The Swamp Druid lives on the borders of the Wychwood and the Darkfen.  She assists the villages of the Swamp Elves and protects the flora of the border swamps from the fell necromancers of the Darkfen.  On occasion, she will travel into the Darkfen to collect rare plants and travel into the Wychwood to plant them away from the influence of the Darkfen. 

Attacks:
Acid Ball*2
Geyser*2
Surging Wave*2
Swell*2

Conjurations:
Corrosive Orchid*4
Mana Flower*2
Swamp*4
Tanglevine*2
Vine Tree*1
Wall of Thorns*2

Creatures:
Kralathor*1
Raptor Vine*4
Thornlasher*4
Vine Snapper*4

Enchantments:
Barkskin*1
Bear Strength*1
Cheetah Speed*1
Falcon Precision*1
Hawkeye*1
Hydrothermal Vents*2
Lion Savagery*1
Nullify*2
Poisoned Blood*2
Rhino Hide*1
Rust*2

Equipment:
Druid's Leaf Ring*1
Elemental Wand*1
Leviathan Scale Armor*2
Mage Wand*1
Ring of the Ocean's Depths*1
Vinewhip Staff*1

Incantations:
Burst of Thorns*4
Dispel*2
Dissolve*4
Teleport*2

The key strategy of the Swamp Druid is to hinder the ability of enemy creatures by using the Swamp.  She uses her vine markers to cast her creatures into the Swamp, usually in Thornlasher and Vine Snapper combinations, supported by Corrosive Orchids, and uses her Thornlashers to drag creatures into the Swamp before weakening them with her Corrosive Orchids and devouring them with her Vine Snappers.  She uses her Raptor Vines to hunt down the creatures that avoid the Swamps and uses an enhanced Kralathor to dispose of large creatures (with Bear Strength, Cheetah Speed, Lion's Savagery, and Falcon Precision, Kralathor is capable of killing most creatures in two attacks).  With her Acid Balls and her Rusts, she melts the armor off of opponents and, with her Poisoned Bloods, she prevents them from healing after her plants start chewing on them.

So, I was wondering what people thought about the Priestess now that we are in the sixth year of Mage Wars.  One of the base mages, she is the premier healer mage, though she does have competition from the Paladin and Priest.  She is also my favorite mage.

In my mind, the Priestess has two strengths: healing and protection.  With her special abilities, she can easily achieve 40 life in a game.  With her healing, she can easily survive taking 60 points of damage in a game.  With cards like Circle of Protection, Consecrated Ground, Eye for an Eye, and the Pillar, she does not terribly care or worry about being swarmed, as she can usually recover from the damage within a turn or two while her enemies cannot.

In addition, her creatures are generally powerful and, if expensive, tend to punch above their weight limit and have surprising synergy, which anyone who has gone up against two Knights of Westlock backed up by two Guardian Angels can agree with.  While a number of her legendary creatures tend to be too expensive, such as the majority of the named angels, her non-legendary creatures tend to be solid.  I think that she is still a competitive mage, but what do you think?

And I look forward to playing this week.  As a Priestess player, I think that the book has promise, I am just offering constructive criticism.  Without an Elemental Wand and a Mage Wand though, I do not see the book having enough depth to survive.  Without the other spells, I do not see the book having enough flexibility to survive.

When it comes to absorbing damage, the Paladin, Priestess, Warlord, and Wizard have intercepting creatures that allow them to take ranged attacks for them (the Paladin and Warlord also have the ability to sport heavy armor, which makes them like very difficult to damage late game without more than two dissolves and/or more than two disenchants).  When it comes to dishing out ranged damage, the Priestess is not really the best option, as any mage with an alemental school is better at dishing out ranged damage.  The strengths of the Priestess is in surviving massive amounts of damage, as the average Priestess book can heal 40-60 damage in a game without any major effort (4 Heals and 4 Minor Heals average 56 points of healing) and a solid cast of capable creatures (Crusader Griffons, Guardian Angels, Knights of Westlock, Temple High Guards, etc).  I think that it is better to build on the strengths of the Priestess rather than to ignore them, which is why I made my suggestions.

Why focus so many points on attack spells?  You could easily get more utility from putting in an Elemental Wand.  You are also quite vulnerable to ranged attacks because you are lacking a couple of Guardian Angels.  With only six creatures, you will also find that creature heavy books like Necromancers and Warlords will overwhelm your defenses pretty quickly without suffering much in the way of pain.  I would also suggest adding a Mage Wand and a couple of Teleports and I would replace the Colossus Belt with a Regrowth or Veteran's Belt (Priestesses should not care about condition markers, as they can remove them with minimal effort).

I agree that advertising and development are a problem, but that will only change if AW gets more money.  Since they only make around 10% of retail on each copy of the board game after production costs, distribution costs, and retail markup, they have to sell around $2 million of product to break even on expenses, so they are going to go for games with more bang for the buck.  If you want more Mage Wars, convince other people to buy more Mage Wars products, it will give AW an incentive to spend more on advertising and development because Mage Wars will be more profitable than it currently is.  Otherwise, we will continue as we have for the last few years.

And Mage Wars is much cheaper than Legacy MtG.  I think that a new player would have to dump a maximum of $100 to build two competitive spellbooks in Mage Wars while they would have to dump a minimum of $2000 to build two competitive decks in Legacy MtG.

I think so.