Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => Spellbook Design and Construction => Topic started by: Vargtass on July 30, 2014, 07:18:23 AM
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I have this oddball spellbook idea Ive been toying around with but I dont have a lot of people to play with in my small town so I cant really try it out properly to see if it works. The seed of this idea sprout from several duels being decided by some annoying enchantment either player was unable to deal with because they simply ran out of dispells, (and mage wands getting blown up) I figured that if I do a good job at dissolving wands and pack a bunch of enchantments even a paranoid player will eventually run out of dispells.
So I started tinkering with a build forgoing most creatures. First it was a necro, then a jhoktari beastmaster and then finally a druid. My thinking with going druid is that I want to be faster than my oponent and while I can manipulate that with enchantments I like having an innate ability with that effect that I can increase even further with enchanting stuff.
Basicly I just run away from stuff and curse everything in sight. Ive only managed to try this out with a druid once so far, but it seemed to work in some wonky kind of way. That game I was facing a warlord using fire elementals, some skeletons and an iron golem.
I know there are some obvious ways to pull the rug from under my feet with a build like this. But do people usually include spells like purge, destroy magic and harshforge monolith?
Also Id love to hear if a more seasoned player out there think this kind of semi troll build would work, or if its something that only works on newbies who get caught with their pants down?
(I dont have an exact list because Im still in heavy experimentation mode with the idea. But basicly I just cast some protective enchantments up on myself and then try to keep damaging, snaring, or manadraining curses up on my oponent and his creatures. I have mr forest shadow in there in case I need an assasin type creature to support me.)
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I have this oddball spellbook idea Ive been toying around with but I dont have a lot of people to play with in my small town so I cant really try it out properly to see if it works. The seed of this idea sprout from several duels being decided by some annoying enchantment either player was unable to deal with because they simply ran out of dispells, (and mage wands getting blown up) I figured that if I do a good job at dissolving wands and pack a bunch of enchantments even a paranoid player will eventually run out of dispells.
So I started tinkering with a build forgoing most creatures. First it was a necro, then a jhoktari beastmaster and then finally a druid. My thinking with going druid is that I want to be faster than my oponent and while I can manipulate that with enchantments I like having an innate ability with that effect that I can increase even further with enchanting stuff.
Basicly I just run away from stuff and curse everything in sight. Ive only managed to try this out with a druid once so far, but it seemed to work in some wonky kind of way. That game I was facing a warlord using fire elementals, some skeletons and an iron golem.
I know there are some obvious ways to pull the rug from under my feet with a build like this. But do people usually include spells like purge, destroy magic and harshforge monolith?
Also Id love to hear if a more seasoned player out there think this kind of semi troll build would work, or if its something that only works on newbies who get caught with their pants down?
(I dont have an exact list because Im still in heavy experimentation mode with the idea. But basicly I just cast some protective enchantments up on myself and then try to keep damaging, snaring, or manadraining curses up on my oponent and his creatures. I have mr forest shadow in there in case I need an assasin type creature to support me.)
Switch to the Arraxian crown warlock. He's meant for this sort of strategy. You'll probably want sesiryx, imp familiar for this build, not fellella. (I'm assuming she's why you chose the druid.) Only a warlock works well with the strategy you've described. If you want to try something similar, buffing yourself with enchantments instead of debuffing the opponent with enchantments, try the forcemaster maybe.
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Benefiting from vines hindering and also the surprise of a curse wielding druid may be worth it. Harshforge monolith is going to be in almost every warlord book but it's epic so once you smash it you should be able to control the situation. I recommend 4x enfeeble and 2-3 poisoned blood and 2-3 ghoul rots.
I say stick with druid, vines, channel 10, and innate toughness, and easy dissolving of wands makes her good for this strategy. Ways to inflict bleed would synergize well also, maybe meaning you don't need the ghoul rots, just 4 enfeeble and 3-4 poisoned blood.
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Benefiting from vines hindering and also the surprise of a curse wielding druid may be worth it. Harshforge monolith is going to be in almost every warlord book but it's epic so once you smash it you should be able to control the situation. I recommend 4x enfeeble and 2-3 poisoned blood and 2-3 ghoul rots.
I say stick with druid, vines, channel 10, and innate toughness, and easy dissolving of wands makes her good for this strategy. Ways to inflict bleed would synergize well also, maybe meaning you don't need the ghoul rots, just 4 enfeeble and 3-4 poisoned blood.
She doesn't have innate toughness. She actually starts with 9 channeling, treebond increases her channeling to 10. And maybe it's worth it for the surprise, but i don't think it will generally work well against people who have played against it before. The whole reason it's so surprising in the first place is BECAUSE the druid's abilities are not optimal for this strategy.
