Okay look:   People who play   "Wall of Thorns" strategies, bring plenty of support spells to ensure it works,  he will have Dispels, Disenchants, Steal Enchantment, Steal Equipment, Detonate....and more than one wall of Thorns.

It's not like you're going to counter a well constructed Wall of Thorns book with just a few spells, you really have to commit a fair percentage of your spell book to counter it.     And since it deals such a massive amount of damage so quickly, I mean is there anything that deals the amount of damage per mana spent than pushing someone through a wall of thorns does?   Average 12 damage per trip through the wall.   A Wizard is unlikely to survive 4 pushes.

So even if, you have a counter that you think is effective to stop it, you pretty much have to have those counters in every tournament spell book you make.  (and we're not talking about a couple cards....you're going to have to commit 1/4 or more of your spell book to counter a good Wall of Thorns player.)    Your normal strategy is unlikely to work, since the Wall of Thorns deals damage faster than pretty much any other strategy,  it pretty much forces anyone who wants to play in a tournament to have to commit 1/4 or more of their book to "Wall of Thorns defense"....or play Wall themselves.   This really sques the meta-game play tournament environment.

Frankly if a particular card causes the every tournament player to have to bring a dozen or more counter strategy cards to accommodate that one strategy caused by that card, it is a bad card to have in the game.  It should be banned or nerfed.   If the card wording were just something like "This Card treats Mages as level 2"   Something like that would just fix the whole problem.    But it is a problem to be sure.

Can we have a pinned thread with estimated release dates?

Or am I missing it somewhere?

When is the next expansion?

What expansions/accessories are due out in the foreseeable future?

If you are spamming heals, then get a poison blood dropped on you… are you going to swap to a dispel just to purge that and then swap back to the heal to keep spamming or are you going to spend your only dispel… which will then leave you high and dry when I add in a ghoul rot and a mage bane.

having 1-2 copies + a wand paints you into a bad corner.   
Ive seen the "swiss army wand" before… but you are basically having to reload a musket whenever you need a key spell changed out, while the opponent can just change gears with out a sacrifice his own pace or agenda.  Wands allow unlimited use of one spell, but without multiple copies you can't access all of them as freely when you need.

And see I think when I "Steal Enchantment" and put someone's Ghoul Rot or Mage Bane back onto them, I actually feel that they are "Sacrificing their own pace and agenda".  Or when I steal their Bear Strength, or blow up the weapon or armor they're using....all these things do have a negative impact on my opponent's agenda"  Or if he blows through his direct damage while I am healing my self back up at 8 dice per turn....eventually he will run out of attack spells.  (And I'm not out of healing, attack spells or creatures (cuz I can resurrect ALL my dead ones).

It's all a trade off.  Let me ask the same thing back at you people who don't use wands.   What do you do about Ghoul Rot, or Mage Bane....or your opponent having some annoying enchantments (like Vampirism) or Equipment....and you've run out of Disolves or Dispells.   Aren't you in a pickle then?   If you're not using a wand you can only consume 10% of your spell book on 6 Dispells.  You could consume a bunch more of your spell book if you wanted multiple Steal Enchantments as well.   The problem here is if someone is going to commit to something, they are likely going to do it strongly.  Not just one or two ghoul Rots and Mage bane's but a whole bunch of them.  AND if you're being Enchantment heavy, it would be wise to pack your book with Enchantments....you put 5-6 bad enchantments in your book, and they get dispelled...you put 20 enchantment in your book and you get to keep 60-70% of them (when your opponent runs out of Dispells and steal enchantments.)...you save a few aweful ones for last and he has no way to deal with them.    But, if you face a wand deck and you didn't win the Harry Potter battle, he can now deal with ALL your enchantments.    And the same thing for an equipment intensive deck.  If your opponent isn't using a wand, then you get to keep all your equipment when your opponent runs out of Dissolves.

This is precisely why I think wands are so powerful, and why consequently winning the Harry Potter Wand battle is so critical.

@Brazil:

Running just one copy of those key incantations (Teleport, Dispel, Dissolve mainly) is not a good idea, IMO. Sure, once you bind it to the wand you can spam the spell until the wand gets dissolved. And it will get dissolved if your opponent wants to, leaving you with no extra copies of those incantations. So once you've lost your Dissolve wand you will not be able to deal with any piece of equipment (same for Teleport and Dispel).

In my defensive builds I usually play 2 wands (to replace the first one once it's gone), but I also run 2-3 Teleports, 3-4 Dispel and 3-4 Dissolve. Not only I will have access to more copies of the bound spell when my opponent destroys my wand, but I have not always a free action to cast the wand and then QC the bound spell, especially against an aggressive opponent.

