Warlock Build Help

[relknes]

Hi, this is my first post.  I was wondering what people thought of my Warlock build.  Any helpful criticism would be welcome.

Cards                         Points (Total Points)

Atack Spells
2 Fireball                     2 x 2   (4)
1 Firestorm                 3          (7)
3 Flameblast               1 x 3    (10)
1 Ring of Fire              2         (12)

Conjurations
1 Battleforge               3         (15)
1 Mordok's Obelisk     4         (19)
2 Wall of Fire              2 x 2    (23)

Creatures
3 Darkfenne Bats       1 x 3    (26)
1 Dark Pact Slayer     3          (29)
1 Necropian Vamp.    4           (33)

Enchantments
2 Agony                      1 x 2    (35)
2 Bear Strength          2 x 2    (39)
1 Decoy                      2          (41)
1 Divine Protection     3          (44)
1 Mongoose Agility     2          (46)
2 Poison Blood           1 x 2    (48)
2 Ghoul Rot                2 x 2    (52)
1 Jinx                          2          (54)
1 Magebane               1          (55)
2 Nullify                      1 x 2     (57)
1 Reverse Atack         4          (61)
1 Reverse Magic        4          (65)
1 Vampirism               2          (67)

Equipment
1 Deflection Bracers  2           (69)
1 Demonhide Armor  2           (71)
1 Elemental Cloak     2           (73)
1 Elemental Wand     2           (75)
1 Fireshaper Ring      1           (76)
1 Gauntlets of Str.     2           (78)
1 Helm of Fear          2           (80)
2 Lash of Hellfire       2 x 2     (84)
1 Leather Boots        1            (85)
1 Regrowth Belt        2           (87)

Incantations
2 Battle Fury             2 x 2      (91)
2 Dispel                    2 x 2      (95)
1 Disolve                  2            (97)
1 Explode                 2            (99)
1 Force Push           2             (101)
1 Purify                    3             (104)
1 Purge Magic         6             (110)
2 Teleport                 2 x 2     (114)
1 Seeking Dispel      2           (116)
1 Sleep                     4           (120)


Strategy
Against Forcemaster:
Turn 1: move and cast Battleforge at NC.  
After that, Forge equips me with armor, LOH, Fireshaper Ring, and Magewand with Flameblast (for the unavoidable atack) as I cast Darkfenne Bats and varrious enchantments.

Against others:
Turn 1: Summon Necropian Vampiress.
After this, judge what sort of strategy they are using

If they are using a slow build up (cast mana crystals etc):
Turn 2: dash to NC with mage, then on Necropian Vampiress' turn, quckcast teleport to get her in striking distance and mele with her.
Turn 3: move to FC and either cast Bear Strength on Necropian Vampirsess or battleforge on FC, dpending on what damage Necropian Vampiress has taken (more damage = lean toward Bear Strength to take advantage of her natural vampirism)

If they are summoning large creatures of their own:
Turn 2: move and cast Battleforge on NC and facedown enchantment on Necropian Vampiress (Usually Bear Strength, but occasionally a Decoy)
After this, there is too much variety to get into specifics.

If they are going for a swarm of small creatures:
Turn 2: move and cast Battleforge on NC and facedown enchantment on Necropian Vampiress (Usually Bear Strength, but occasionally a Decoy)
After this, I start equiping my mage with Battleforge, and once they have 3 or 4 small creatures, Mordok's Obelisk is going to make an appearance.

If they are going for Beatdown (sprinting to center on first turn)
Turn 2: Move Vampiress 1 square.  Mage summons Dark Pact Slayer, making him a blood reaper.

Cards I would have liked to include, but couldn't find space for, include Mage Wand, Drain Life, Death Link, and Chetah Speed.
What do people think of this build?  Any suggestions on what (if anything) I should remove to make room for some of the cards I wanted to squeeze in?

