Conquest of Kumanjaro - SPOILERS

[ringkichard]

Man, people are all over Wizard's Tower. Here are my rambly thoughts:
In which matchups does the Wizard want to cast a Tower? What spell does the Wizard want on the tower for those matchups? How often does the Wizard plan to use the tower? Does the Wizard's chosen element matter?

Fireball seems like it'd make a good Supression Device but in what matchup does the Wizard want to cast fireball every turn? Lightning Bolt is a similar option, also for 8 mana. Maybe against Beastmaster or Warlord? Akiro's Hammer is not very popular, but it does seem like it has a good matchup against the Wizard's Tower. If the Wizard is reduced to 3 or 4 mana on turns the Tower fires, is the extra action really that important?

Geyser is an option, and it's much cheaper, and would help put out fires started by a Warlock, maybe. 5+ daze seems pretty good, but is that just a bad Temple of Light impression? Pillar of Light is a similar option with a 4+ daze and a 11+ Stun, but only does 2 damage for 5 mana. Is that something Wizard wants to do every turn?

Jet Stream seems like another candidate, with a 4+ push, but I've had that on a wand before and wasn't that impressed. Maybe with the free action it's much better, especially in combination with Wall of Thorns or Wall of Fire? 4 mana would be a reasonable cost to spam with a channeling of 12 or so.

Is Wizard's Tower worth playing against a ground assault by 2 or more Knights of Westlock? I'm tempted to spam lightning spells at Knights (or other things with lightning +2), but I don't want to spend 8 mana only to have the attack bounce off a defense. I guess that's what Arc Lightning is for. Die Bobcat, Die!

[nitrodavid]

Man, people are all over Wizard's Tower. Here are my rambly thoughts:
In which matchups does the Wizard want to cast a Tower? What spell does the Wizard want on the tower for those matchups? How often does the Wizard plan to use the tower? Does the Wizard's chosen element matter?

Fireball seems like it'd make a good Supression Device but in what matchup does the Wizard want to cast fireball every turn? Lightning Bolt is a similar option, also for 8 mana. Maybe against Beastmaster or Warlord? Akiro's Hammer is not very popular, but it does seem like it has a good matchup against the Wizard's Tower. If the Wizard is reduced to 3 or 4 mana on turns the Tower fires, is the extra action really that important?

Geyser is an option, and it's much cheaper, and would help put out fires started by a Warlock, maybe. 5+ daze seems pretty good, but is that just a bad Temple of Light impression? Pillar of Light is a similar option with a 4+ daze and a 11+ Stun, but only does 2 damage for 5 mana. Is that something Wizard wants to do every turn?

Jet Stream seems like another candidate, with a 4+ push, but I've had that on a wand before and wasn't that impressed. Maybe with the free action it's much better, especially in combination with Wall of Thorns or Wall of Fire? 4 mana would be a reasonable cost to spam with a channeling of 12 or so.

Is Wizard's Tower worth playing against a ground assault by 2 or more Knights of Westlock? I'm tempted to spam lightning spells at Knights (or other things with lightning +2), but I don't want to spend 8 mana only to have the attack bounce off a defense. I guess that's what Arc Lightning is for. Die Bobcat, Die!

if it was a zone exclusive and could not rebind skill i would be a very average spell, but considering all it's stats it is a very good value for money card. the fact that your conjuration can't get incapacitated will really help you against stun lock builds

[Koz]

Man, people are all over Wizard's Tower. Here are my rambly thoughts:
In which matchups does the Wizard want to cast a Tower? What spell does the Wizard want on the tower for those matchups? How often does the Wizard plan to use the tower? Does the Wizard's chosen element matter?

Fireball seems like it'd make a good Supression Device but in what matchup does the Wizard want to cast fireball every turn? Lightning Bolt is a similar option, also for 8 mana. Maybe against Beastmaster or Warlord? Akiro's Hammer is not very popular, but it does seem like it has a good matchup against the Wizard's Tower. If the Wizard is reduced to 3 or 4 mana on turns the Tower fires, is the extra action really that important?

Geyser is an option, and it's much cheaper, and would help put out fires started by a Warlock, maybe. 5+ daze seems pretty good, but is that just a bad Temple of Light impression? Pillar of Light is a similar option with a 4+ daze and a 11+ Stun, but only does 2 damage for 5 mana. Is that something Wizard wants to do every turn?

Jet Stream seems like another candidate, with a 4+ push, but I've had that on a wand before and wasn't that impressed. Maybe with the free action it's much better, especially in combination with Wall of Thorns or Wall of Fire? 4 mana would be a reasonable cost to spam with a channeling of 12 or so.

Is Wizard's Tower worth playing against a ground assault by 2 or more Knights of Westlock? I'm tempted to spam lightning spells at Knights (or other things with lightning +2), but I don't want to spend 8 mana only to have the attack bounce off a defense. I guess that's what Arc Lightning is for. Die Bobcat, Die!