Wands are very important when both players aim for the long-term game. But that will not always happen and, even in that scenario, winning the wand war is far from winning the match. Who cares about wands when I telekill your mage into a Golem pit?

Right, which brings us right back to my original point about "how important winning the Wand War is ..... basically the Harry Potter effect".   It's all a trade off, you seem to be accounting for the eventuality of having your wand destroyed and  having a backup in place.  (this consumes more of you spell book as now you are needing multiple copies of all your utility spells)  I choose instead to put a little more effort into wand defense in the first place, thereby reducing the chances of losing my wand thereby eliminating the need for "backup spell copies" or "backup wands".   I do realize this does make me more vulnerable should I lose my wand(s), but it also makes me stronger defending my wands in the first place.

All that said, as most of you seem pretty doggedly convinced "Wands are bad", I'm trying to construct a few books without wands, (or at least less reliant on wands), but as of now, building those books seems to leave me feeling my books are far more vulnerable than my normal wand books.

Wands don't change the strategy.  Play to counter the tactic/strategy the opponent is attempting to accomplish with his wand instead of focusing on the wand itself.

I never think "what if my opponent uses a wand?" when building a book or strategy.  I think in terms of how to match tactics.  The wand doesn't do anything you couldn't already do anyway.  I always assume an opponent has a spammable supply of any spells they run when choosing my moves, wether or not you put it on a wand doesn't change anything in my process.  If anything it makes it easier for me to read your plays and get ahead on action/mana.

Ive never seen a bound spell cast 6+ times, and never really seen a spell spammed that many times normally.. generally the game is either decided or over before it comes to such an extreme.

If my answer to your strategy is strong enough, the wand won't matter.  If my answer isn't strong enough, then theres a good chance you would have won without the wand anyway.

Thats not to say wands don't have a place in some builds, but it is a piece of a bigger machine and not a machine unto itself.

It not about casting a particular spell a certain number of times, it's about being able to cast the spell you need, as many times as you need it, and having a wide variety with a small portion of my spell book.

With a Wand and one each of the following:
Dispel
Disolve
Heal
Insert your favorite attack spell
Regenerate

With under 15 spell points for the spells listed above, I have the power to destroy as many items, and enchantments, as my opponent casts, I can heal 8 dice in damage per turn (endlessly if needed), I can cast attack spells endlessly.    Wands afford you a variety of options. 
If my opponent is relying on tanking himself up with equipment or enchantments I can destroy everything he puts on, no matter how many he put in his book, if I need to weather an onslaught of direct damage spells, as I pointed out I can heal 8 dice a turn, every turn until my opponent runs out of direct damage.  If it's creature wars, it's my creatures VS his creatures, and I can support my creatures with an endless supply of direct damage or healing.

Wands allow for a diverse options for countering opponent's options.    This is why it seems the winner of the wand war gains a huge upper hand.

It seems to me listening to the way you guys describe your books, that you can force a game to end in 7-10 turns.   And I think that's quite reasonable if both players are playing "attacking" decks without much in the way of defense.   But it's been my experience, particularly with the Arcane Mage, that I can hold off aggressive decks and stretch out games, until my opponent runs out of resources, then turn the game in my favor.  (If I win the Wand War), if I lose the wand war, then I know I have a limited time to beat my opponent before I run out of resources.  (Or at least the resources that I want for critical situations.)

At least that's been my experience.   

Quote from: Brazil on January 06, 2014, 10:33:25 PM

And Agressive Priestess's are the worst!   They do give me the most trouble.

But nothing a the good old Epic uber Harry Potter double cheese combo of Elemental wand + Magic Wand cant solve right?

You didn't actually answer my question about how much "Anti-Wand" you normally put in your spell book.


To answer your question, I win more than I lose against the Priestess.    But that might be due to skill level of the player, not the innate strength of the Mage. 

And I should probably say I play the Arcane Wizard mostly, who does have an advantage in the Wand Wars, in that my Dispels, and nullifies cost half what they cost everyone else.

Quote from: Brazil on January 05, 2014, 07:14:51 PM

You will not destroy my wand with a couple disolves and seeking dispells.

I estimate that i have tried to dissolve wands around 20 times.
I have failed doing so a total of one time. (due to an unexpected armor ward.)

Spending your Action Marker to nullify the enemy and then your Quickcast to Dissolve (having 9 mana) results in a destroyed wand almost always.

Divine intervention - so be it. The priestess needs to get positional advantage as well in order for this to be worth it. The nulify stays and isnt wasted so its 12 mana vs 5 mana. (unless she choose to reveal during nullify cast, but then she spends 12 mana vs 2 mana.)

