I recently won a game using Altar of Skulls (wanted to see if I could get it going). My opening was:

1 (20): Acolyte of the Bog Queen (15), Death Ring (10)
2 (20): Altar of Skulls (11), Libro Mortuos (2)

From there, I put up walls to form a "corridor of bones" on my side, put down an idol of pestilence and started spawning skeletal minions and skeletal sentries to defend myself, and a deathfang (eternal servant) to harass my opponent (a water wizard). I used a meditation amulet to build up a surplus of mana, since I didn't need to move. I accelerated the altar's charging by killing two enemy creatures. Once the altar was up and running, I was doing 3 poison damage to everything each upkeep phase, which is awesome.

So my experience is, if you devote your resources to protecting the altar (including walls), it isn't too difficult to get it up and running. The Libro Mortuos' ability  to spawn cheap defenders is very helpful in this.

I don't think the altar needs to be changed.

14)Disarm: What exactly does disarm not effect? I believe it only prevents "active-y things" like attacks and action bars. so armor, flame-2 ect are not effected.

"Disabled objects lose all attack bars, action bars, and non-trait abilities."

Armor and Flame -2 would be affected. The equipment does not have those traits itself; it provides them to the mage as part of the text. Things not affected would be traits like Cantrip, Epic, Unique, Spellbind, etc.

Equipment objects tend not to have many functional traits, so for most equipment, everything will be disabled.

1) When I familiar casts an enchantment, can they pay the reveal cost if they do at the same time as the initial casting?

No. They may only pay the 2 mana casting cost.

2) Can you use the same piece of equipment twice in the same round? IE. two castings of dispel from your wand, or two swings of a weapons quick attack?

If it does not specifically prohibit you from using it twice, you may do so. (provided you have enough actions).

Thematically, unstoppable seems like it should allow the creature to ignore guards. If it did, that would help to justify some of the cost.

The AOE attack is nice, although I wouldn't cast him just for that (for zone rot, nothing beats Eternal Servant Plague Zombie + Sacrificial Altar).

I can definitely see a Sardonyx + Soul Drain Wand combo. You could cast Soul drain every other turn, and use the extra 4 mana to protect your Soul Drain Wand with nullifies.

Keep in mind, his Tail Sweep attack is currently the most powerful (in terms of raw attack dice) sweeping attack in the game, with 2 attacks of 5.

Quote from: Laddinfance on May 13, 2014, 02:04:50 PM

Quote from: Wise fool on May 13, 2014, 01:50:23 PM

Will the set Warlord vs Forcemaster have the updated card in them at some point?

Yes, the next printing of FVW will have the updated cards in it.

Do we have to wait the release of FiF to play it like this or the errata is effective right now?

While I can't speak to the tournament scene, people are free to use whatever rules they want for casual games, so I see no reason to delay in implementing this change.

Thats ONE interpretation of this case. But as you can see, there are others. Maybe a look to the picture of charm is helpful here.

The picture of charm contains no information relevant to the interpretation of its mechanics.

Perhaps I misunderstand your question. You look at thematically how charm should work. Whether or not I agree with your interpretation, I agree that it seems like a reasonable interpretation of the theme. Are you suggesting that charm ought to work a different way based on the theme of the card? If that is the case, then you are correct that there are other interpretations besides mine.

But if you are asking specifically about whether charm DOES work in the way you described, the answer is definite that it does not. A breakdown of the relevant mechanics:

This creature cannot make a melee or ranged attack against the controller of Charm.

Guarding does not qualify as making an attack.  Per the rulebook:

A creature may spend a quick action to guard...If a creature is in a zone with one or more enemies with guard markers (except for guards he can ignore; see sidebar), that creature cannot make a melee attack against any object without a guard marker.

The creature that has been charmed still qualifies as an 'enemy with a guard marker', since charm does not change its alignment. Therefore the only question is whether the controller of charm may ignore the guard. Unless the guard also satisfies one of the conditions in the sidebar on page 29 (none of which involve being enchanted by spell matching the description of charm) or charm specifies that the controller of charm may ignore guards on the enchanted creature (which it does not), the controller of charm is still required to attack the guard.

Again, maybe I am misinterpreting your question, but if you are asking about how the actual mechanics work, this is how. I see no ambiguity in the rules as written.

There are many cases in this game where mechanics do not agree with what we believe should be the case - for me, my biggest thematic issue is the hydro immunity of plants and the lightning weakness of metal objects. But game balance and the interaction of mechanics come first. I am sure there are many ways to interpret the theme of charm, but the interpretation provided by the text on the card is fairly unambiguous; guarding still works.

If you want to counter the tactic of guarding, I advise pairing charm with a guard-breaking creature of your own or with Mongoose agility. You could also restrain the guard with force hold or tanglevine.

Dissipate X (Object Trait)
Objects with Dissipate X only last a short while before dispersing. When an object with Dissipate X comes into play, it gets “X” Dissipate tokens. Each Upkeep Phase, remove one Dissipate token. When the last token is removed, destroy this object.

I am going to have a lot of fun with this new trait...

The card is pretty useful, too, against certain mages.

I'm not sure why it is necessary to have it target a zone - given its parameters, it seems like it could target the arena just as well. Also, why the range of 0-1? Surely 0-0 would have the same effect. Am I overlooking some relevant card effect?