Cursing Warlock

[jmoodie]

Looking for some feedback or thoughts.  I have yet to play this build, but I'd like to give it a go.  It's basically a constant stream of curses.  My goal is to get the opponent mage to 5 points or more of direct damage per turn that they either have to stop and dispel or speed up their game.

After getting a few curses on, I then drop a nullify them to stop purges. 

I added some creatures to give flexibility or to give them something else to deal with.  I figure since curses are so cheap, I can keep loading them even when they dispel them.  I'm also trying to use some cards I don't see too often.  It seems that enfeeble is rarely used, but would end up being incredibly annoying.

The ultimate goal here is to make the opponent run out of ways to get rid of the enchantments.  Then either move in for the kill or throw up a wall and back away.

Cursing Warlock      
MW1E09   2   Agony
MW1I02   1   Battle Fury
MW1E01   2   Bear Strength
MW1E04   2   Chains of Agony
MW1C08   2   Darkfenne Bat
MW1E08   2   Death Link
MW1J19   1   Deathlock
MW1E10   2   Decoy
MW1Q05   1   Demonhide Armor
MW1I06   3   Dispel
MW1I07   2   Dissolve
MW1I08   1   Drain Life
MW1E13   1   Eagle Wings
MW1A04   2   Fireball
MW1C15   1   Firebrand Imp
MW1A06   4   Flameblast
MW1E16   2   Force Hold
MW1Q11   1   Gauntlets of Strength
MW1E19   3   Ghoul Rot
MW1E20   1   Harmonize
MW1E22   4   Hellfire Trap
MW1Q12   1   Helm of Fear
MW1J11   1   Idol of Pestilence
MW1Q14   2   Lash of Hellfire
MW1E24   2   Magebane
MW1C23   1   Malacoda
MW1J12   2   Mana Crystal
MW1E27   1   Marked for Death
MW1Q21   2   Moloch's Torment
MW1C26   1   Necropian Vampiress
MW1E29   2   Nullify
MW1E31   2   Poisoned Blood
MW1Q28   1   Ring of Curses
MW1J20   1   Sacrificial Altar
MW1I24   1   Seeking Dispel
MW1C32   2   Skeletal Sentry
MW1W03   2   Wall of Fire
MW1W02   1   Wall of Stone
   1   Warlock Familiar (i forget his name, but he's 3 points)

[nitrodavid]

one thing to consider, is Destroy magic (4 arcane) will target a zone and dispel all enchantments in that zone. because it targets a zone it cant be stopped by nullify.

[cbalian]

If you are really going with a curse heavy theme the familiar/weapon that casts curse for a free action anytime you do melee damage might be a good add.  You can then cast 3 curses per round, which will be hard for them to keep up with.

Magebane is AMAZING.  Amazing enough I put it almost every deck.  I've done upwards of 20 damage with that card before, very efficient for the mana cost.  Worst case it eats a dispell, which means one less dispell for something else even nastier.

Necroprian Vampiress is SO good.  I'd suggest adding another one of her.  Built in vampire ability plus able to fly (temporarily) is great for flying creatures. 

Drain Life is awesome but you might want to consider adding Drain Soul also (I think it is even better), having both in would be great.

So in summary just my 2 cents worth of advice.

Drop a Lash of Hellfire for the Sword familiar (sorry don't have name I'm at work)
Drop a couple Hellfire traps (you probably don't need 4)
Add a Necropian Vampiress
And I'd probably use a different deflect item then Helm of Fear, there are lower dice checks and the attack is fully blocked, with Fear they can still hit one of your creatures.

[sIKE]

The Deck will work, curse heavy decks are tough to deal with and fun to play against as there is a lot of poker involved, but as with most meta's after played against a couple of times, you will find a heavy counter meta of Reverse Magic, Dispel, Jinx, Destroy Magic, Seeking Dispel, Shift Enchantment, Steal Enchantment, and Purge Magic to counter.

Sounds like a very fun Deck but as previously stated change out LoH for Sectarus if you have the FvM set.

[jmoodie]

Haven't gotten FvW yet unfortunately, or the sword would be a must add.  This is just core and both spell tomes.