Transfusion+nullify combo. In order for this to work you need to have a hidding enchantment on your mage as well otherwise i just seeking dispell your creature with 2 face down enchantments and then dissolve ur mage.
If you do this you spend 3 actions + an action casting mage wand and then i simply find other stuff to do taking advantage of you setting up an extreme overkill of Wand Destruction Emergency Plan.

Again, the point of this thread isn't "How to win the wand war" the point is, one player wins the wand war (keeps his wand and his opponent has no wand, either because they were destroyed or they just didn't bother to bring one), the player with the wand has a Huge advantage for the remainder of the game.

You have said your own playing crowd isn't very Wand centric - Mine is.   The people I play usually both use wands and commit resources to keeping their wand and destroying their opponent's wand.

Out of curiousity - What do you normally have in your spell books for for "Wand destruction"?   How many Disolves, explodes, dispells, and seeking dispells, and Steal Equipments? (and any other spells you use for Wand destruction?)   Additionally is your mage of choice the Priestess?  If not what and how much do you put in your spell book to counter "effects"?

Look, I base my Book on stopping opposing creatures...(and casing my own) 85-90% of my spell book is dedicated to that.   (Note, I'm not trying to be aggressive with creatures, I'm being defensive against creatures.)

The remaining 10-15% of my spell book is wands, and protecting wands, along with one each of the following:
Disenchant
Steal Enchantment
Drain Power
Resurrection
Teleport
Desolve
Heal
Force Push
(and about a half dozen damage spells of different types - Zone attack, long range attack(range 3), lightning, fire...etc)
Nullifyx6

That small 15% of my deck, because of the re-castability of those spells affords me a wide variety of strategies which can completely styme non-creature based attacks.

1) Resurection - Yes, on several occasions I've traded creatures with my opponent until we were both nearly out  of creatures.   Then I started resurrecting mine....and he ran out.....game over.

2) I played a match today where and opponent cast 3-4 creatures, and charged me with his creatures and Mage.   I used my creatures and Mage to defeat his creatures, and he attacked my mage, knocking me down to less than 10% health by the time I eliminated his wand (which had his only Dissolve), and his creatures.  I then cast heal on my self every turn as my creatures turned on him.  I was able to heal myself back to near full health, and he gave up.  He didn't have the resources to deal with what I had on the map.

3) "All you need is Cheetah speed", did you miss the part where I have "Steal Enchantment"?   Your Cheetah speed becomes my creature's Cheetah speed.  (as many enchantments as you cast, I can steal.)   I've noticed after you steal 2-3, opponent's wise up and quit casting Enchantments. (to avoid me stealing them)

4) have Disenchant in my book if I just want to get rid of an enchantment rather than bounce it back.  Plus if my opponent isn't trying to destroy my wand, guess what else Nullify works on?

5) Nullify and Armor ward - Yes I know.  I have both in my deck, I'm quite practiced at winning the Wand War.  The whole point of this post is, that the one who wins the wand war, is then in a situation with a huge upper hand because of the effectiveness of wands.

6) Yes, the Spell book I'm describing is not a "Fast win" spell book.  But it is a super effective defensive spell book, and the longer the game goes, the higher my chance of winning, as my opponent will start to run out of spells, and I NEVER will.  That's one of the strengths of the Wands.  LONG games, not short games.  Play things to drag out games and deal with creatures.   Then when your opponent runs out of resources, resurrect your creatures, and you still have an unlimited amount of direct damage...and you can get rid of all his equipment.  It's the unlimited number of all the utility and attack spells where this book has a huge advantage, I build the book to exploit that.   And it works.  It's easily my most effective spell book.  (I rarely lose with that book)

7) Again, you're talking about how to play "Wand Wars".   I assure you I am a very experienced veteran of "wand wars", there are lots of tricks to keep your wands safe and deal with your opponent's wands.   I'm not arguing about the best way to win "Wand Wars", what I'm saying is, "He who wins the Wand War, has a Major upper hand in the game".   If you blow up my wands, and still have your own, YOU have the upper hand.  That's my point ... whomever wins the wand war gains a huge advantage.     And about winning the wand war...it sounds like you guys don't think wands are that effective, does that mean you jammed your own spell book full of Dissolves, and Decoys, and whatever other suggestions you had for defeating a wand deck?   I assure you I put a solid amount of Wand Defense, and Wand destruction, in my deck.  (I can cast my ONE Dissolve an unlimited number of times), so you will run out of nullifies, and eventually you'll run out of all your equipment, when I dissolve all that too, while keeping my own.   That is why the Winner of the Wand War, has the huge upper hand.

That part of the game is just too important. (Or at least in my experience it seems to be)