I was asked to do a write up on my favorite mage,
The Necromancer.
Thematically he immediately draws me in! I will say, though, that when I started playing Mage Wars I did not think that the Necromancer was a mage to be taken seriously. There is even a forum thread on here somewhere where I stated that I love the Necromancer and want to play him competitively but I think he is not that great. Hopefully this write up will help any upcoming necromancer players, or non-necromancer players, helpful insight to better understand this mage.
Necromancer – 120 spell book points, 32 Life, 0 armor, and 10 channeling
32 starting life is not terrible. This is on the lower side but given the rest of his mage abilities and training it suits him well. 10 channeling is the shining star of the above stats. 10 channeling vs 9 channeling is a topic for another thread but the extra mana from the start and the catch up your 9 channeling opponent has to do to break even and “become” a 10 channel mage makes this worthwhile.
Training: This mage is trained in the dark school and the dark school alone. Really, what else do you need? He does pay triple for holy school spells but every other school is only double cost. This may come off as off putting at first but the dark school offers a ton of ways to do what other schools do, just in more indirect and sardonic ways. If anyone mentions holy spells one of the first things comes to many of our minds is healing in some way or another. Typically, as a necromancer, you are the only living creature under your control so it limits what you can use those types of spells on but gives you an advantage in spell book points because you don’t need to include those cards. In regards to another popular school that most mages use, nature; nature offers a wide variety of spells, yet these target living creatures. This also lets the necromancer use his 120 spell book points in ways that are more useful to his main strategies of using undead creatures.
Training in dark also gives him access to curses at spell point cost and allows him to have access to Dark Mage Only cards such as:
Siphon Life (healing)
Drain Soul (life gain)
Death Link (healing)
Drain Life (healing)
Ziggurat of Undeath (Zombie animation)
Rise Again (Zombie animation)
Animate Dead (Zombie animation)
Cloak of Shadows
Sacrificial Altar
Mage Abilities:
Plague Master – The necromancer has a built in poison immunity! Not only that, he makes his enemies suffer even more for having 1 or more poison conditions on them; he will infect enemies to then affect them! During the upkeep he may pay 1 mana, per object that has at least 1 poison condition on it, to deal 1 direct poison damage to that object. This can be used on just 1 object or 10 if you had that many poison conditions on different objects on the board. I will say that paying 1 mana to deal 1 poison damage to an enemy is not a trait I use often. I think the ability is fantastic and have seen it used to great effect, but where plague master really shines is in the poison immunity.
This means that he cannot be affected by the cards:
Wall of Poison Gas
Plagued
Poison gas Cloud
Ghoul Rot
Poisoned Blood
Malacoda
Idol of Pestilence
Altar of Skulls
To make this even better, he cannot be affected by conditions such as:
Cripple
Rot
Tainted
Weak
Icthellid Larva.
Even if you disregard the pay 1 mana to deal 1 damage ability, his poison immunity is worth its weight in gold!
Eternal Servant – This ability lets you recycle spell book points similarly to the Araxian Crown Warlocks curse weaving ability. This ability cost you no mana up front and provides one of your undead creatures +1 piercing to their attacks, melee or ranged. When it dies, you then have the option to reanimate it if you wish by paying mana. This provides the necromancer with a more stable mana supply in the beginning unlike the beastmaster’s pet, priest’s holy avenger, etc.
Attacks: This is one area where the necromancer does not shine. Currently the only attack spell within the dark school is Devil’s Trident but it also has training in fire as well. This means that the necromancer will pay 3 spell book points for the 1 spell. Now this card is pretty sweet, don’t get me wrong – 7 mana for 4 dice, 50% chance to get a cripple condition which can be used for plague master, and it is piercing +2. However, I personally like the unavoidable spells flameblast and arc lightining. These cards only cost the necromancer 2 spell book points each, are unavoidable and have a 50% chance an effect. I opt for arc lighting because of the daze/ stun chance and the ethereal trait. Surging wave is a fantastic unavoidable spell but I would shy against this card if you are using a zombie necromancer. Surging wave has the chance to slam, yes, but also has the chance to push the enemy away which means your zombies have to do extra work to move and attack the opponent. Surging wave also cannot attack flying creatures. Other popular attack spells I have seen many necromancers take are force hammer for the extra dice against conjurations and hurl boulder because it is a fantastic spell for the mana cost. Both force hammer and hurl boulder are 4 spell book points each for a necromancer so just be wary of that.
Conjurations: I believe this is one area where the necromancer can really shine! I will not cover all conjurations I think a necromancer should use but just a few that let him shine! Let’s start by taking a look at one of his spawn points, the graveyard.
