyone to drawn an "average" from.
Temples are very good though, in general. The Temple of the Dawnbringer (with things like Cobra Reflexes on) can be very effective, and the Hand of Bim Shalla is just awesome for its cost. Not a fan of the Temple of Asyra though, but I'm not a fan of spawnpoints in general (too slow IMO).
The Priestess also commonly runs lots of Daze/Stun effects in the form of the awesome Temple of Light, the Staff of Asyra and Pillars of Light as well as other cards. Combine this with some healing and other defensive effects (like Aegis) and the Priestess can be a very tough nut to crack when played right.
She also has several strong creatures that she can get out, like the Angels or the Knights of Westlock, which help her create an excellent offense to go with her stellar defense.
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I'm not sure what people mean by "standard" priestess temple build since there aren't enough builds posted for anyone to drawn an "average" from.
Yea that's how I felt haha, hence my confusion XD.
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What I can tell you is that if you a rushed and attacked early (round 2 or 3) then the temples rarely get out especially if your are going up against a Swarm or Warlock + 1/2 Baddies + Deathlock. Deathlock completely removes one of the Priestess strongest attributes and since she is weak HP wise as it is she really can not get the temples out and survive the beating that she is taking. If you look at my latest Priestess spellbook (http://magewars.com/jsite/forum/spellbook-design-and-construction/7698-priestess-counter-warlock-beatdown-deck) has moved far away from her native school spells just to survive.
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Spawnpoints are strong and can win you the mid-late game, but they must, in general, be heavily defended. Luckily, the Priestess has the most powerful guard in the game; the Knight of Westlock, and cheap Clerics to back them up and "pray" for more mana at her spawnpoint.
The goal should be to survive until you've gotten enough mana to cast an angel. If you get to that goal, you're in pretty good shape. After that, get out another angel, and another. The game should end in your favor soon after. With her long list of haymaker angels, no mage has a better late-game than the Priestess, in my experience.
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What I can tell you is that if you a rushed and attacked early (round 2 or 3) then the temples rarely get out especially if your are going up against a Swarm or Warlock + 1/2 Baddies + Deathlock. Deathlock completely removes one of the Priestess strongest attributes and since she is weak HP wise as it is she really can not get the temples out and survive the beating that she is taking. If you look at my latest Priestess spellbook (http://magewars.com/jsite/forum/spellbook-design-and-construction/7698-priestess-counter-warlock-beatdown-deck) has moved far away from her native school spells just to survive.
It depends on how you play man. Against a mage that is going to rush me I commonly go with this:
Turn 1 (20 mana): Step forward. Temple of the Dawnbreaker (8) + Cobra Reflexes (9) = 17 mana
Turn 2 (13 mana): If enemy mage moved to FC, cast Temple of Light (9) and fire at him (hoping for stun), cast Leather Boots and step back to starting zone = 11 mana
After that, it depends on what your opponent is doing and if they have been stunned by the Temple or not. Priorities include getting out a creature (Knight of Westlock if possible), a Hand of Bim Shalla and a Staff of Asyra. Prep Pillars of Light when the enemy mage (or big creature) is going to be in striking distance to add to the Daze/Stun lock, but only cast if you fail to Daze/Stun through another means (otherwise save the mana, Pillars aren't for causing damage).
With your inital set up of Cobra Reflexes plus Dawnbreaker plus second turn Temple of Light your opponent will be forced to react to your defenses or spend a lot of time swinging at air. They will of course be playing things like Knockdown, or Falcon's Percision, or whatever to get around your defenses, but that's all good, because it's giving you tempo to hit them with things like Pillar of Light to get them Daze/Stunned and hopefully make them miss anyway. Once you have Temple of Light, Staff of Asyra a Pillar here and there as well as a possible Circle of Lightning you will Daze/Stun lock your opponent if they only have a couple of targets against you. Against swarms you will need to rely on Circle of Lighting and Blinding Flash.
If your opponent spends and extra action casting Deathlock on their side of the board at the beginning of the game that gives you one more turn of breathing, allowing you to get a creature out for sure before they get to you. Later in the game, if you are struggling, you'll have to plan a well timed Divine Intervention to teleport to your opponents side of the board and start swinging at the Deathlock. Hopefully it will be destroyed before they can get back over there to come at you.
Obviously this is all dependant on the actual game state and what your opponent is doing. But what I outlined for the first two turns are very difficult to disrupt and are strong plays vs anyone that looks to be rushing you.
