Temple Builds, Strong Combos, and Suggestions

[piousflea]

So Origins 2013 is over. At least 2/3 of the Tournament of Champions builds ran large numbers of Hands of Bimshalla plus Temple of Light, and the undefeated winning build (Steve Walters priestess) used 6x Hand and 3x Temple.

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So here's what is interesting about a Temple Build. The Hand of Bimshalla is only mildly overpowered by itself. The temple of light is worthless without Hands (you'll never get enough Dawnbreakers to buff it). However, the combo of Hand plus ToL proved to be absolutely over the top overpowered.

I am of the opinion that Mage Wars needs more strong combos, not less. However, Hand+ToL is not the right model to base them on, for the following reasons:
- Hand and Temple are both quick spells. You can have 3 hands + ToL and roll a 4 dice ranged attack on Round 2. This is far too fast of a combo, compared to how long it takes to get creatures or equipment out.
- Hand and Temple do not reward an opponent for trying to interrupt the combo. At 5 mana and level 1, it is easy to replace destroyed Hands. Temple is even worse. If your Temple attacks, then dies, recasting ToL lets you get a 2nd temple attack off on the same round! Ironically, killing the temple actually INCREASES its damage output.

However, I am all for combo cards being stronger. They just need limitations. Any combination of the following will work:
1) requires time (every-upkeep-phase effects)
2) requires map control (must control X outposts, Y zone exclusives, etc)
3) requires specific creatures (all soldiers gain X. Requires an Angel, a Knight, and 2 Clerics)
4) requires another card type (effect multiplied by number of temples, of walls, of mana Conjurations, etc.)
5) requires specific "combo points"

Some hypothetical examples:
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(1, 3) Mithril forge - generates Blade tokens each round and after X tokens gives a +Piercing or + melee bonus to Soldiers.

(2,3,4) Temple of Protection - Any time an attack is declared against a friendly creature within 0-2 range and LoS, you may pay 2 mana to use Temple of Protection as a defense. (d12+X) 10+, where X = number of Clerics you control.

(1,2,3) Idol of Desecration - Every upkeep phase, gain a Desecration token for every zone that contains a Demon creature you control. When a friendly Demon creature enters play, you may spend 9 Desecration tokens to teleport him into a zone with any other Demon creature you control, and activate his action marker.

(1,5) Hive - Generates an Insect token every round.
Thousand Stings - Attack spell. You must pay 2 Insect tokens as part of the casting cost. High damage zone Poison attack.
Insect Swarm - Enchantment. You must pay 3 Insect tokens as part of the reveal cost. Inflicts Poison damage every round. When target creature is destroyed, you may immediately cast and reveal Insect Swarm for no cost on any other creature in the same zone.
Hive Queen - Creature. Unique. You must pay 6 Insect tokens as part of the casting cost, but this creature does not cost mana. Generates Insect tokens every round.

(1,4) Quickened Mind - Enchant. During the Upkeep phase, gain a Thought token for each Psychic card you control. Gain a Thought token every time you cast a Psychic incantation. Maximum 6 Thought tokens. Immediately after any of your action phases, you may spend 6 Thought tokens to reset your Quick Cast marker.

(3,4) Entrench - Incantation. Until the end of the round, all your Soldier creatures gain Aegis X while Guarding, where X = the number of Walls you control.

(3,4) Malediction - Incantation, targets enemy creature. Performs an X dice Poison zone attack centered around target creature, where X is the total number of revealed Curse enchantments on the creature.

(2,4) Rain Cloud - Conjuration, Cloud, all Corporeal objects in this zone, or corporeal Walls bordering this zone, gain Flame -2 and Acid -2
Thunder Cloud - Conjuration, Cloud. Every upkeep performs a 2 dice Lightning zone attack with Flying +1
Smoke Cloud - Conjuration, Cloud. Blocks Line of Sight to or from all objects within this zone. Does not affect walls bordering this zone.
Hurricane - Unique Conjuration, Cloud. Every upkeep phase, pay 3 upkeep to perform an X dice Wind zone attack (-3 vs Clouds) against every zone containing a friendly Cloud, where X = total number of Clouds you control.

[sIKE]

At first glance it would appear the Akiro's Hammer might be more useful here than typical. It is by design a Conjuration breaker.

I am interested in how long it took to get the six Hands and Temple out. Are we saying 4 turns? Seven Dice of Damage each round would be quite over powering!

I was half expecting to hear that the FM Hand Solo build would be the winner here.....

[Paleblue]

Do you have any thoughts on how to counter the Temple strategy you mentioned? I have played against something similar and  I have considered that it might be best to teleport the enemy priest to your side of the map where a basilisk (to try keep them pinned) and a hydra can beat them down. This would avoid the shots from the TOS if it was already placed.