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I'm going to assume every druid plays a tree to bond with on turn 1. And that bond gives channeling 10 and effective regeneration of 2 because of lifelink combined with the trees regen. And druid gets barkskin, so yes, druid is innatly one of the toughest mages in the game. Arguably the toughest.
Maybe we are defining "innately" differently? But for me innately includes treebond's benefits.
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Innate and tough are specific terms with specific definitions. Innate traits are traits that an object has before any modifications. Generally speaking an innate trait comes on the card when it first comes into play, but not always.
Tough +/- X means that effect die rolls have x subtracted from them when this object is attacked.
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Thanks for the feedback! :)
I chose the druid primarily for the vines. I also found myself with more points to spare using the druid because of cheap dispells and because I rely just as much on nature enchanments as on curses. I also like adding some pacify and not going dark mage means not paying tripple for those. But I will have a more clear idea of the points when I manage to fine tune the build (and evaluate if the druid is the best mage for it) :)
And yes, I count on opening with the vine tree as standard. I did include faela in my first druid atempt of this build. But she ate a ghoul rot immediately. Im not sure if shes worth the mana or not.
At any rate Im also not sure I even need a third hand to help casting stuff. As I said the game I have to go on so far I was facing a warlock (this was pre FiF release) using a moderate amount of summoning. A fire elemental, a skeletal archer, a skeletal knight and an iron golem. They chased me around all game not managing to do any damage, (or rather not managing to catch me).
I hope I get a chanse to try dealing with a harshforge monolith soon and various strategys that work.
I realise its a gimmiky build and that you can easily adapt your spellbook to deal with it. But on the other hand I like using different spellbooks. How much are you prepared to modify your standard spellbooks because one guy you play with has this one spellbook that does weird things? ;3
The concept is basicly something Ive been doing for years in my local mtg group. (we play a lot of EDH/commander). Since most spellbooks pack some defenses againts certain card types that can be annoying I like building decks that ignore certain card types all together. If I ignore creatures, or enchantments or some card type entierly, not only will my oponents have cards that are useless against me, but they are also likely to still use those cards on my oponents who do include those kinds of cards. (But thats a multiplayer thing).
Anyway I hope I can get the idea to work. The main goal of the deck is to spread despair. What do you do when you run out of dispells and the annoying druid keep piling on curses on you and nature buffs on herself while dancing around like a leaf in the wind. ;D
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Innate and tough are specific terms with specific definitions. Innate traits are traits that an object has before any modifications. Generally speaking an innate trait comes on the card when it first comes into play, but not always.
Tough +/- X means that effect die rolls have x subtracted from them when this object is attacked.
Sorry I didn't mean this words as game terms. I meant Druid has a lot of built-in durability. :)
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go for it vargg.
Great idea really. I love these out of the box innovative ideas.
I actually can see this 1 work.
And I agree with boomfrog. Druid is THE most durable mage in the game.
She can stack armor to new heigths and the treebond is just awesome.
And this is innate toughness because she will summon a tree round 1 all day everyday daddy was a DJ.
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Taking Enchanters Wardstone to a new level :D
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Yea wardstones are definetly in. :3
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Eh, wardstone is not that great. Unless they must dispel your enchant immediately every time every turn, but that's rarely the case. Usually you'd get more benefit out of a simple mana crystal and using your mana to cast more enchants. I don't think you need to load them down with a million curses, poison blood and some kind of ongoing damage should be enough.
Have a plan B vs necromancers btw.
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Wardstone pays off after 2 destroyed enchantments making Dispels cost more and screwing with the enemies plan! Besides that it draws attention and their ability stack afaik (thus 2 of them will really be painful forcing the opponent to act immediately)
Maybe I miss out something, what is your point against wardstones?
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Good point with necros. Altho mage bane and chains of agony still work. (Necros dont tend to move around that much tho). So back to bleed effects. :) Hmm... is there any decent creature besides makunda?
Or perhaps its better to grab some ignites stick em in a mage wand and maby try to have enough points for an Adramelechs Touch or two? That stays within the curse theme.
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Fire cost druid triple and touch isn't efficient with less then 3 burns. Necro can help of bleeds unless you use deathlock. Maybe falcon+hunting bow+death lock?
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Hmm... Actually I think the spellbook might work against necro as well if I just play it differently. Part of the plan is including nature spells to beef myself up, and facing a necro might be one of those cases when its time to use Cervere the forest shadow I mentioned earlier. even tho I try to play without creatures I see the use of sometimes needing something to assist me and a dodgy elusive cat would fit the bill. Instead of focusing on curse controll I focus on aggro. At its core the idea for this spellbook is that even if you face a paranoid mage they cant bring more than 6 dispells to the table and most people dont bother with purge magic. (Plus Im still not auto defeated by it because theres always nullify mindgames to be played.)