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Koz,
It is fascinating to hear this! You only have a 50% chance of stun at round two. The Warlock has cast LOH and moved a couple of times, then casts Adramelech, Lord of Fire. He Bear Strengths himself and the Demon, who then precedes to open a can of Whoop Arse, even if one is stunned the other is banging on you, your defense is only good once a round so if neither is stunned only one misses and there is a pile of dice of damage coming your way. 32 vs. 38 HP with no healing she is quickly toasted.
KoW are very good at slowing the rush down. But the demon once again attacks the KoW and the guard marker goes away and then the LOH bashes you with 8-9 die of damage. Now I can continue to build on my Temple strategy or I pull out explode and start down other paths that let me survive long enough that I can grab tempo back and win the game.
Honestly, I like to think that after 16 or so games that I have a decent grasp of the mechanics of the game and maybe I just suck at rolling the effect die. But once I get the Temples out, I have tried to do as you described but I have founds the burns are a lot me effective than the stuns. Get three or four of those on you and you hear the Doctor yelling clear! As he brings the paddles down to your chest...
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Knight of Westlock guard + daze/stun from Staff of Asyra, Temple of Light, and Pillar of Light + defense gives you plenty of ways to avoid getting hit for lots of damage. Use Elemental Cloak and Dragonscale Hauberk if you're so concerned by LoH and LoF. They'll be forced to destroy anything that gives fire resist rather than focusing on stacking more damage, or their LoH and LoF will be much weaker. If you have both on, you can completely ignore LoF, at least so far as defending your mage is concerned.
It always seems odd to me when people are super concerned about Deathlock when playing the Priestess. My goal as the Priestess is to make it so that I don't need to heal, and my opponent taking the time to play Deathlock helps me accomplish that. Maybe I just haven't played enough against aggressive opponents.
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Koz,
It is fascinating to hear this! You only have a 50% chance of stun at round two. The Warlock has cast LOH and moved a couple of times, then casts Adramelech, Lord of Fire. He Bear Strengths himself and the Demon, who then precedes to open a can of Whoop Arse, even if one is stunned the other is banging on you, your defense is only good once a round so if neither is stunned only one misses and there is a pile of dice of damage coming your way. 32 vs. 38 HP with no healing she is quickly toasted.
I think you hit reply a bit too quickly and didn't actually take time to think about what I typed. You're forgetting about the Pillars of Light which Daze on a 4+. Daze gives a 50/50 miss chance and when stacked with your Defense die backed by Temple of Dawnbreaker you have a VERY solid defense. You don't have to rely on Stunning, but that is obviously better.
KoW are very good at slowing the rush down. But the demon once again attacks the KoW and the guard marker goes away and then the LOH bashes you with 8-9 die of damage. Now I can continue to build on my Temple strategy or I pull out explode and start down other paths that let me survive long enough that I can grab tempo back and win the game.
You make it sound like the Priestess is just standing there watching this all go down. What she is actually doing is swinging with the Staff of Asyra and/or hitting with Pillars of Light/Blinding Flahes to maximize the Daze/Stun chances. Perhaps you haven't noticed just how high the chances to Daze are on the Holy stuff? Pillar of Light Daze/Stuns on a 4+ and Staff Daze/Stuns on a 5+. That's very effective stuff so to say this stuff isn't good at fighting against a melee-mage + big creature build is just completely ignoring the math.
Honestly, I like to think that after 16 or so games that I have a decent grasp of the mechanics of the game and maybe I just suck at rolling the effect die. But once I get the Temples out, I have tried to do as you described but I have founds the burns are a lot me effective than the stuns. Get three or four of those on you and you hear the Doctor yelling clear! As he brings the paddles down to your chest...
Maybe the dice gods are cruel to you, I don't know. But I know from experience that stacking that many miss chances forces your opponent to alter their plays to compensate (such as casting Drain Life instead of swinging the LoH or something like that). Whenever you can force your opponent to go to "plan B", you are coming out ahead as long as you are still implementing your "plan A".
Obviously our experiences differ, but at least the math is on my side of the argument ;)
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Knight of Westlock guard + daze/stun from Staff of Asyra, Temple of Light, and Pillar of Light + defense gives you plenty of ways to avoid getting hit for lots of damage. Use Elemental Cloak and Dragonscale Hauberk if you're so concerned by LoH and LoF. They'll be forced to destroy anything that gives fire resist rather than focusing on stacking more damage, or their LoH and LoF will be much weaker. If you have both on, you can completely ignore LoF, at least so far as defending your mage is concerned.
Exactly. I don't know what people are doing wrong when they say they can't stop, or at least significantly slow, a rush down with all of those tools, but they ARE doing something wrong. The math is clear.
