Opening turns?

[chiller087]

This is for Mage Wars Academy, not to be confused with Arena.

We've been having a lot of trouble trying to win with the Warlock, so I've been practicing him almost exclusively.  We've discovered that a first turn Mhegeddon, 2nd turn Vampiress, 3rd turn Guard with Vampiress and then summon Sanguine and putting the 2 damage onto the Vampiress is pretty good, except against the Beastmaster running snakes.  There is zero reason to put out Mhegeddon against a BM, as those snakes with Badger Frenzy will turn your closers into teddy bears. 

I tried using Combustion Demons and Curse of Decay to deal with early snakes but even that took too long, especially when he uses the staff to heal them.  I'm thinking the most economical solution is for the Warlock to pack 1 copy of Arcane Missles and hope for the best, but man that's 4 spell points in a game where deck building is already sardine-can tight.  I know Siphon Life gets past their defense but that's 6 Mana to take out a 4-cost unit.

Any ideas/experiences?

[Halewijn]

I agree that the warlock seems to be the weakest of the 4. I also find it very hard to win with him.
I did the same opening with the vampiress and mgheddon.

My thoughts:

- Mgheddon makes you very vulnerable. I don't think you should add cards like blood ritual when playing him because it will be more than hard enough to survive without you damaging yourself. I believe Mgheddon should be combined with a solid defence, like the vampiress. Support Mgheddon and start taking out the enemy mage/creatures.

- When playing without Mgheddon, you actually have a lot of life. His level 2 creatures are pretty good but very specific, so give it some thought about which one you'll summon. I think all of them are good, but should be played in a different scenario.

- I'm not a big fan of Khali-gar, because she is very vulnerable to ranged attacks. She might be very good late game if you suspect that your opponent is not able to shoot her. She's great to attack guards. I think she is best combined with melee warlocks. (Hellstar + demonhide mask+Eye of Bael)

- Demonic link! Probably your number one support card you should use. It gives your demons more strength, but even more importantly, it can heal you. When you have 2 demonic links out and you combine it with other healing effects, like theft of life on an opponent mage with regrowth belt, you can really heal a lot of damage every round.

- Siphon life is great to finish of creatures and heal in the progress.

- Burning curras & cloak of fire won't stop your opponent but either the damage comes in handy or the opponent attacking other stuff is great.

- Personally, I haven't had much use out of curse of decay. I don't think it's worth the action. It might be handy in some situations.

- Sanguine hunter + sanguine thirst is great. Pretty cheap and it can immediatly heal the 2 damage it did on itself.

If you have some other cool combo's, let me know!

[Sailor Vulcan]

In academy you generally want to have at least two different openings. One for if you have first initiative and one for if you don't. Round 3 the person with first initiative is going to be able to attack first. If you don't prepare some armor or a guard during the setup rounds you could be vulnerable. But if you do have first initiative you can wait until after you attack to put on armor. Opening moves work a bit differently in academy than in arena. If you put on armor early it won't hurt your tempo like it does in arena. Summoning creatures later in the game can actually be a good idea. Your actions are important but they are not quite as ridiculously valuable as they are in arena. In academy it is sometimes a good idea to skip your quickcast to save mana, even though it almost is never a good idea in arena.

You should not be afraid to include an arcane missiles in that particular deck, since the snakes do seem to be its main weakness, and you need to cover that weakness. Spellbook building in academy isn't as impossible as you make it out to be. Test your book more and you will find that there might be some cards you don't need as much as you thought you did. Arcane missiles is only a level 2 arcane spell. It costs 4 points for the warlock. If you're having trouble figuring out what to take out to make room, that isn't necessarily the fault of the game design.

Also most people don't even play Academy, and no one has been playing Academy for very long. It is way too soon to be jumping to conclusions about the relative power levels of academy mages, when academy organized play doesn't even exist yet.

Something else to note is that I was probably wrong about there being a game imbalance with the initiative. After playing academy more I realized that I had just been failing to adjust my opening moves properly. Second chance is not needed in every book.