The wizzly Grizard

[ringkichard]

Well,  you won, didn't you? Just do that again :-)

In all seriousness, the two options there are to:

1, either play a tactical positioning game with force push, jet stream, and teleport, mixed with things like caltrops, poison and gas cloud, and enfeeble.

or

2, play a spike damage strategy that suddenly and dramatically causes him to re-evaluate spending time on the front line. Combos like Golem Pit or Wall of Thorns work well.

Golem pit is as many Iron Golem as you can cast + Spike Pit and Teleport. The pit can be replaced with Enchantment Transfusion + Nullify + Force Hold if you prefer, and even if you use the pit you may want to cast Nullify or Jinx on your opponent to prevent him or her from teleport in away.

Wall of Thorns + Force Push can be a nasty surprise for an aggressive solo, but you may need to dissolve armor and Eagle Claw Boots first. It gets even meaner with a well positioned Wizard's Tower to cast Jet Stream to push the Mage back through the wall. This takes some practice to get the positioning right.

[Charmyna]

Staff of Asyra is one of the biggest threats for the golems. Therefore, it is crucial to have enough dissolve/mage wands in this deck or enough damage output to make him flee from the front line.

[Tim]

Yep I know. That's why I include 3 (maybe  4) dissolve and 2 mage wands. I think i have a solution for protecting the bear and doing an extremely amount of damage: i am going to include 1 reverse attack in my spellbook. When i am fighting a aggressive mage i simply guard with the bear and enchant bear strength and the reverse attack on my bear. Then the mage attacks my bear, reveal reverse attack (lets say the opponent had 8 attack dice) so that's 8 dice reversed with a possibility to burn/daze, then i counterstrike from the guard token so another 7dice and piercing +1(bear strength) that's 15 dice! + i protected the bear and i can use en full action attack for 9dice next turn. This will slow him down! If he keeps rushing the opponent will lose because of all the damage. Another possibility is to include eagle wings which is nice with both bear en gorgon archer.

Another thing is conjurations like battle forge, lair, barracks, ... they give an action advantage and i don't like that. So I am trying (next game) to take it quickly do that the opponent doesn't get to abuse it that much. I can take it out with a monster or wizards tower (okay it cost mana but hey you have to do something, right?)

[Diji]

I very much like the book! I played against Hanma's variant and that game went on forever.  After a time, with no path to victory I did concede as we would have tacked on another hour before a proper resolution. Also, a quick aside on OCTGN. I have not used it, but I feel that some of tension in the bluffing element and on those critical die rolls could be lost when playing over the web. Does anyone who plays get that sense?

Onward!

In the future, against a build like the Grizard or a similar book I will prioritize the destruction of battle forge to end the free actions for all the cheap equipment. From there I solider forward with what attacks are available to threaten the wizard in such a way that each upkeep it is near mandated that the shields come on. In conjunction, I begin cursing and/or attempting to stun-lock with air attack spells. Successful stuns cripple any book build, but they especially diminish the potency of builds that maintain so many high cost creatures. If you opt to exclusively go the curse route, that will also hinder the ability to get larger creatures on the board in the event the opponent chooses to dispel (Wardstone's are also a fantastic addition for this tactic to make each nullify sting a bit more).

In early rounds you may perhaps take a few boulders on the chin while targeting the forge, however without means to make those large attack spells unavoidable (i.e. Sniper Shot, Seeking Dispel), well placed blocks (or better reverse attack) may sway tempo in your favor. In my opinion you simply need to play fast (aggressive) to win, if the game drags on into rounds 4 or 5 without you presenting the threat of serious damage it becomes an uphill battle. My close buddy Andy aka The Dude has a spell book fine tuned to get the fast damage on (Love that book too!).

In any case, its an awesome spellbook - job well done! I only wanted to post some of my snap reactions to the read and give a few thoughts on how players could begin to take advantage of where this book might be punctured. If there is one thing I love about MW, it is that every spellbook under level inspection has a weakness that can be exploited. However, this book has minimized them in good form.