There are lots of spells that will work well with this.  Personally, I would prefer low cost spells that I can safely spam each turn and that have a good effect roll associated with them.  Against beat-down-aggro, Surging Wave seems very good with a 0-2 range, Slams on a 3+ and has the extinguish trait (which is probably like how Geyser works as far as removing Burn).  That seems like it is a very good choice vs the Warlock especially since it can keep him Slammed (Dazed) as well as act as a way to put out Burn.

Other candidates that I like are Arc Lightning and Flameblast.  Both are cheap and Unavoidable and have decent effect rolls.  Jet Stream, Pillar of Light and Invisible Fist can also be good options, but I like these a bit less than the other choices.

As far as mana consumption goes, that is very easy to mitigate.  An early Mana Crystal or two are easy enough to do and not an uncommon play for a Wizard anyway.  The Wizard also has cheap options open to him that can help him save mana while still generating offense with Arcane Zap. 

Sample build that would be easy to achieve could be something like: Wizard equipped with Hawkeye and Staff of Arcanum + Wizards Tower with Lightning Bolt attached = 13 dice of damage a turn with some Mana Drain (Arcane Zap + Lightning Bolt + Staff) for only 8 mana a turn from the Wizard and 18 mana to set up.  This could be cheaper, obviously, by skipping the Staff for something else and/or using a cheaper spell on the Wizards Tower (just switching to Arc Lightning alone drops it to only 5 mana a turn from the Wizard).  My point is that you could easily make use of a mid-level attack spell from the Tower without being short on mana each turn. 

Everyone knows how good familiars are, because action advantage is huge, but everyone also knows how fragile they are (and they tend to be expensive).  This is the first familiar that is hard to get rid of, which is a big deal.  I expect to see this in a lot of Wizard builds.  I mean...why wouldn't you run a copy of this in your Wizard book?  For only 2 points it's a no-brainer.   

 

[ringkichard]

Yeah, it definitely looks good. Maybe the real question is, what matchups doesn't the Wizard want this? It's easy to get carried away with enthusiasm for a card like this, and I'm trying to restrain myself from gushing.

I do like the Hawkeye + Staff of Arcanum plan as a way to conserve mana.

I kind of think that one major weakness of the Tower is that it casts Attack spells, but can't move. Attack spells aren't always that efficient in a mana per hitpoint sense, but they can be really useful tactically by putting down a strong fast hit at range. The tower hits plenty hard, is almost as good as a free quickcast, but seems to help Turtling Wizards, and cant go hunting the opponent's lair, or fleeing opponents.

All that said, I know an Earth Wizard book that'll probably make real good use of this. Boulders keep falling on my head....

[patrickconnor]

[Wiz-Pig]

This makes the Hunting Bow look a lot better. Equip her with it and she already has the incentive to have an animal also attacking the same target. Add in hawkeye and she ends up with a 6 dice ranged attack with +2 piercing and a 50% bleed chance. Looks like our new Beastmaster is a bit of an assassin.

[MrSaucy]

Neato. Wounded Prey is like a condition Marked for Death. That fast trait will make it easy to find room to use the bow. First mage to have ranged +1 too! Very nice.

[Cosworth]

the new beastmaster looses 2 life & quick summoning and +1 melee for some fast footwork, wounded prey & +1 ranged. It makes her a hit&run type of mage but will be challenging to win with.

[nitrodavid]

i don't remember if her bow was 1-2 or 0-2, if it was 1-2 the fast would not be much help because you still need a full action turn to shoot.

[baronzaltor]

i don't remember if her bow was 1-2 or 0-2, if it was 1-2 the fast would not be much help because you still need a full action turn to shoot.

She can still get +1 melee from Wounded Prey too if the creature is that close.  Remember even though the bow is in her hands, she still always has access to her basic melee attack.   If you put marked for death on your wounded prey she can ranged attack it for 6 or punch it for 5.

The biggest advantage to built in fast isnt so much the ability to "run and gun", but the time saved by not having to prepare and cast a Cheetah Speed to get it.  She just starts out one action ahead in that regard.
Also, even though the +1 ranged doesnt apply to spells..she can still run around with a wand and fire attack spells if you want a full run and fire style approach.

[patrickconnor]

[Hale_32bit]

Holy damage is "light damage" - this word was not mentioned before now? I did not notice.
It may be LASERs in future

[Koz]

Wow, this guy seems awesome.  Adding Burn to things like Staff of Asyra or Pillar of Light is amazing.  The Holy Avenger ability is really good too and will make scary creatures even scarier.  How about a 15 health Knight of Westlock that can dish out a 7 die Piercing 1 attack?  Talk about ouch...

He does lose a point of channeling, and his base melee attack is only 2 dice, but his abilities more than make up for that.  I think this guy just replaced the Priestess for me due to the style I like to play (now I get to Burn you when I Daze/Stun you!).

[baronzaltor]

Holy Avenging Highland Unicorn is awesome

[Cosworth]

The 2 new heroes seem rather balanced compared to the "old" ones. Good to see there's not too much power creep already in the Mage area.

The Holy Avenger seems a little hard to pull off. The phrase "another friendly creature" suggests the holy avenger is not included as the legal trigger condition.