I like the suggestions. Def going to implement them.

As for the rev magic and jinx, I threw a few decoys in to try to pop those. I figure at some point it is inevitable that I'll curse myself.

And as for the zone disenchant, I can't really stop it. Much like dispel. I can only hope to push tempo.

What's your feeling on Malcoda? What do you think about poison gas clouds?

[piousflea]

I tend to play curse heavy all the time, as it really puts an impetus on the other player to kill you rapidly before all of his health ticks away to curses. It is easier to put more curses in your deck than for an opponent to put more dispels and destroys in his deck. And as long as a ghoul rot ticks once your opponent will already have taken damage, and then he has to spend more mana dispelling than you spent cursing. It is very efficient.

I do not use Malacoda with my current deck, although Mala + Enfeeble has extremely strong synergy potential.

The most important thing about a curse deck is that you need to get creature superiority FIRST and then go curses. Creatures deal much more damage than ghoul rot + Magebane, so if you don't have some ability to go toe to toe with enemy creatures you will die first.

[reddawn]

You try Sersiryx yet?  He came with the April OP kit.  I don't know if he's legal to use though...

Also, never use Lash...it seems good when you first start playing, but a majority of Weapons actually suck.  The only ones that are really worth it are Galvitar, the Warlord's Sledge, and maybe Dancing Scimitar.

[baronzaltor]

I would run Shift Enchantments in a Curse themed build.

That way you can move your curses around as more desirable targets come into play, or just move spells like Ghoul Rot or Death Link or Agony to a fresh target just before you kill off the current one.

[jmoodie]

Sersiryx is the last card.  I couldn't remember his name.  But yeah, he's in there.  Curious as to why you think the Lash is poor?

The suggestions really get into some theory crafting of what I should/would want to accomplish - do I want to move quickly or set up thing?  There are interesting takes there.  I like the shift enchantment idea.

The first book I ever put together was a curse rush.  It boiled down to cheetah speed first turn, and if the other person had initiative, then there was a good chance of a turn one ghoul rot or mage bane.  Basically a I ran across the board and would quickcast either equipment or a curse and got in your face as fast as possible - usually in the same square on turn two, three at the latest.  It was a creatureless lock, as they say.  It ended up performing about 50/50 against a variety of builds. I think it's total disregard for it's own safety caught people off guard. I never really balanced it or worked with it, though.

With that in mind, Pious, I'm curious as to why one should strive for creature superiority prior to cursing?  I'm not saying I really think that's a bad idea given past experience, but I'd like a little more insight into the reasoning.  My initial thought, actually, was the opposite.  Burying the opponent in direct damage, and pulling out a large creature as they stopped to deal with it, while also using the QC to keep at least one bit of direct damage on them.  I do really like the idea of enfeeble paired with a malcoda chasing the mage around.

My initial thought was one of the following openings:
Turn one:  Cast Sersiryx, QC harmonize
Turn two: Move, Move, QC either curse #1 or equipment
Sersiryx Move, Move
Dividing them and covering the board so that you get cursed whereever you go.

Turn one: cheetah speed, move, move, curse if possible
Turn two: Sersiryx, qc equipment or curse

My main worry is that Sersiryx is made of glass, so I wonder if he's even worth the trouble.  I also wonder if the bats are worth the time it takes to summon them. My strategy was to add the rot conditions to the curses, but I fear they'll die prior to actually being useful.

[reddawn]

Eh even if you're running a "curse" build, you should probably have more than just the Imp legend to protect you creature-wise.  In fact, you should probably have MORE creatures out early if you're going for the later game if you want to survive.

Maybe an opening  that looks like this:

T1 Imp Familiar, T2 Bloodreaper Slayer, T3 Skeletal Sentry, Turn 4 Slayer.

That's just a hypothetical, since I've only ever played the Warlock extremely aggro (i.e., builds that open with Adramelech)

At least with that many guards you adequately defend yourself and your familiar.

Also, I think the Lash is poor because you pay 8 mana to get 1 die increase and a mediocre burn chance.  That's pretty awful.

