Priestess - 'Standard' Temple Build?

[Lightseed]

The contents of the spellbook may vary greatly. When I say the standard priestess temple build I am talking about a style of play more than the contents of the spellbook. Which, now that I think about it, is somewhat misleading. Shame on me.

The goal of the standard priestess build is to control the tempo of the game by stacking miss chances, supplemented by guarding and to a much lesser extent healing.

The spellbook contains:

Temples - always the Temple of Light.
Strong defensive creatures such as the Knight of Westlock.
Equipment and/or enchantments that grant defense rolls.
Attack spells that cause daze/stun effects.

It frequently contains:

Staff of Asyra
An angel
Armor - usually cheap or with resistances
A little bit of healing or regeneration

Those are the basics. Even within that group there is a lot of variability possible.

i like your thinking there i keep trying to help my girlfriend get better with the priestess she wants to give me a beat down and i keep explaining her that the priestess is a more stay back and send someone to do your job and heal stun daze and other effects .

[sdougla2]

I don't know, I had a game once where I built up my Priestess until I was making 12 dice attacks with Staff of Asyra. The Priestess can do beatdown, it's just that she ends up being more control oriented in that role than a Warlock with LoH would be.

[Koz]

Of course she is not just standing there, but when you pull out the Pillars of Light you are not casting a Temple. You can either stock up 6 in your book or add a wand in and bind it to a wand. Once again not casting Temples. Which was my point, I can easily get two Temples out which are ok and then I have to move to either defending myself from attacks or spending mana to "prevent" these attacks or equipping up.

Yes when the stun hits it messes up the other mages timing. But have not found that by round three it (Temple Strategy) gives me such of an action advantage that I can win. I have found just the opposite, I have spent mana on a half developed strategy that could be much more usefully spent on other spells such as equipment or non-school spells that deal damage like Hurl Bolder. My opponents spell book is designed specifically to kill the Priestess he has literally dropped everything to get into face.

Rd 1 QC - Deathlock / Move twice
Rd 2 QC - LOH Move Attack or Move Move
Rd 3 FC - Adramelech, Lord of Fire QC Hurl Boulder
Rd 4 LOH / QC Reverse Attack (PoL stun yourself)
rinse and repeat

Well, I think we found the problem here.  Your opponent is cheating.  Let me break it down here and show why:

Rd 1 (19 mana to start): QC - Deathlock (9 mana) / Move twice (10 mana at end of turn)

Rd 2 (19 mana to start): QC - LOH (8 mana) Move Attack or Move Move (11 mana at end of turn)

Rd 3 (20 mana to start): and here is where your opponent cheats because with 20 mana there is no way he's casting Adramelach, let alone casting Adramelach AND Hurl Boulder.  

So the first step for you would be to make your opponent only spend mana he actually has, and not just spending whatever he feels like.  Bottom line is that a Warlock player is not going to have Deathlock + LoH + LoF by turn three.  He only will have access to 37 mana by turn three and those three cards cost 41.  Something has to be dropped.  Now if he goes with Vampiress instead of LoF, then he could do all that, but, as good as the Vampiress is, she's not nearly as scary as the LoF.  

Some of your other points don't make much sense to be honest.  You say if I'm casting Pillar of Light I'm not casting Temples, but I have to ask... why?  I can cast two things a turn you know?  

Also, as another poster pointed out, if you have a facedown Enchantment out (like the Reverse Attack you mentioned), I'm going to hit you with the Temple of Light, which fires for free and you're going to spend 7 mana to redirect the attack back to it, which will do minimum damage, if any, and Conjurations cannot be Daze/Stunned.  That is a win for the Priestess because you are down 7 mana, which isn't being used to attack me...and I'm still hitting you with the Pillar of Light for a 4+ Daze...

[sdougla2]

Yeah, not letting your opponent cheat will help too...

[reddawn]

I think it has less to do with cheating and more to do with inexperience.  After being around the forums for a while, I suspect many people play less of the game than they lead on.  A lot of misnomers in the game would be dispelled if people just played more.

[sIKE]

Honestly guys, I do not play the other side, I might have the time a bit off on his play of cards, I can tell you for a fact the guys is a hard stickler for the rules. I just think that you might not have not played a super aggressive player. The stun lock stuff is really hit or miss that early and yes may slow him down a bit. But still my point being is you do not get a chance to build out to 4 or 5 temples which is when the stun/lock stuff really starts taking affect. You are forced out of this play style (Temple build) to survive. This is the same deck style that won the first MW tourney, there is a good reason why a Temple Build didn't.....

[Koz]

I never build that many Temples.  That's silly.  Usually the Dawnbringer and the Temple of Light is enough early, then a mid-game Hand of Bim Shalla if you get the chance.  That's it.  It's all you need.

The comments about what did or did not win the first Mage Wars tourney is suspect.  We don't know what the winning build faced, nor if there were any good Priestess builds there.

[reddawn]

I very much agree that the "Temple build" isn't the Priestess' go-to opening against fully aggro openings.  It can work well outside of that situation however.  Not everyone is going to send an Adramelech or some equivalent bearing down on your by turn 3.

