Altar of Skulls. Man, what a card. It's hard to get it going, but once powered up, it can be devastating. Finite Life and direct poison damage to every living creature on the board. The tricky part : your mage has to survive long enough to make it happen. Good luck with that.

[spellbook]
[spellbookheader]
[spellbookname]Too Cool for Skulls[/spellbookname]
[mage]A Necromancer Spellbook[/mage]
[mage]built by some dumb oaf[/mage]
[/spellbookheader]
[spells]
[spellclass]Attack (3)[/spellclass]
[mwcard=DNA01]2 x Acid Ball[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKA01]1 x Surging Wave[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Conjuration (8)[/spellclass]
[mwcard=DNJ01]1 x Altar of Skulls[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1J20]1 x Sacrificial Altar[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNW02]4 x Wall of Bones[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1J22]2 x Tanglevine[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Creature (14)[/spellclass]
[mwcard=DNC01]1 x Acolyte of the Bog Queen[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1C32]2 x Skeletal Sentry[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNC15]6 x Skeletal Minion[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNC14]2 x Skeletal Knight[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNC09]1 x Plague Zombie[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNC07]1 x Mort[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNC02]1 x Deathfang[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Enchantment (18)[/spellclass]
[mwcard=DNE02]1 x Rise Again[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E14]2 x Enfeeble[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E24]2 x Magebane[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWBG1E02]1 x Plagued[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E19]2 x Ghoul Rot[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E25]1 x Maim Wings[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E27]1 x Marked for Death[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E04]1 x Chains of Agony[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWA01E02]1 x Arcane Ward[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E29]2 x Nullify[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX2FFE04]3 x Brace Yourself[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1E22]1 x Hellfire Trap[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Equipment (8)[/spellclass]
[mwcard=DNQ05]1 x Libro Mortuos[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNQ02]1 x Death Ring[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNQ01]1 x Cloak of Shadows[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWA01Q04]1 x Leather Chausses[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1Q19]2 x Mage Wand[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNQ10]1 x Meditation Amulet[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1Q05]1 x Demonhide Armor[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Incantation (17)[/spellclass]
[mwcard=DNI05]1 x Unholy Resurgence[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNI03]6 x Reassemble[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKI01]1 x Drain Soul[/mwcard]
[mwcard=FWI13]1 x Seeking Dispel[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1I06]2 x Dispel[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1I28]2 x Teleport[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MW1I25]2 x Shift Enchantment[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNI08]2 x Dissolve[/mwcard]
[/spells]
[cost]Total cost: 120 pts[/cost]
[/spellbook]

Opening looks like this :
T1 (20) : QC Death Ring (-5), FC Acolyte of the Bog Queen (-5)
T2 (20) : QC Altar of Skulls (-9), FC Libro Mortuos (-9), the Acolyte prays to the Altar.
T3 (12 + 1) : Deploy Minion (-4), QC Brace Yourself (-2), FC Curse / Rhino Hide / Skeletal Sentry / Meditation Amulet, more praying by the Acolyte.
T4+ : Try to survive, keep your Acolyte alive, put up walls to protect her and your Altar, send your skeletons as cannon fodder to distract the enemy (or have them guard the Altar). Hide like the coward you are, you spineless Necromancer.

There are plenty of reconstructs and walls. Reconstruct with the Death Ring discount costs only 3 mana for a whopping 6 dice of healing. That's insanely efficient, and you most likely should always have one planned (or put on a wand, if you fear you'll run out). Try to save some mana by meditating whenever you can afford it, to be able to cast a Drain Soul before the Altar is completed. Also, try not to die. This is essential to the strategy.

Like most of my books, this one is weak to rush strategies. Mages running Non Living creatures can also be a problem, and facing another Necro will give hilarious results. For him. You won't be laughing much, I promise. Still, the book has its qualities. Once everything is Finite Life, your mage can Lifebond two damage each upkeep to the Altar, ignoring range and LoS. If Mort is in the same zone as the Altar, he'll reconstruct that damage right away, free of charge. The Acolyte, before dying to the poison damage for which she worked so hard, will also remove two damage from the Altar every turn if she has nothing better to do. That way, the initial damage you certainly took can be mitigated for a while. There's also the ol' Sacrifice-your-Eternal-Servant-Plague-Zombie-to-Rot-Everything-in-the-Zone-and-Reanimate-it trick (SESPZREZRT, for those in the know) that never gets old.

The downside : you'll feel like a dirty, dirty coward all game long, running and hiding behind your walls and waiting for your opponent to miserably collapse, out of healing options and ridden with disease. If you weren't killed right off the bat by an opponent who figured that your strategy takes about 48 turns to complete, and that maybe throwing stuff at your face might be a good idea.

Thoughts welcome!

In Academy, when a guard decides to ignore an attacking Pest enemy, is the Counterstrike Step skipped? More specifically, if a Pest creature attacks a guarding Ridgeback Skunk, and the guard chooses to ignore the little bugger and save his guard token, does the attacker still receive a stagger condition?