Arcane Wonders Forum

Thanks!

I wasnt sure if mage wands behave the same way as wizard towers since they specify that you prepare the spell.
Ive had a couple of situations where I have an action (and some mana to spare) for this effect. :)

Hi

Ive tried to search around for a thread answering this but couldnt find one.
I have three questions Im pondering.

* When I change spell for an item/object with spellbind, is the new spell hidden?

* If the new spell is hidden, can I return a spell and then choose to bind the same one just to obscure what I have bound.

Thanks for any help on this

best regards

Pontus

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

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. :)

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)

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. :)

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.

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.

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.

Yea wardstones are definetly in. :3

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

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.)

Here is my suggested solution for this problem: Get a decent photo printer (combined with scanner).
Thats an expensive solution on how to get one extra barracks. But its a cheap sollution on how to get an extra copy of any card you like in any game you want.
(It kinda does require you to sleeve your cards, But thats something Id reccomend anyway. I use this trick all the time. I just make a copy and slide it in front of a surplus card Im not using for anything atm.)

Is there a soccer world cup going on? Oh right, I havnt had a TV since the 90s. ;D
Not that I dont like watching stuff, its just that I prefer deciding what to watch and when to watch it.  ;)

I have a very simple solution for when I need more copies of a mage wars card. :) Its actually something Ive been using for Magic the Gathering for several years when I want to use an expensive card in several decks.
I simply use a multi function scanner/printer and make copies of the cards with premium paper. Then I cut the copy out and slide it in a sleeve with a real card behind.

For magic its really simple since those cards have a black (or sometimes white border) When making a mage wars proxy I just cut the copy ever so slightly smaller than the actual card to prevent a white edge on showing on the backside. (That only really matters for enchantments tho)

This does require you to sleeve all cards, but I do that with all my games anyway. Im somewhat fanatic when it comes to preserving the condition of my games.

So far its mainly the staples of all decks that tend to run out, or some promocard that I only have a single copy of that Ive had to do this with. I bet Im not the only one whos been annoyed at not being able to build another deck without dismantling a previous one because you need some more dissolves.
Anyway if you use matte semi photo paper and a good printer you get really good copies. If you put one next to an original you can see a slight difference, but most people I play cant even tell my proxys from a real card unless I point it out. Its also less problematic for mage wars than for magic since you cant cheat by spotting wich cards are proxys from their thickness while shuffling.