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Havent tried the croc yet or the grass with druid. I had swamp in but never used it so it got cut. I have tried the staff and 7 mana for the item and then 4 to stuck is a big investment when i can deploy a tanglevine for 4  at ye most off a tree.

But the staff also improve your melee attack, and allow you to bring extra vines when you have an action but not enough mana to do anything else (only one mana to bring an extra vine as a quick spell). Moreover, the staff cost 2 spellbook points, and you would probably use it at least three times unless the opponent spend effort in dissolving it (which probably include a teleport or at least a lesser teleport, since you can keep the opponent 2 zones away with it). Before lesser teleports were in play, I remember games against solo mages decided by me stucking the enemy mage until he used his only teleport and dissolved my vinewhip staff just to find out that I have another one and he is stuck again (even though they destroyed my tree bond from the new zone they were stuck in). And it could keep stucking on and on without limitation, while you have only 6 tanglevines.

My idea is to snatch with the lashers and bring them closer to the spider(s). Restrain after they are closer or snatched. The idea in theory is to focus down and take out 1 or 2 at a time.  Lashers also help for getting things out of the way


And bears are great, no argument, but i am shooting for spiders and other creatures. I have been destroyed by a nasty bear druid many times lol.

Spiders are mobile while lashers are rooted. If you want to keep an opponent in one zone, then tanglevine/stuck and then bring astral anchor. Arcane ward would be a fine addition to the astral anchor. If in most turns your opponent is supposed to be unmovable, then your thornlashers have little use. Raptor vines would help you better than thornlasher, because most turn they don't need to move, and in the few rounds when the opponent manage to move away to get stuck somewhere else, they could be uprooted. If the opponent move away from the threat area of a thornlasher, you must teleport your thornlasher to a closer zone in order for it to keep attacking.
If you want a book to keep the opponent in one zone, you will want an astral anchor and you will not need thornlashers.

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If I take a general level 1 song, it would probably be lullaby. Chant of rage is very conditional, while lullaby is more generic. if you build a kill area with thornlashers, usually you would like the enemy mage in that area but rather keep other creatures away. Chant of rage could be better against archers, but since siren is out it is common for books that include archers to include also an extra tanglevine for them (mainly against siren's call, but it helps against chant of rage as well), unless of course the archers are skeletal archers.

There is one thing I didn't understand about this book. Some of your creatures are about pushing and puling things (3 thornlashers) and some of them are about keeping the opponent restrained (giant wolf spiders and colossal crab). Is your strategy snatching things through walls of thorns of restraining them in one zone?
[a restrained creature cannot be pushed, so it is either restraining or snatching]

Personally, I would have either go for themes that could combo.
It could be replacing thornlashers for raptor vines and go for a restraining book, and take that vinewhip staff that can either put a vine for a quickspell of 1 mana or give a creature a stuck condition in a quick spell of 4 mana and 1 vine.
It could otherwise be replacing the colossal crab and giant wolf spider for 2 steelclaw grizzlies and one eagle wings (for cases when you want to move over walls without trouble).
That way you could make a similar opening of-
1) double mana flower
2) grizly + ring
3) tree + face down enchantment
and bring the second bear arond round 5 or 6, then support them with plants.
Or play a more casual druid and open with tree and bring plants, and later on bring the grizzlies .

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I once lost a game after I had a lead when my opponent was lucky.
I won at least one game when I was in a desperate condition (meaning I was sure I was going to lose) and I had great luck.

If you have those fireballs and hurl rocks, then a few very lucky rolls (combined with lucky rolls for burns) could turn a bad situation into a victory.

I never played on octagon, but only on a real board. I've seen someone concede only once, when he was both losing and had to go. Usually players keep going until one mage is dead. Perhaps on octagon it is different, I never tried.

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If he pay triple for creatures anyway, then I would probably take a skeleton knight (or adramelech) as my single creature.
Turn 1- skeleton knight + bear strength .
Turn 2- double move + teleport skeleton to attack enemy mage.
Turn 3- chitin armor + melee attack (or veteran's belt if nothing is in melee range).
And keep going with a buff + melee attack every round (or another buff if there is no melee target).

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Well, Almost all creatures could be teleported, and most of them could be pushed as well. You can't push or teleport a conjuration out of the zone, so a conjuration would benefit much more from steep hill.
Beside, wizard towers were so powerful they had to errata them to be less powerful, and I think they don't really need more power back again.
The spell is probably powerful enough by itself, since it effect all archers in the zone and your mage with his attack spells.
Not to mention that the Ballista is really good even without such errata.

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In mw, play skill>deckbuilding skill>card access>luck

Actually, I disagree for the other side.
Let's say we have dice with a little modification, the d12 will have a chance of 10% for the 9-12 results and only 7.5% for the rest of the results, and the attack dice will have 20% for 1crit and 2crit and only 15% for non-crit results. A noob would still most likely lose against a skilled player even if the noob would use the modified dice. However, I would definitely rather have the modified dice and use only the core set without any expansions rather than getting access to all spells but using standard dice.

For comparison-
In MtG, even if a player is allowed to separate his deck into lands and non-land, and on each draw he choose whether to draw a land or a non-land (which is a far greater boost to luck than the one I suggested for mage wars), he could still do almost nothing with a core set against a deck that has access to all cards.

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So we have solutions for paladins (challenge) and druids (everything is water immune anyway).
I guess beastmasters will just take kralathor more often.
Warlocks are likely to enfeeble that thing, so it couldn't move and attack (or agony if the damage is what you want to prevent).
Forcemasters could use their defense against the attacks of a water elemental, but otherwise have the same problem of killing zombie brutes they have against zombie necromancers.
Necromancer have their own stock of ridiculously unkillable resilient things. 2 zombie brutes cost the same as a single water elemental, and they more than a match for him.
Wizards could banish that creature to delay the trouble it brings for 3 rounds. His answers for resilient are slow (hydra and devouring jelly), so he will need some good positioning if he try to kill it.
Priests and Priestesses could use their creatures with defense to guard (there are at least 3 different non-pest holy creatures with defense). They also have many things that deal more damage to nonliving creature and have a very good of dazing or stunning them.
Warlords will bring their dwarf panzergardes to defend against it, most warlords have at least 2 of these anyway. Warlords will have the same problem killing it as they have against zombies.

Another general solution is to simply go for the mage, the same way you do it against zombie Necromancers (who's creatures are resilient just as well).