Earth Wizard Attrition Control

[somaddict]

I'm pretty new, and I bought the base and the expansion together, so I pretty much took in all the cards at once. I've only played a few times.

That being said, I'm wondering if this seems like a good idea.

Wizard - Earth (or Air with 2x Earth cost)
Basis: Poison Gas Cloud, Idol of Pestilence, Malacoda

Wand and Huggin Familiar are casting Teleports, Force Push, Knockdown, Force Wave, and Shift Enchantment.

Air is pushing around with Jet Stream, and Whirling spirit, AoE with Chain Lightning.

Earth comes in for Quicksand, Turn to Stone, Hail of Stones AoE, Iron Golems, Earth Elemental, maybe Hurl Boulder finisher?

Turn to stone seemed kind of weird until I looked at it with Shift Enchantment. One could almost "lure", if not force creatures into a meat grinder with Idol, Poison, and Malacoda dealing 5 points per upkeep (right?), pop TtS on Malacoda to protect him, use shift enchantment to move that to an enemy fatty, shift back to Malacoda, etc. Shift enchantment also seems helpful here for Cheetah Speed,  Force Hold, Rhino Hide, Teleport Trap, etc.

Huginn would need regrowth at some point. Other friendlies are unaffected by Idol and Malacoda, Regrowth belt on mage, etc.

I would think to throw in Mordok's Obelisk, Banish, and Drain Power for contingencies.

Would two enchanter's rings make them free to place? Other enchantment ideas...Ghoul Rot, Hellfire Trap, Fortified Position, Retaliate?

Is this way too busy or is there decent synergy/efficiency here? It seems like it would be really fun (for me, anyway.)

Thanks!

[Awkward]

Just to make it clear, it is impossible to have two Enchanter's Rings attached to your Mage at the same time. You can't have two cards with the same name attached to any creature (including equipment and enchantments).

[sIKE]

The strategy sounds very interesting. It looks to be mid-range/control in style. With that said, getting that to develop in to what you describe might be a bit more difficult. There is a lot of mana needed to do all of the things you are suggesting. You now know that you can only use one enchanters ring. Sounds like you wanting DOT to do most of the work for you. It may work but flyers could be an issue.

[sdougla2]

If you can get Whirling Spirits to do enough position control, I can see this potentially working. It's very mana intensive, and will take some time to setup, so you'll need to have a plan against aggro. Whirling Spirit and Iron Golems should go a long way in that regard, but it's something to keep in mind.

[ringkichard]

My regular opponent plays an Earth Wizard, and uses teleport trap with Poison Gas Cloud to good effect. I can tell you from experience that Getting teleported or pushed into the cloud is frustrating, especially when the Wizard is more than 1 square away from the Cloud, so that the teleport wastes the attacker's first turn, and the Cloud's hindering effect wastes the attacker's second turn.

That said, if I go full offensive rush with a Pet Bear attack by turn 3 or 4, I can usually force him into his backup plan and he'll summon one or two Iron Golems instead. They're probably the hardest creatures to kill in the game, and they're extremely mana efficient. So maybe consider those as a good backup plan.

Aside from that, the Cloud is kind of fragile if your opponent brings an ethereal attack (mage staff, many of the attack spells).

The real mana sink in this strategy is going to be the upkeep on the Turn to Stone. It's a neat idea to stick it on Malacoda, but I don't know if it's 4 mana a turn neat.

[ringkichard]

Somaddict, how's this book working for you?

[The Dude]

Hey man, you should really try out those Iron Golems. I rock the Earth Wizard, and to great effect. However, I'm not sure about the Poison cloud Idea, as there are a few to many situations where that can backfire. It's never a bad idea, but, at least for my earth Wizard, I try to have as much of solid game plan as possible, using my tricks not to run away, but to pull them closer, because, my friend, NOTHING is better than a battle fury Iron Golem attack. Nothing.