It always seems odd to me when people are super concerned about Deathlock when playing the Priestess. My goal as the Priestess is to make it so that I don't need to heal, and my opponent taking the time to play Deathlock helps me accomplish that. Maybe I just haven't played enough against aggressive opponents.
Agreed! I try to play the same way and just not heal, and if I do I try to do it with Regeneration. If you set up your Daze/Stun lock build you hopefully won't need to heal because the goal is to have board control to the point where you are taking next to no damage while still dishing it out.
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I would suggest this opening instead:
T1: Cleric, Temple of Asyra (5 mana)
T2: Knight of Westlock (2 mage mana, 2 spawnpoint mana w/pray)
T3: Knight of Westlock + Sacred Ground on zone (0 mage mana, 0-1 spawnpoint mana)
Support your Knights, gain life, and guard. A LOT.
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Of course she is not just standing there, but when you pull out the Pillars of Light you are not casting a Temple. You can either stock up 6 in your book or add a wand in and bind it to a wand. Once again not casting Temples. Which was my point, I can easily get two Temples out which are ok and then I have to move to either defending myself from attacks or spending mana to "prevent" these attacks or equipping up.
Yes when the stun hits it messes up the other mages timing. But have not found that by round three it (Temple Strategy) gives me such of an action advantage that I can win. I have found just the opposite, I have spent mana on a half developed strategy that could be much more usefully spent on other spells such as equipment or non-school spells that deal damage like Hurl Bolder. My opponents spell book is designed specifically to kill the Priestess he has literally dropped everything to get into face.
Rd 1 QC - Deathlock / Move twice
Rd 2 QC - LOH Move Attack or Move Move
Rd 3 FC - Adramelech, Lord of Fire QC Hurl Boulder
Rd 4 LOH / QC Reverse Attack (PoL stun yourself)
rinse and repeat
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@Koz
My favorite methods of healing are Regrowth Belt and Vampirism.
@Reddawn
Temple of Asyra is far and away the weakest of the temples in my opinion. It's just too slow and not efficient enough. The only spawnpoint I regularly use is Battleforge, and if I was going to choose a creature spawnpoint to build around, I'd choose the Lair or Gate of Voltari (maybe Barracks if I can get a Warlord to work properly).
@sIKE
If you're using Temple of Light, attack with that after your opponent drops the enchantment in case it's a Reverse Attack. If your opponent casts Hurl Boulder and misses due to a rerollable defense, you're in pretty good shape. Even if your opponent lands the Hurl Boulder, you can have a pretty strong defense stacked up by that point.
You should play Dragonscale Hauberk and/or Elemental Cloak after seeing LoH AND LoF.
If you can stun your opponent at the end of round 2 or round 3 before their activation, they'll miss dropping LoF for a turn, which buys you significant breathing room.
You don't play many temples against a rushdown build like LoH -> LoF. If you've stabilized, you may play them later on, but you can't really afford to play more than 2 early if your opponent is being really aggressive. Just Temple of the Dawnbreaker -> Temple of Light can make a big difference though.
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The contents of the spellbook may vary greatly. When I say the standard priestess temple build I am talking about a style of play more than the contents of the spellbook. Which, now that I think about it, is somewhat misleading. Shame on me.
The goal of the standard priestess build is to control the tempo of the game by stacking miss chances, supplemented by guarding and to a much lesser extent healing.
The spellbook contains:
Temples - always the Temple of Light.
Strong defensive creatures such as the Knight of Westlock.
Equipment and/or enchantments that grant defense rolls.
Attack spells that cause daze/stun effects.
It frequently contains:
Staff of Asyra
An angel
Armor - usually cheap or with resistances
A little bit of healing or regeneration
Those are the basics. Even within that group there is a lot of variability possible.
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The contents of the spellbook may vary greatly. When I say the standard priestess temple build I am talking about a style of play more than the contents of the spellbook. Which, now that I think about it, is somewhat misleading. Shame on me.
The goal of the standard priestess build is to control the tempo of the game by stacking miss chances, supplemented by guarding and to a much lesser extent healing.
The spellbook contains:
Temples - always the Temple of Light.
Strong defensive creatures such as the Knight of Westlock.
Equipment and/or enchantments that grant defense rolls.
Attack spells that cause daze/stun effects.
It frequently contains:
Staff of Asyra
An angel
Armor - usually cheap or with resistances
A little bit of healing or regeneration
Those are the basics. Even within that group there is a lot of variability possible.
i like your thinking there :D i keep trying to help my girlfriend get better with the priestess :P she wants to give me a beat down and i keep explaining her that the priestess is a more stay back and send someone to do your job and heal stun daze and other effects :P.
