Update: Just added information and a link about miniature damage/mana dials as a replacement for damage/mana tokens.

They stack.

Thx for all the feedback.

@ sdougla2:

By my count, you only have 8 cards that Vine Tree can cast. For a mage that can excel at attrition like the Druid, I would generally want more things for my Spawnpoint to cast. You also don't have many creatures for a creature Spawnpoint build (particularly ones you can cast from that Spawnpoint).
As mana is limited I like to let the VTree collect some mana for 3-4 turns, so I don't need many vines. Also, imho there aren't that many good vines atm.

There isn't much point in letting mana collect - that's just wasting the actions the vine tree gives you. Better to cast lots of cheap vine spells at every opportunity. If you can't decide what to cast on a particular turn, you can always just cast a seedling pod.

Also, nearly every vine spell is very good, and thornlasher is amazing.

Vine Snapper - extremely cheap for the punch that it packs.
Raptor Vine - very strong
Thornlasher - see comments below
Tanglevine - has always been very useful for retraining important creatures
Bloodspine Wall - fantastic for the Druid, since it doesn't block LOS
Orchid/Lotus - see below.

These at the very least are a must have in any Druid-Vine deck.

Why no Thornlashers? It seems like they would work well with your Iron Golem and provide you with some more position control.You have no worthwhile ways to buff a swarm aside from acid [hmm?], making Thunderdrift Falcons seem like an odd choice.
I don't think Thornlashers are good. You can maybe set up a nice highway or sth. which is probably fun but apart from that I don't really like them. Thunderift Falcons are in because : cheap and flying.

Thornlashers are amazing, especially given the synergy with other vines. Consider:
- Pair thornlashers with vine snappers to get enemy creatures into their range
- Follow a thornlasher attack with a quickcast tanglevine to keep the enemy right where you want them
- Put orchid/lotus in thornlasher's zone to follow a snatch with an action burst attack.
- Drag an enemy screaming through a bloodspine wall. I slaughtered one unfortunate necromancer this way. As a bonus, they can't return to the zone they were just in without passing through the wall again.
- They are a ranged 0-1 unit, which means they can get around the flame damage barrier, a major threat to the Druid. This played a significant role in one of my games.

I have 4 copies in my druid book, and usually cast at least 3 of them.

@Aylin
I would never Harmonize Fellella. The most mana she can contribute to any spell is 2, so if she's Harmonized and then doesn't cast an enchantment one turn for some reason, she's got mana sitting on her that can't ever be used (unless you Shift it away, but...)
This is where Decoy comes in handy. It really gives you a nice flexibility and mana infusion...you can for example cast Tarok and Iron Golem turn 3 (both 13 mana) by using Fellella's mana.

Why don't you cast the Vine Tree in the first round? It's cheaper than the familiar, and it increases your channeling at the same time. I'd recommend that you switch them (Harmonizing the tree here if you like).
As I can tap Fellella's mana by using Decoy I simply prefer having her out. I can use her mana (via Decoy) to cast anything - the VTree's casting is restricted.

If your objective is to increase your mana supply, Fellella + Decoy + Harmonize is a waste of actions. A few mana flowers will give you a return on your investment much faster and more cheaply, and does not require dedicating space in your deck to decoys. Fellella's advantage is the action advantage. I can see including a few decoys in case Fellella has nothing better to do, but using her actions expressly for this purpose is inefficient. I agree with Aylin - there is not much point in harmonizing an enchantment-casting familiar, because if she ever does not cast a spell the additional mana is wasted (If Fellella has 3 mana and 2 channeling, 1 mana will never be used). The tree is a much better target. It's restricted to vines, sure, but vines are pretty great.

It is interesting that you use the Nightshade Lotus. I find its Sleep to be too expensive.

The Lotus and Orchids' value goes beyond their mist ability, which is really just a nice bonus (sort of like an effect that occurs when a creature enters play, except that you can save it for later). Their main value is the fact that they are conjurations with attacks. As Wizard Tower and Ballista have demonstrated, conjuration attacks are more useful than creature attacks because they follow quickcast timing rather than creature timing. Specifically:

- They can attack as soon as they are cast.
- They can attack during the same turn as another creature, which is especially relevant with Thornlasher (who combos well with pretty much all rooted attackers).
- The Orchid has a chance at corroding.
- They are vines, so the Druid can quickcast (!) them pretty much anywhere or deploy them with the tree to be used immediately (again - they can attack as soon as they are cast!)
- They have unavoidable ranged attacks - as with thornlasher, this also protects them from the flame damage barrier. Useful against creatures with defenses.