Unless you can justify the Reach, then it's especially not worth it.  And even then, with Maim Wings and Adramelech...why bother putting your mage at risk?

[jmoodie]

Took him out to play today.  I made some modifications, including adding the familiar sword and dropping the lash, and adding some shift enchantments, a teleport, dropping two hellfire traps, etc.

First game out was against a beast master. 

turn one, imp familiar, ring of curses
turn two, move imp twice laterally, qc harmonize, move move mage to center up in the board.
turn three, necropian vamp

My opponent was using the pixie familiar.  He didn't drop a big creature quickly, and I ultimately cursed him into oblivion.  I ended up killing him while suffering 4 damage.  He just wasn't able to recover from the damage and the vamp being on him quickly.  To be fair, he was trying out a new strategy that fizzled.  He won his next game b/c he didn't waste time getting to a big crit.

The second game, I was against a Warlord.  I've never played against the WL and don't yet own the FvW expansion.  I got myself into some trouble mid board.

I used the same open to see how it would go.  It went poorly.  I didn't keep my imp back far enough and he died on round 3.  I never recovered enough to get my vamp out.  I held the warlord at back for awhile, but got pinned down by 3 ballistas (the vassel promo card).  I burned two of them, but by then the damage was done.  It was all over but the crying.  I was killed and had done about 14 damage to the Warlord.

In this game, I massively regretted not having a Lash.  I kept getting tanglevined.  And the ballistas are also kindling for the lash.  Instead, I ended up using all of my walls to try to stymie the warlord and his creature.  I made one big strategic blunder, and the WL capitalized on it and never stopped pushing.  I couldn't even catch enough time to get a Deathlink on his creature. 

I think I'm going to alter my opening and make it something like

turn one, imp, skip qc.
turn two, move imp, cast vamp
turn three harmonize imp, and lash or bear strength the vamp or curse my opponent.

[MrSaucy]

Took him out to play today.  I made some modifications, including adding the familiar sword and dropping the lash, and adding some shift enchantments, a teleport, dropping two hellfire traps, etc.

First game out was against a beast master. 

turn one, imp familiar, ring of curses
turn two, move imp twice laterally, qc harmonize, move move mage to center up in the board.
turn three, necropian vamp

My opponent was using the pixie familiar.  He didn't drop a big creature quickly, and I ultimately cursed him into oblivion.  I ended up killing him while suffering 4 damage.  He just wasn't able to recover from the damage and the vamp being on him quickly.  To be fair, he was trying out a new strategy that fizzled.  He won his next game b/c he didn't waste time getting to a big crit.

The second game, I was against a Warlord.  I've never played against the WL and don't yet own the FvW expansion.  I got myself into some trouble mid board.

I used the same open to see how it would go.  It went poorly.  I didn't keep my imp back far enough and he died on round 3.  I never recovered enough to get my vamp out.  I held the warlord at back for awhile, but got pinned down by 3 ballistas (the vassel promo card).  I burned two of them, but by then the damage was done.  It was all over but the crying.  I was killed and had done about 14 damage to the Warlord.

In this game, I massively regretted not having a Lash.  I kept getting tanglevined.  And the ballistas are also kindling for the lash.  Instead, I ended up using all of my walls to try to stymie the warlord and his creature.  I made one big strategic blunder, and the WL capitalized on it and never stopped pushing.  I couldn't even catch enough time to get a Deathlink on his creature. 

I think I'm going to alter my opening and make it something like

turn one, imp, skip qc.
turn two, move imp, cast vamp
turn three harmonize imp, and lash or bear strength the vamp or curse my opponent.

So you beat a BM but lost to a WL. Huh. I would have figured the exact opposite to occur.

[paradox22]

It wasn't an average warlord build.  ; )

[reddawn]

Contrary to forum belief, the Warlord is a perfectly good mage.  Just don't play him like an inferior BM.

[MrSaucy]

Contrary to forum belief, the Warlord is a perfectly good mage.  Just don't play him like an inferior BM.

The problem is a lot of people think this how you play the Warlord because that is how he came packaged.