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I don't know, I had a game once where I built up my Priestess until I was making 12 dice attacks with Staff of Asyra. The Priestess can do beatdown, it's just that she ends up being more control oriented in that role than a Warlock with LoH would be.
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Of course she is not just standing there, but when you pull out the Pillars of Light you are not casting a Temple. You can either stock up 6 in your book or add a wand in and bind it to a wand. Once again not casting Temples. Which was my point, I can easily get two Temples out which are ok and then I have to move to either defending myself from attacks or spending mana to "prevent" these attacks or equipping up.
Yes when the stun hits it messes up the other mages timing. But have not found that by round three it (Temple Strategy) gives me such of an action advantage that I can win. I have found just the opposite, I have spent mana on a half developed strategy that could be much more usefully spent on other spells such as equipment or non-school spells that deal damage like Hurl Bolder. My opponents spell book is designed specifically to kill the Priestess he has literally dropped everything to get into face.
Rd 1 QC - Deathlock / Move twice
Rd 2 QC - LOH Move Attack or Move Move
Rd 3 FC - Adramelech, Lord of Fire QC Hurl Boulder
Rd 4 LOH / QC Reverse Attack (PoL stun yourself)
rinse and repeat
Well, I think we found the problem here. Your opponent is cheating. Let me break it down here and show why:
Rd 1 (19 mana to start): QC - Deathlock (9 mana) / Move twice (10 mana at end of turn)
Rd 2 (19 mana to start): QC - LOH (8 mana) Move Attack or Move Move (11 mana at end of turn)
Rd 3 (20 mana to start): and here is where your opponent cheats because with 20 mana there is no way he's casting Adramelach, let alone casting Adramelach AND Hurl Boulder.
So the first step for you would be to make your opponent only spend mana he actually has, and not just spending whatever he feels like. Bottom line is that a Warlock player is not going to have Deathlock + LoH + LoF by turn three. He only will have access to 37 mana by turn three and those three cards cost 41. Something has to be dropped. Now if he goes with Vampiress instead of LoF, then he could do all that, but, as good as the Vampiress is, she's not nearly as scary as the LoF.
Some of your other points don't make much sense to be honest. You say if I'm casting Pillar of Light I'm not casting Temples, but I have to ask... why? I can cast two things a turn you know?
Also, as another poster pointed out, if you have a facedown Enchantment out (like the Reverse Attack you mentioned), I'm going to hit you with the Temple of Light, which fires for free and you're going to spend 7 mana to redirect the attack back to it, which will do minimum damage, if any, and Conjurations cannot be Daze/Stunned. That is a win for the Priestess because you are down 7 mana, which isn't being used to attack me...and I'm still hitting you with the Pillar of Light for a 4+ Daze...
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Yeah, not letting your opponent cheat will help too...
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I think it has less to do with cheating and more to do with inexperience. After being around the forums for a while, I suspect many people play less of the game than they lead on. A lot of misnomers in the game would be dispelled if people just played more.
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Honestly guys, I do not play the other side, I might have the time a bit off on his play of cards, I can tell you for a fact the guys is a hard stickler for the rules. I just think that you might not have not played a super aggressive player. The stun lock stuff is really hit or miss that early and yes may slow him down a bit. But still my point being is you do not get a chance to build out to 4 or 5 temples which is when the stun/lock stuff really starts taking affect. You are forced out of this play style (Temple build) to survive. This is the same deck style that won the first MW tourney, there is a good reason why a Temple Build didn't.....
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I never build that many Temples. That's silly. Usually the Dawnbringer and the Temple of Light is enough early, then a mid-game Hand of Bim Shalla if you get the chance. That's it. It's all you need.
The comments about what did or did not win the first Mage Wars tourney is suspect. We don't know what the winning build faced, nor if there were any good Priestess builds there.
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I very much agree that the "Temple build" isn't the Priestess' go-to opening against fully aggro openings. It can work well outside of that situation however. Not everyone is going to send an Adramelech or some equivalent bearing down on your by turn 3.
It's the same reason people on these forums seem to have trouble with the Warlord, which is why I doubt most people have actually played him. He is not meant to swarm early game at all against the Warlock and FM; he leans heavily on Thorg against the most aggressive builds, except against the FM, in which case he uses Iron Golems (which can be Charge-d, interestingly enough).