[sdougla2]

I'd probably remove Sleep for Cheetah Speed and Death Link. I'd also consider removing Jinx and Reverse Magic. They're pretty expensive to include. Purge Magic is probably a poor choice in this build. You run so many curses that you'll rarely want to use it on an opponent's creature, and you run enough buffs that you'll rarely want to use it on your creatures. You could try running Enchanter's Ring or Ring of Curses. You run a good number of enchantments, and it can be helpful to make them cheaper. A second Vampirism would be nice so that you can toss one on your Dark Pact Slayer Blood Reaper and still have one for yourself.

The build looks like a pretty good Warlock build overall. I really like to use Necropian Vampiress with Bear Strength due to her resilience.

I'd advise playing the Dark Pact Slayer Blood Reaper against swarms once they kill your Mordok's Obelisk.

[relknes]

Thanks for your advice.  I agree with taking out Purge Magic.  I had it in there for facing off against other enchantment heavy decks (the thinking being that if they were cursing me, I curse them and then play Purge Magic before playing buffs on myself, whereas if they were buffing themselves, I play my buffs first and then play Purge Magic on them before playing my curses).  It is a good card fror such matchups, but probably too expensive for the situation's frequency... I can, after all, get Chetah Speed, Drain Life, and Ring of Curses all for that 6 points.
The Dark Pact Slayer as my Blood Reaper is a frequent middlegame play for me.  He makes an appearance early against an opponent using a Beatdown strategy, and shows up later for a lot of other matchups (usually once my mage has 6 or 7 damage on him for the Reaper to heal, and I have my major pieces of equipment in place).

[Sausageman]

Is it my failing memory, or is Decoy a Novice spell? If so, you can save yourself a point right there, looks like you've paid 2 points for it.
I agree about the Reverse Magic removal too. Run another Nullify if you're really worried. Book space is a lot for that card, and having 5 mana sat there doing nothing is even more in this book.

[relknes]

Ok, so I made changes to the deck to get all 4 cards that I wanted, plus a Ring of Curses and a Perfect Strike.  I did this by taking out Purge Magic, Reverse Magic, and Sleep.  As sausageman pointed out, I miscounted Decoy (I doubled the cost when I shouldn't have since it is a novice spell), and it turns out I miscounted Nullify as well (I failed to double this one...).

So, the updated book would look like:

Cards Points (Total Points)

Atack Spells
2 Fireball                     2 x 2     (4)
1 Firestorm                 3           (7)
3 Flameblast               1 x 3    (10)
1 Ring of Fire              2          (12)

Conjurations
1 Battleforge               3          (15)
1 Mordok's Obelisk     4          (19)
2 Wall of Fire              2 x 2    (23)

Creatures
3 Darkfenne Bats       1 x 3    (26)
1 Dark Pact Slayer     3          (29)
1 Necropian Vamp.    4          (33)

Enchantments
2 Agony                     1 x 2     (35)
2 Bear Strength         2 x 2     (39)
1 Cheetah Speed      2           (41)
1 Death Link              2           (43)
1 Decoy                    1            (44)
1 Divine Protection   3           (47)
1 Mongoose Agility   2           (49)
2 Poison Blood         1 x 2     (51)
2 Ghoul Rot              2 x 2     (55)
1 Jinx                        2          (57)
1 Magebane             1           (58)
2 Nullify                     2 x 2     (62)
1 Reverse Atack       4           (66)
1 Vampirism              2           (68)

Equipment
1 Deflection Bracers  2         (70)
1 Demonhide Armor  2         (72)
1 Elemental Cloak     2         (74)
1 Elemental Wand     2         (76)
1 Fireshaper Ring     1          (77)
1 Gauntlets of Str.     2         (79)
1 Helm of Fear          2         (81)
2 Lash of Hellfire       2 x 2   (85)
1 Leather Boots        1         (86)
1 Mage Wand           4         (90)
1 Regrowth Belt        2         (92)
1 Ring of Curses       1         (93)

Incantations
2 Battle Fury             2 x 2   (97)
2 Dispel                    2 x 2   (101)
1 Disolve                  2         (103)
1 Drain Life              3         (106)
1 Explode                 2        (108)
1 Force Push           2         (110)
1 Perfect Strike       1         (111)
1 Purify                    3        (114)
2 Teleport               2 x 2    (118)
1 Seeking Dispel    2          (120)

[Preacher]

Take it you haven't picked up the expansion yet? Sectarus the Warlock's rune sword is a shoe-in here for maybe one of the lashes if you get chance.