It's the same reason people on these forums seem to have trouble with the Warlord, which is why I doubt most people have actually played him.  He is not meant to swarm early game at all against the Warlock and FM; he leans heavily on Thorg against the most aggressive builds, except against the FM, in which case he uses Iron Golems (which can be Charge-d, interestingly enough).

This entire thread points to a very important realization I have come across when playing MW with a competitive intention; do not pigeon-hole your book into a single strategy.  Do not just do a "temple build" or a "sniper tower build" or any singular build.  You need to build your book to two different builds, so you don't get caught off-guard.  This is why it is so important to stay in-school; staying in-school for your spellbook points allows you to maximize your ability to adapt to a particular strategy.  Forcing your Mage to do something he or she isn't good at is going to lead to a lot of disappointment in the arena against competent opponents.

Thus, you can put Temples in your Priestess book without it being a "temple" book.  Just adapt to what the board demands, though it does take play experience to know what situation calls for what card.  

Perhaps the most important advice I can give to new players who are looking to get better is this; a small spellbook is a vulnerable spellbook.  Don't be a fool; be cool, stay in-school.

[sdougla2]

I typically like to include 2-3 major plans, and then use whatever hybrid of those plans seems to actually make sense as I play. Maybe I'll start out with one plan, but if that doesn't work (or I think something else would enhance what I'm doing more) I'll switch into something else. Or maybe I'll start out with a hybrid plan right out of the gate.

Flexibility is key, I agree, but I think you're overemphasizing the need to stay in school. You can grab a good number of spells from out of school and still have the number of spells you need to be flexible so long as most of the cards you grab from out of school are level 1 with some level 2 spells mixed in. Don't grab many level 3+ cards from out of school, or you won't have the options you need. I have builds with more than 20 cards from out of school that are still ~60 cards, and they're stronger than they would be without those out of school cards.

[sIKE]

sdougla2,

That is what I have been trying to do but the beat down has been the focus. I would like to swap in couple of things for swarm control/flying but I think that for competitive play countering a Warlock or your BM beat down would be the primary focus. I am looking for a combo style deck using a mage that is not really an aggressive opening type with strong counter beat down followed by more of a late game beat down (Mage + 2 Biggies).

[piousflea]

You need to build your book to two different builds, so you don't get caught off-guard.  This is why it is so important to stay in-school; staying in-school for your spellbook points allows you to maximize your ability to adapt to a particular strategy.  Forcing your Mage to do something he or she isn't good at is going to lead to a lot of disappointment in the arena against competent opponents.

I agree with this 100%. Every build needs options. Even if your basic strategy (Aggro, Control, Combo) is going to stay the same you will want different options to go faster or slower.

This is far more important for Combo type builds like temple or other conjuration-heavy builds, mainly because you need "faster" and "slower" variations designed to go against different levels of aggression. If you are still building up conjurations and your opponent is rolling 13 attack dice per round, you are unlikely to win.

[Shad0w]

You need to build your book to two different builds, so you don't get caught off-guard.  This is why it is so important to stay in-school; staying in-school for your spellbook points allows you to maximize your ability to adapt to a particular strategy.  Forcing your Mage to do something he or she isn't good at is going to lead to a lot of disappointment in the arena against competent opponents.

I agree with this 100%. Every build needs options. Even if your basic strategy (Aggro, Control, Combo) is going to stay the same you will want different options to go faster or slower.

This is far more important for Combo type builds like temple or other conjuration-heavy builds, mainly because you need "faster" and "slower" variations designed to go against different levels of aggression. If you are still building up conjurations and your opponent is rolling 13 attack dice per round, you are unlikely to win.

Pious this may be the best post of the week.  - You are correct the way to go about this build is to control the tempo of the match.

[TricksterHat]

Still being rather inexperienced at the game I find this to be the main difficulty. I prefer having having a slow and a fast strategy for most builds, a response for aggro and some utility. That makes for some hard choices.

For the OP. Here is a  suggestion, don't know if it works.
EDIT: I mixed up two threads, this was a comment for sIkE against Warlock Beatdown.

Knight, Temple of Light, Knight, Staff of Asyra+Dragonscale Hauberk.
By turn 4, you will have a total of 15 attack dice, 2 chances to cause Daze/stun, some armor and fireresistance. And you will have used mainly basic Priestess spells.

But like I said, I have no idea if it will work.

[sIKE]

If you look at my latest build that is almost exactly what I have in my spell book. I took out on knight for the sniper though. He is quite deadly if you can get him holed up in a corner and buffed up a bit he is one mean sob. I still think my main weakness in the current build is it is not very capable of handling swarms. With the sniper I take care of most flying, though he is not tough enough to standup to the big demon of the Warlocks. I am thinking Gravikor will take care of that mostly. I might trade out the Cloak for a damage shield to help with the Swarms. I wish the Priestess had a good ranged attack friendly creature.

[TricksterHat]

I want to try a Gray Angel rush against a BM with Lair tactic at some point, it should be pretty annoying for the BM, though I can't say if its effective. But I include a Circle of Lightning and an Orb of Suppression with my Priestess as a more "standard" answer to swarm.