This entire thread points to a very important realization I have come across when playing MW with a competitive intention; do not pigeon-hole your book into a single strategy. Do not just do a "temple build" or a "sniper tower build" or any singular build. You need to build your book to two different builds, so you don't get caught off-guard. This is why it is so important to stay in-school; staying in-school for your spellbook points allows you to maximize your ability to adapt to a particular strategy. Forcing your Mage to do something he or she isn't good at is going to lead to a lot of disappointment in the arena against competent opponents.
Thus, you can put Temples in your Priestess book without it being a "temple" book. Just adapt to what the board demands, though it does take play experience to know what situation calls for what card.
Perhaps the most important advice I can give to new players who are looking to get better is this; a small spellbook is a vulnerable spellbook. Don't be a fool; be cool, stay in-school.
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I typically like to include 2-3 major plans, and then use whatever hybrid of those plans seems to actually make sense as I play. Maybe I'll start out with one plan, but if that doesn't work (or I think something else would enhance what I'm doing more) I'll switch into something else. Or maybe I'll start out with a hybrid plan right out of the gate.
Flexibility is key, I agree, but I think you're overemphasizing the need to stay in school. You can grab a good number of spells from out of school and still have the number of spells you need to be flexible so long as most of the cards you grab from out of school are level 1 with some level 2 spells mixed in. Don't grab many level 3+ cards from out of school, or you won't have the options you need. I have builds with more than 20 cards from out of school that are still ~60 cards, and they're stronger than they would be without those out of school cards.
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sdougla2,
That is what I have been trying to do but the beat down has been the focus. I would like to swap in couple of things for swarm control/flying but I think that for competitive play countering a Warlock or your BM beat down would be the primary focus. I am looking for a combo style deck using a mage that is not really an aggressive opening type with strong counter beat down followed by more of a late game beat down (Mage + 2 Biggies).
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You need to build your book to two different builds, so you don't get caught off-guard. This is why it is so important to stay in-school; staying in-school for your spellbook points allows you to maximize your ability to adapt to a particular strategy. Forcing your Mage to do something he or she isn't good at is going to lead to a lot of disappointment in the arena against competent opponents.
I agree with this 100%. Every build needs options. Even if your basic strategy (Aggro, Control, Combo) is going to stay the same you will want different options to go faster or slower.
This is far more important for Combo type builds like temple or other conjuration-heavy builds, mainly because you need "faster" and "slower" variations designed to go against different levels of aggression. If you are still building up conjurations and your opponent is rolling 13 attack dice per round, you are unlikely to win.
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You need to build your book to two different builds, so you don't get caught off-guard. This is why it is so important to stay in-school; staying in-school for your spellbook points allows you to maximize your ability to adapt to a particular strategy. Forcing your Mage to do something he or she isn't good at is going to lead to a lot of disappointment in the arena against competent opponents.
I agree with this 100%. Every build needs options. Even if your basic strategy (Aggro, Control, Combo) is going to stay the same you will want different options to go faster or slower.
This is far more important for Combo type builds like temple or other conjuration-heavy builds, mainly because you need "faster" and "slower" variations designed to go against different levels of aggression. If you are still building up conjurations and your opponent is rolling 13 attack dice per round, you are unlikely to win.
Pious this may be the best post of the week. 8) - You are correct the way to go about this build is to control the tempo of the match.
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Still being rather inexperienced at the game I find this to be the main difficulty. I prefer having having a slow and a fast strategy for most builds, a response for aggro and some utility. That makes for some hard choices.
For the OP. Here is a suggestion, don't know if it works.
EDIT: I mixed up two threads, this was a comment for sIkE against Warlock Beatdown.
Knight, Temple of Light, Knight, Staff of Asyra+Dragonscale Hauberk.
By turn 4, you will have a total of 15 attack dice, 2 chances to cause Daze/stun, some armor and fireresistance. And you will have used mainly basic Priestess spells.
But like I said, I have no idea if it will work.
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If you look at my latest build that is almost exactly what I have in my spell book. I took out on knight for the sniper though. He is quite deadly if you can get him holed up in a corner and buffed up a bit he is one mean sob. I still think my main weakness in the current build is it is not very capable of handling swarms. With the sniper I take care of most flying, though he is not tough enough to standup to the big demon of the Warlocks. I am thinking Gravikor will take care of that mostly. I might trade out the Cloak for a damage shield to help with the Swarms. I wish the Priestess had a good ranged attack friendly creature.
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I want to try a Gray Angel rush against a BM with Lair tactic at some point, it should be pretty annoying for the BM, though I can't say if its effective. But I include a Circle of Lightning and an Orb of Suppression with my Priestess as a more "standard" answer to swarm.