Because fliers is a clear weakness too Im thinking maby I need to have a copy of Tarok the sky hunter to assist in those cases.
Also I should add that Im ok with the spellbook having some matchups that are a bit tougher to deal with.
If this idea is good enough to work in most cases Im happy with it. When I first thought of it I wasnt sure if it would work at all, when I actually tried playing it it seemed like there might actually be something to it, and now Im just trying to spot obvious flaws with it and figure out a way to adress them (without scrapping the idea and just going "normal spellbook" to handle them). And I haveto say that I greatly apreciate all your feedback! Thanks everyone. :) The mage wars community seems to be a very nice one.
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The major vulnerability I see here, pretty much regardless of match-up, is that while you're dancing around the arena avoiding harm, I can march over to your tree and smash it into firewood. At which point a fair bit of your advantage (vines, channelling, lifebond...) is all lost.
I've only played against one Druid, so I'm probably missing something: but for me, the tree enforces some degree of defense (or more all-out offence so they have no time to respond)
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The major vulnerability I see here, pretty much regardless of match-up, is that while you're dancing around the arena avoiding harm, I can march over to your tree and smash it into firewood. At which point a fair bit of your advantage (vines, channelling, lifebond...) is all lost.
I've only played against one Druid, so I'm probably missing something: but for me, the tree enforces some degree of defense (or more all-out offence so they have no time to respond)
It will take you quite some time to destroy that tree even when it does not have defenses.
If that is your focus, then you will probaly be at 10+ damage before tree is down just from ghoul rot, magebane and chain of agony.
And mby even more depending on how much armor you put on. If you dont go into dispel wars he will actions and mana to acid ball you and follow up with a fireball / hurl boulder.
The vine tree can stricly be used for placing cheap bloodspine walls to delay you getting to the tree or damaging you in the process.
Remember he can transfer damage from tree to self so the tree can get rid of 4 damage in each upkeep which is pretty strong. So you have to take the tree down in maximum 2 -3 rounds or its a dead project.
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Yes Im actually pretty happy if they choose to engage the tree. Its more durable than most cratures and if I throw a regen on myself I can like Jacksmack pointed out heal 4 damage/turn passively.
If they really aim for the tree I can opt to bring out a new tree and bond with it before the old one dies. While the vine tree is an epic spell and the best suited tree for what Im trying to do, it is by no means essential to my strategy. The innate vine token/ turn is often enough to restrict my oponents movement. (Especially if he chooses to go for a strategy that has him/her standing still several turns to deal with my tree. By the time they get it down they will have a bunch of curses on them.
There are also more ways to aproach the situation. If an oponent chooses to deal quickly with the tree, it will still take them more than one turn to do so efficently, that means if I manage to stall them between landing their first and their seccond attack I can make the first attack a truly wasted effort because the tree gets a breather to recover. Since I can only have one ghoul rot on them I am free to choose a wide reange of counter measures as reaction to a tree attack. Agony to make attacks feeble, or cast reverse attack on myself and go guard the tree for a turn. A simple stumble can buy time for my tree to recover and for ghoul rot to tick away.
Long story short Im pretty happy if they go for the tree. :3
I think the greatest challenge will be to have a viable strategy against a necro who comfortably sits in a corner spamming zombies or skeletons. I hope I can fit an alternative agressive opening into the spellbook. Ill ponder all your input and get back with spellbook draft.
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only 1 treebond per game.
When tree is dead you dont get to treebond anymore.
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Oh? I was under the impression that you loose it if the tree dies, but if you summon a new tree before the old one dies you can bond with that instead?
Edit:
Reading the treebond rules:
When a friendly tree conjuration comes into play you may choose to bond with it. Place your treebond marker on it. [snip snip]
If the tree is destroyed, the Treebond marker is permanently lost.
The last part Ive read as clarification that you can bond with a new tree.
If the marker sticks to the first tree you bond with during the game, then there would be no use in pointing out that its permanently destroyed if your tree dies.
(That in combination that there is no mention of the marker needing to be unused to bond. It just says you put it on a tree if you choose to bond)
But if I have missunderstood this rule I stand happily corrected. Im alwasys more interested in correctly understanding the rules of a game than being correct about them when discussing the game with someone. :)
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Our other markers return to you after the object they're on gets destroyed. We wanted to be clear that you could only use this marker once, and that you did not get it back.