[relknes]

picked up the expansion last night.  I am going to swap in Sectarius for one of the Lash of Hellfires and the Perfect Strike.

[reddawn]

I would also second Sectarus; the combination of it and the Battleforge free up the Warlock to do his most important action; attacking.

I'm not really sold on the Divine Protection.  I find that it is very rare for me to consider spells that cost triple during spell construction, and without an Enchanter's Ring, this one level 1 spell is costing you 3 spellbook points AND 6 mana, to negate a single 1 die.  I'd recommend Leather Gloves in it's place; it would free up 2 spellbook points, costs a mere 2 mana, has better synergy with the Forge and thus won't cost one of your mage's own actions, and pretty it much accomplishes the same thing.  Purify I can sort of understand, since your creature count is so low that most of enemy-inflicted conditions will be directed at your mage, but even then a well-timed Block would cost less towards your book and prevent damage too.

Which brings me to my other concern; your number of demons.  While you do have a Slayer (which can last for a while) you have no Imps or other Slayers to take his place when it falls.  I'd recommend some back-up Imps or another Slayer, because not having a Bloodreaper reduces the Warlock's dice count significantly.

[Sausageman]

I'm not a big fan of making stuff redundant in spell books, so if he puts in the Leather Gloves I reckon he should take out the Deflection Bracers (having 3 'hand slot' items just seems crazy)
I also slightly favour the Dragonscale Hauberk over the Demonhide Armour. Reckon the former would keep you alive for longer. Generally....

[reddawn]

I'm not a big fan of making stuff redundant in spell books, so if he puts in the Leather Gloves I reckon he should take out the Deflection Bracers (having 3 'hand slot' items just seems crazy)
I also slightly favour the Dragonscale Hauberk over the Demonhide Armour. Reckon the former would keep you alive for longer. Generally....

I prefer Demonhide to Dragonscale in more solo-focused builds.  He already has a Cloak if he needs the resistance and the damage barrier would help keep him alive longer against creatures.  He covers more bases wearing Demonhide and a Cloak than Dragonscale and a Cloak.

[sdougla2]

With the addition of the expansion, you're probably going to want a Falcon Precision. It helps against defenses.

[malgor]

anyone tried 2 battleforges?    if you are looking to go equipment heavy and save mana by only dealing with curses and standard attacks....2 might be able to get you real juiced up to get in there and start with the melee attacks.

I haven't tried it but once i saw it's not legenday or epic i thought.....you could do more than 1

[sdougla2]

The issue is how do you support the mana? Leather Boots is cheap, but Lash of Hellfire, Demonhide Armor, and Battleforge itself are all pretty pricey.

[malgor]

ring of curses-2
fireshaper ring-3
gauntlets of strength- 3
moloch's torment-3
leather boots- 2

I think there's a good chunk there to let you build up fast.  clearly the tradeoff is mid game, as you won't keep using both, but for a deck that is all-in on solo and equipment, you could have 5 pieces of equipment midway through turn 3.

i'm not crazy enough to try it....but someone out there must be!

[reddawn]

The issue is how do you support the mana? Leather Boots is cheap, but Lash of Hellfire, Demonhide Armor, and Battleforge itself are all pretty pricey.

Well, you shouldn't really cast Lash or Demonhide until you need it, otherwise you're right, you're going to be mana-starved and probably lose the initial engagement.  Gauntlets of Strength is enough to deal with most threats, and some cheaper armor is usually enough too.  It's when you really need those extra dice from the Lash or the actions/piercing from Sectarus that you should equip them.  There's no real point in immediately equipping them since you can't get immediate value from them.

Just equip them when you're confident you're going to get value out of them.  And be sure to back them up with a Nullify the turn you cast them if you had initiative or on your next quickcast phase if you didnt--you can be sure your opponent is going to try to Dissolve Lash/Sectarus the turn after.