1) RENEWING SPRING: in a non-Priestess deck, it's still viable??? Or it far more better Healing Wand and/or Purify??? I felle that losing an action is a very high price to pay for my creatures...

The advantage to the spring is precisely that you use the action of the creature to heal it, rather than the action of your mage. It works best if you have a lot of creatures, for instance a bitterwood swarm, since it might otherwise not be feasible to heal them all.

Another advantage of the spring is that you can heal and remove conditions at the same time, whereas the wand can heal or remove, but not both at the same time.

Putting aside the difference in efficacy between the two spells, I would say that if you value your mage's actions highly or have a large number of creatures, you should go with the spring, whereas if you value your creatures' actions highly or have very few creatures you should go with the wand.

1. Could you swarm the Wizard with creatures? Yeah his armor is nice but you could maybe wear him down. Especially if you managed to get rid of the Regrowth Belt. It would seem a Beast Master could get out a bunch of cheap creatures fast enough to swarm him at least at first.

Swarm is a good way to deal with the voltaric shield, but the wizard has cheap access to Mordok's Obelisk, and will probably also run a Suppression Orb. This is to say nothing of the fantastic suppression cloak, which is probably the strongest of his anti-swarm spells. The wizard is really good at control, so swarming him may be difficult.

These are *great*, ACG, thanks!  My art editing skills are abysmal, so can I make a request: could you make cards similar to the Rot/Bleed/etc cards, but for 'companions'.  So:

Pet/Wounded Prey
Blood Reaper/Eternal Servant
Holy Avenger/Treebond

(This way, six cards should be enough for all two-player games.)

Well, six cards to replace six tokens is not particularly efficient in terms of space. It might be a reduction, but I think there is room for improvement. Here's a more efficient solution:



Print two copies of this card (one image is the card front, the other is the card back), one for you and one for your opponent. More may be printed if needed. If your mage's ability is one use per round (e.g. wizard or forcemaster), you can turn this card over to indicate when the ability has been used. If its ability is a pet-type ability, slide this card underneath its target. This works because all mages have at most one ability that requires a single special token (not considering warlord's vet tokens).

And there are certain other effects that might be good to have on cards as well:
Ready/Used (for Defenses in particular, but can also be used for abilities like Wizard/Forcemaster/Invisible Stalker)
Guard
Taunt
Daze/Stun
Cripple/Stuck
Slam/Sleep

I'll think about those, although making them into cards does not cut down much on space. I'm still trying to figure out a way to fit more of these on one card.

For life/mana tokens, I'm thinking of just using small d6's: red for life, purple for mana.  Along with the damage dice and the yellow d12, that would then require just bringing a small box for dice, along with the card boxes.

That should cover everything currently in the game, except Vines.  I'm not sure yet how best to represent those, in this format.  (And yes, I'm deliberately ignoring Veteran tokens.  Those will likely never be needed. ; )

I don't like using dice to keep track of stats, though it would work if they are small enough. Just a personal bias, though. If dice are used, they should have at most 6 sides, since anything greater is at substantial risk of rolling.

One more suggestion: it might be worthwhile to include the removal cost for the conditions, in the middle of the card.  For example:

1 Burn
2 Burns
(Removal: 2)
4 Burns
3 Burns

Great idea. I'll add that the next time I update those.

I agree with baronzaltor. If you want to heal then you have three different ways to do it: direct healing through holy, regeneration through nature, or vampirism through dark. Each has advantages and disadvantages, but since the ways to heal are spread across three different schools, no mage is left out from healing.

If you want to destroy equipment then you also have several options. The water school has straightforward dissolve, the fire school has the more aggressive explode, and the nature school has a conjuration with a built in dissolving ability. The mind school can actually steal the equipment.

In the case of counter-enchantments, however, the arcane school has a monopoly. Ludicrous. The best way to solve the problem is to give a few other schools different ways of dealing with enchantments, in the same way that multiple schools have ways to heal but those ways are meaningfully different.

I also think that some of the basic metamagic spells should have been novice, but I would rather avoid more erratas.

I have no problem with schools containing their own counters. But they should not have a monopoly.

The Melee +X trait stacks. So with Gauntlets of Strength, Warlock has Melee +2.