How essential is teleport?

[Myrddin]

@lettucemode: Yes teleportig Wraith, throu the "spirit land". You know, like in those horror movies where the ghost get closer in the hallway everytime there is a lightning or you blink. That is how I was seeing them.

And for Gremlins, I was seeing them like some kind of annoying leprechum that teleport on your shoulder, you try to catch it, oh no it is on you head now, trying to catch it again, nope, on your back now.

Teleporting all made sense to me for these creature.

Same here for the gremlin (haven't played with the wraith). Although my precise image is of the gremlin disappearing in a flash of blue light and reappearing elsewhere. Particularly because it's paid for, I think that suggests it's magic rather than just agility.

[zot]

Congratulations, and welcome to Mage Wars!  It remains my favourite board game after nearly six months now, which is a personal lifetime record for me. ; )

No, it is most definitely *not* correct that a spellbook without at least two teleports will not be able to compete.  Teleport isn't good enough by itself to make that claim valid.  However.  Not including two teleports is (almost) always a sub-optimal decision, and many players argue that not including three is sub-optimal.  (I'm not one of the three minimum crowd though.)

Let me try an analogy: if you play a (Straywood) Beastmaster, you almost always want a lot of animals in your book.  Since you're putting a lot of animals in your book, you are almost always going to want to include a Ring of Beasts.  Will you automatically lose most games if you don't include that Ring?  No, of course not.  But the ring is so good in that combination, that you need to have a very good reason *not* to include it in your spellbook.

Teleport is like that, but with every spellbook; if you don't include at least two, you need to have a good reason not to.  Here are two good reasons for you to use: 1) I don't have enough copies of the spell to use, and I don't like constantly switching out cards from other books.  2) My local meta is different from most other ones, in that they don't play enough cards that would make Teleport truly useful enough to justify the 8-spellbook-point cost (for everyone but Wizard) of including two of them.

Go ahead and create books with only one (or even 0!) Teleport, it's not going to break your game.  If you ever *can* though, try to include at least two.  Teleport really is useful enough to justify that, in most books.

Without having read further up the thread for this, I will perhaps be going against the stream of comments. I do not think you have to have any teleports in your book. It really depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your chosen mage whether to include any. Is teleport a useful spell - sure it is. Is it required to have one, or more - no it is not. I would go further and say that while you can get away without them depending on your local players styles, it still holds that beyond your local group you can also skip them. You do need to be wary of things like strangle vine, and plan accordingly. But teleport is a utility spell, and has random applicability.  You also need to be aware your opponent could be playing it, and might play one on you or himself etc.

I expect I will get jumped on for the above. I believe I am a decent player, and I rarely include teleport in any of my books - including my tournement viable builds. My local play groups includes some very strong players.

So be aware there are varied opinions on this, and you just need to form your own.

[zot]

Errata "Epic" to Teleport... Problem solved. Because seriously... That spell is epic. Low mana cost to move whatever creature you want to pretty much anywhere in the arena (depending of where you stand).

By the same way it would reduce the power of Wizard because most of its Slow creature would be put back inline because right now, Slow is not really a draw back when you can put the creature where you want anyway.

Completely disagree.

[zot]

I was a very strong supporter of a couple teleports in every spellbook for a long time. But, now I'm thinking there might be builds that dont need at least two copies. Lets say, if you're a solo mage with a lot of defensive equips+enchants it doesnt hurt to get teleported that much (especially not if you have 6 armor and a veterans belt from DvN expansion). Still, teleport is useful to get out of tanglevine quickly and to keep chasing your opponent if he tries to teleport out of range of your attacks.
What I have in mind is something like my Blasting Banker build. It relies on many defensive stuff on your mage to survive long enough for building up 30-40 mana and banking actions via hidden enchants. It works perfectly and in the majority of games I dont even have to use teleport.
I guess most builds that rely on heavily equipping/enchanting the mage arent that vulnurable to teleport. I'm wondering when the Octgn meta or the meta meta in this forum will evolve to those builds ...

Excellent! Thank you.

I agree, and I have not had a lot of time for several months to get on octgn or perhaps you would have seen some from me.

[zot]

There will be many matches where you dont use a teleport at all.

But there will be situations where  its an auto loss not having it.
Thats why its mandatory.

Getting seperated from your creatures (enemy teleport) and tanglevined in a kill zone and you just need that teleport desperately.

To sum it up - Teleport is essential to have in spellbook, but its not essential to use it every game.

There will be many matches where you dont use a teleport at all.

But there will be situations where  its an auto loss not having it.
Thats why its mandatory.

Getting seperated from your creatures (enemy teleport) and tanglevined in a kill zone and you just need that teleport desperately.

To sum it up - Teleport is essential to have in spellbook, but its not essential to use it every game.

I would think if you are in an autoloss situation, perhaps you could have made different choices during play earlier to have avoided or diminished the threat. But sometimes you do get into a bad matchup and a teleport only delays the inevitable.

[Zuberi]

In a game where tactical positioning is as important as it is in Mage Wars, being able to control that positioning can give you a huge advantage. There are lots of spells that allow you to restrict an opponents movement, but very few that actually allow you to move both your creatures and your opponents to where you need them. I believe Push is a viable alternative to Teleport, but currently it can be neutered by the Unmovable trait. Teleport has no such antithesis, which makes it inherently better.

Building a book without any ability to control positioning would put you at a severe handicap. And in the battle to control positioning, Teleport is indisputably the best tool for the job. It's application is not random, it is tactical and has a big impact on game play. The only time you would not want to have control over positions, that I can think of, is if everyone is simply piled in the same zone beating on each other. And if that is the case, you are missing out on a lot that this game has to offer.

[barriecritzer]

I find teleport especially useful for either moving my opponents mage to one of my creatures that I want to use a full attack on or moving that creature to the enemy mage. Teleport plus double strike using the blade master has won me more than one game.