[reddawn]

Staff of Asyra is one of the biggest threats for the golems. Therefore, it is crucial to have enough dissolve/mage wands in this deck or enough damage output to make him flee from the front line.

I've been noticing that the Priest in particular isn't afraid of any other mage in melee, even the Warlock (that one is closer but I think it favors the Priest).  Being able to apply Burn after Burn regardless of elemental resistance is very strong, the Staff itself can make often deprive your opponent of actions, and it still costs you mana and actions to remove the burns.  The Forcemaster's Galvitar can at least be punished with Aegis, Agony, and/or some armor but Malakai's Fire doesn't suffer from such control nearly as much.

I played some games vs Forcemasters (which seem to always use Forge), and a good, simple solution to Battleforges right now is Piercing Strike.  It's not nearly as action inefficient as Dissolving all of the equips that come out, and though you might get behind an action (two if you're unlucky, none if you are) destroying the thing, you will not have spent as much mana as the Forge player.  This leaves you more open to play a more powerful spell that will help close the gap.

[sdougla2]

I tried multiple Turn to Stones, and it worked out better than I thought that it would. It really allows the Wizard to dictate play to a much larger degree than Tanglevines would for this build, and forces your opponent to respond.

[The Dude]

Yeah! As I said in a follow up post, tanglevine is much more effective in a tempo aggression control build, not straight control. Turn to stone does great work here.

[sIKE]

Played this deck yesterday over at my buddy's house. Had asked him if we wanted to go up against the winning Spellbook from Gencon. He said yes, sucka! Took an 1 1/2 hours (both played new to us spellbooks), 10 rounds and he was demolished, utterly destroyed. I had taken a total of 1 points of damage and he said at least I will leave you bleeding even if it is just a little bit. So I cast HoB and healed the damage the next round. The poor Warlord.

I never once had a fear. He threw down a Mangler Caltrops early on,. so the next round I fired up the Voltaric Shield stepped in to the zone for no damage. He went, then I teleported the Griz(w/BS) two zones over and who then went in to the zone in the corner and one shotted Grimpson Deadeye. The game just went down hill for him from there.

I didn't play the book at my or its best and still had no issues....

[Koz]

Played this deck yesterday over at my buddy's house. Had asked him if we wanted to go up against the winning Spellbook from Gencon. He said yes, sucka! Took an 1 1/2 hours (both played new to us spellbooks), 10 rounds and he was demolished, utterly destroyed. I had taken a total of 1 points of damage and he said at least I will leave you bleeding even if it is just a little bit. So I cast HoB and healed the damage the next round. The poor Warlord.

I never once had a fear. He threw down a Mangler Caltrops early on,. so the next round I fired up the Voltaric Shield stepped in to the zone for no damage. He went, then I teleported the Griz(w/BS) two zones over and who then went in to the zone in the corner and one shotted Grimpson Deadeye. The game just went down hill for him from there.

I didn't play the book at my or its best and still had no issues....

I don't believe this was the winning book from Gencon.  An Earth Wizard DID win, but I don't think this was it.  I think it was a more traditional Iron Golem/Hurl Boulder/Wizard's Tower/Force Push + Wall of Thorns type of build. 

Still, this build looks good and it looks fun.  That's a cool battle report

[sIKE]

I'm still on my 7 hour drive back and posting on my phone is miserable but just to add I play one bear. I think with Charmyna in my place he would have won it all with ease, which isn't intended to take away from my opponents he's just that good and maybe even more importantly experienced. Before Gencon I had 2 games with the Grizzley book which I felt really hurt my decision making process during the tournament.

I was thinking this was the book that took Gencon, but it appears that the one that won is a very close version of this spellbook, but you are correct Hanma didn't post his actual tourney book.

[The Dude]

Ehh, they had... similarities. But Charmnya's [sic, maybe] spellbook plays quite differently than Stephen's. I'll give you a hint... One can play a lot faster than the other!