Graveyard - This card only has 1 armor but 16 life which means it can take 2 to 3 level 2 attack spells before it goes down, usually. But it channels 1 mana each upkeep and once per round you can put additional mana on it equal to the level of the FIRST creature destroyed that round. By capitalizing on this, the graveyard can have better mana generation than both the beast master’s lair and the wizard’s gate of voltari and allowing the necromancer to run a swarm that is up to par with the beastmasters.
Idol of Pestilence – This card deals 1 direct poison damage to each living creature during upkeep, for 9 mana….so good! The necromancer is poison immune and typically his creatures are too so no need to worry about your side of the board taking damage. This can also trigger bloodthirsty on your zombies allowing them to roll extra dice on their next attack.
Deathlock – I only bring this one up because the Necromancer can capitalize on this conjuration better than any mage because he is typically the only living creature on his side of the board. Just watch out for those bleed tokens; they can stack and will ruin your necromancer’s day.
Ziggurat of Undeath – This card is perfect for capitalizing on any zombie horde. When a zombie melee attacks a living non-epic creature and destroys it you may pay half its casting cost rounded up to reanimate it as a zombie. This can be used on your own creatures as well – if one is about to die, just have a zombie attack it and bring it back to dish out more pain. This also combos well with the graveyard since you get the additional mana on it!
Wall of Bones – one of the best walls in the game. Huge amount of life, only cost 6 mana, and 1 spell book point. Throw one of these up to keep your enemies away or to keep them closer. They will have a hard time taking it down but they are so cheap you can throw another out with no problem.
Altar of Skulls – This card doesn’t really let him shine but since it is a necromancer only I thought I would cover it briefly. This card, if pulled off, will allow the necromancer to have lifebond with the altar, dish out 2 poison damage to all living creatures every upkeep, and give all living creatures finite life. And he or mort can reconstruct the altar once the damage is transferred – pretty neat!
Creatures: This is where the necromancer brings the hate! You have the typical options of zombies or skeletons. Both provide their own spin on gameplay; zombies are lumbering but have bloodthirsty and resilient (basically infinite armor) while skeletons have high life and decent attacks. Both are very, very mana efficient! Zombies are ridiculously tough to kill without dealing direct damage to them (pray akiro is on your side when fighting zombies). Zombies are the poison condition dealing creatures. Both plague zombie and venomous zombie can dish them out. The minion and brute are the beat sticks of the zombie group. They are bloodthirsty, keep in mind, so they have to stay in a zone until all living creatures are dead. But the variety of zombies and zombie play you can have is great! These bastards come from small to large, some blow up, some heal themselves and there is a creatire that eats your zombies! Skeletons can hand out poison conditions too. Turghut and Blightheart from PvS give the option to rot and Mort, the head honcho of skeletons, not only can dish out tainted conditions but also reconstructs 2 damage from all skeletons in or bordering his zone. The skeletons also provide the necromancer with ranged options. Both the skeleton archer and turghut have ranged attacks proving better board control and support for the ground troops. Now, skeletons or zombies, which do you go with? I say mix and match! If you are using skeletons, throw in a venomous zombie or plague zombie, make it your eternal servant and dish out poison conditions like it’s your job. If you are using zombies, add an archer for ranged support or blightheart for bleeds, rots, and because he is elusive! The main pro for skeletons over zombies is that they are not lumbering and can sprint 2 zones if they need to, just keep that in mind. But, before you just decide on these 2 types of creatures, remember the necromancer is trained in the dark school so you have other options like malacoda to deal out poison damage, demons, and one of my favorites, the teleporting grey wraith!
Enchantments: Dark enchantments are the best! And yes, I am very biased on this topic. Given that you have almost all curses in school allows you to make your enemy hate you even more! Some dark enchantments I will quickly highlight on are:
Plagued – throw this on an enemy creature, works best against swarms and each one takes 1 poison damage a turn. This cannot be put on one of your own creatures if it is undead, though.
Death Link - A dark mage only card that allows the necromancer passively heal and put that damage on an enemy – bloodthirsty zombies love this card.
Curse Item – This card works wonders with a necromancer using the cloak of shadows. Dissolve cost the necromancer 2 spell book points anyways so why not run this? This can be put on an enemy’s equipment, it targets the equipment so it bypasses nullify, from range 2 so you can stay obscured.
Chant of Rage – Oh how I love this card! Draw your enemies out and make them come to you to die. This works great for any mage, but a necromancer with lumbering zombies...fantastic! This is level 1 dark so carry 6 if you wish
There are a ton of dark enchantments that the necromancer can dabble into and I cannot cover them all and their uses but these were just a few. But on the overall topic of enchantments, the necromancer typically deals with undead creatures so you can rule out wasting spell book points on holy and nature school enchants unless you want them for your mage. This gives him an advantage, I believe, in spell book points as he does not have to worry about buffing his creatures, healing them, etc. He can just throw them out there and let them do their thing. If the important one died, just make sure it was your eternal servant and no need to worry.
Part 2:
http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=18093.msg84430#msg84430