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Oh, so just bonding to a single tree per game. Thanks for filling me in. :)
(I would however consider adding some sort of clarification on that in future editions.
Maby replacing the line about the marker getting destroyed if the tree is with something like
"You can only bond with one tree per game." That would take about the same amount of space and leave no room for questions about what happens to the marker, or the mistake I made.)
At any rate learning this will help me decide on the best way to deal with tree aggro. More disruption in case I need it, and little need to include more trees unless I specificaly want their benifit.
One thought I had on tree choise was actually using Mohktari instead of the vine tree just to get the extra stats from bonding and because if the game ends up being a battle about the tree it has more armor and heals me if I go to the zone and guard it (while having a reverse attack prepared on myself. :3)
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@Varglass There is no need to add clarification more than that it get destroyed when the tree get killed. A marker is not transfereable by the rules (like if a BM has a Pet, he can't transfer it to another animal until the first one die).
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Oh? Interesting. I havnt really thought that much about tokens being non transferable simply because in the cases where you get them back it generally makes sense to have the thing they are boosting keep the boost untill they die.
Anyway thanks for the update. :)
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I mean if you're going to be "dancing around avoiding the other mage and his creature a vinewhip staff to throw stuck conditions around is pretty tight. I was in a tight spot once and was able to stick about 2/3 of my friends animals. I'm thinking if he's stuck, you can have a falcon lay into him while you drop arrows onto him with a hunting bow. maybe even replace cervere with a spider and get some tainted conditions in the mix.
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Hmm... I like most of that idea. Not sure I understand all of it tho.
The vine staff has definetly caught my eye, and there would be a good synergy with spiders.
But Im not sure how you think the bow fits into that. If I equip the bow after managing to get something stuck and then damage it with the spider I haveto return the staff to my spellbook, and as soon as my target gets loose Im going to want the staff back. Switching between the bow and staff sounds really mana intensive.
Am I missing something? :O
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It will take you quite some time to destroy that tree even when it does not have defenses.
Im my (not so big) experience with the druid, the tree is really easy to destroy if opponent focus on it. A couple Force Hammer, Hurl Boulder, or Fireball, and maybe a melee strike to finish, and the tree will be over in 1-2 turns. And i find it diffucult to defend (apart from intercepting creatures, wich I consider at least medium investment in defences)
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Im my (not so big) experience with the druid, the tree is really easy to destroy if opponent focus on it. A couple Force Hammer, Hurl Boulder, or Fireball, and maybe a melee strike to finish, and the tree will be over in 1-2 turns. And i find it diffucult to defend (apart from intercepting creatures, wich I consider at least medium investment in defences)
Easy to destroy... you are spending 18 mana on a 'couple' of force hammers.
You cant destroy it with 1 and a melee because the mage is guarding.
Dont forget... every round you delay the destruction of the tree is another 4 damage you have to do against 2 armor.
You make it sound easy - but in reality it is not.
I remember when i played my LoF warlock against a druid. I was laughing inside myself because the game would be so easy with the big bad boy doing flame attacks against his flame+2 units. Guess what. I got completely owned.
When i summoned LoF round 2 he countered me by summoning guarding angel round 3 with rouse beast so it would guard when round 4 started. In the mean time he got vinemarkers to my NC so my warlock was slow at getting to him with my lash. He also deployed 1 or 2 snatchers and a vine snapper.
It was not pretty. I was'nt close in accomplishing anything besides destroying a tanglevine on my mage.
I could have done a couple of things different, but it was the first time i tried that matchup and ever since that i have been shaking my head at the whine threads about druid being useless vs warlock.
If you want to kill the tree do so with few bigs. Dont invest in 2-3 attack spells because after they are gone you will be left naked against snatchers, raptors and snappers while the druid is pounding on you as well.
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Well, i was talking when it does not have defences, as you said previously . In such scenario, i think is may be easy to destroy it (i will happily spend the mana of two big attack spells on a bonded vine tree, or whatever takes you to destroy an undefended bonded tree in 1 turn).
Of course, a defended tree is another story.
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Well, i was talking when it does not have defences, as you said previously . In such scenario, i think is may be easy to destroy it (i will happily spend the mana of two big attack spells on a bonded vine tree, or whatever takes you to destroy an undefended bonded tree in 1 turn).
Of course, a defended tree is another story.
Thats fine. I play to win. You play to destroy treebonded trees.
I guess we can both be successful in the same game.
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An angel is not a druid or nature creature at all, of course an Angel is the natural counter to a Demon/Devil. But yes those damned trees are hard hard hard to kill.
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Sounds like a fun build. I'd like to see a post with your full build. I can see what your getting at with the curses and enchantments but I'd like to know what your win condition is.