Something such as;

(Wizard)
Turn one Hydra
Turn two Basilisk (move the hydra one space)
Turn three move and teleport enemy priest to your side (into hydra space).

Problem of course is they still have Bim Shalla for support and if they wait to place the TOS they can dump it onto your head after the teleport.

Anyway back to the original topic, I think some of the suggested cards look great!

[nitrodavid]

I find it funny that if he had 7 temples and attacked a non living creature he would only have a 1/12 chance to stun instead of 2/12. and if he managed to have 8 temples and attack a non living he would have 0/12 chance to stun

[jacksmack]

Hands are so damn strong. Hand synergy with ToL is just sick.

I really wish that hands were lvl 2 and either cost 2 more mana to cast or that the same effect from multiple hands didnt stack on the same target.

[nitrodavid]

or if hands actually had Line of Sight to work

[jacksmack]

or if hands actually had Line of Sight to work

yep and 0-2 zones.

[Shad0w]

The build of my FM aggro was running 3 hands and 2 ToL for this reason. I am surprised it took this long for people to notice.

@Pious told you so 

[Koz]

The build of my FM aggro was running 3 hands and 2 ToL for this reason. I am surprised it took this long for people to notice.

@Pious told you so 

Well, some of us noticed this a long time ago, I've been crowing about how good Temples are (and Hands specifically) since last year. 

[sdougla2]

Hands are so damn strong. Hand synergy with ToL is just sick.

I really wish that hands were lvl 2 and either cost 2 more mana to cast or that the same effect from multiple hands didnt stack on the same target.

I don't think increasing the mana for a Hand of Bim-Shalla by 2 would be okay, since it would not be worth running them at 7 mana. They're already less efficient than dedicated options for attack/armor/healing, they just offer flexibility. I'm not totally convinced that they'd be worth running at 6 mana except with Temple of Light. I think Temple of Light is the bigger issue, since it scales up so well with the addition of cheap, flexible Hands (it makes a Hand of Bim-Shalla as efficient as Bear Strength from a damage perspective, but much more flexible), and it gives a fantastic Daze/Stun chance.

As for line of sight/range for Hands, that would make me rarely want to run them, since it would invite blocking line of sight, I couldn't play them early if I wanted to be aggressive, and they would lose a great deal of the flexibility that makes them valuable now.

I would rather Temple of Light was nerfed rather than Hand of Bim-Shalla.

[The Dude]

Level 2 and six mana. can't run 6, now cost 4 points Out Of School, and you can't drop them all by Round 2. ToL is a non issue and is easily played around.

[cbalian]

I don't really care about Hand of Bim but as soon as a temple of light hits the board I knock it down before it knocks me down.  I don't even bother touching the Hand and focus resources on killing the preistess.  The temple build deck preistesses I played died because they relied too much on temples and didn't support/defend them.  But I was running an earth wizard so hurl a couple boulders at the temples and they crash no problem.

[Koz]

I've said Hands should have been level 2 for awhile now.  However, I'm not sure that Arcane Wonders needs to react just yet, because they may nerf the card when the situation may work itself out through evolution of play.  They can't just nerf every card that shows up in a lot of builds, otherwise what's next?  Battle Fury?  Elemental Cloak? 

They should wait and see how this plays out and only take action if there is a problem long term.

[sdougla2]

I've said Hands should have been level 2 for awhile now.  However, I'm not sure that Arcane Wonders needs to react just yet, because they may nerf the card when the situation may work itself out through evolution of play.  They can't just nerf every card that shows up in a lot of builds, otherwise what's next?  Battle Fury?  Elemental Cloak? 

They should wait and see how this plays out and only take action if there is a problem long term.

I agree that it's early to nerf something, and I wouldn't mind if Hand of Bim-Shalla was level 2, I just don't like many of the possible nerfs people were suggesting.

[tarkin84]

My group have been playing the game for 2 months and after we unpacked our core sets we saw that the Hand, at spell cost 1, was just too good not to be played in many builds. And, after including 3 Hands in our builds, it was almost difficult not to make space for at least a single Temple of Light. I've already played a pack consisting on 3x Hands, 1-2x Temple of Light and 0-1x Temple of the Dawnbreaker depending on if I played defenses in many builds: wizard, priestess, warlord (not very spectacular but I had to try it) and, of course, forcemaster.

I already thought that these two cards (hand and ToL) were very good, but having read piousflea's comment about Origins being overwhelmed by them just made me happy as that means I am learning the game at a good pace

Still, maybe we should give veteran players some time to adjust to this holy invasion before artificially changing anything. Or some spell could be added to the next expansion to keep this in check if another solution is not found.