DVN Preview #5 - The Druid

[Koz]

I do hope that there's a good alternative to Etherian Lifetree, now that we know what it does. Casting it seems like a chore. You've got to cast a tree conjuration for treebond, and it'll probably help your creatures some, but it's also going to buff your opponent's Vamp or Hydra or Troll or Gorgon or whatever. It's great against Necromancer, and Earth Mage, but it's very much not an aggressive card and breaking the symmetry seems more a matter of chance than intent.

Also, as far as Etherian goes, it actually looks like an interesting card.  It's an awesome way to buff swarm build (which need buffing badly).  Think about it, most builds right now are focusing on "one big" strategies or "few big".  So the tree might end up giving that Hydra and Gorgon controlled by your opponent two life each, but if you're playing a Beastmaster and are spamming Foxes and Falcons (for Core BM) or plants (Druid) and they are getting two life each, you're coming out way ahead and your swarm is much more hardy.  Not having your Foxes/Falcons/Bobcats one shotted can be quite a big deal.  I'm very interested in trying this out to see if it works in this capacity.

Oh, and it also makes your Tanglevines and Wall of Thorns more hardy, which may or may not be all that helpful, but it shouldn't be dismissed without consideration. 

[jacksmack]

Why do you need errata on tanglevine and Mohktari, Great tree of life?

[Koz]

Why do you need errata on tanglevine and Mohktari, Great tree of life?

So that Tanglevine is a Vine and the Mohktari is a Tree

[Laddinfance]

The Druid can only bond to tree conjurations, but there are several options for her to bond with. You'll get to see my favorite one soon.

[jacksmack]

Why do you need errata on tanglevine and Mohktari, Great tree of life?

So that Tanglevine is a Vine and the Mohktari is a Tree

please elaborate? or I have to guess....

You wanna bond with mohktari?

You wanna cast tangle vine further than 2 zones away?

[Laddinfance]

Mechanically that is why. Thematically it's because it just makes sense.

[ringkichard]

I certainly do!
Vines are more threatening if they can become Tanglevine after they've hindered something.

The vines do seem like they're kinda slow, unless there are other ways to put them down. I don't yet see Druid's Agro's potential. The fastest way I can see to drop a vine on your opponent's starting zone is to run the Druid there on turn 3, but that's not really the point of the ability.

Defensively, maybe they'll be better? They seem a bit like Outposts. The board isn't really large enough to make them useful?

The Warlord tried to encourage building a fort, and now the druid is trying to encourage building a forest, and I just kinda wonder if that's all so much playing Sim City while the other guy is preparing for war.

Mechanical Engineers build weapons, Civil Engineers build targets.

[Koz]

Why do you need errata on tanglevine and Mohktari, Great tree of life?

So that Tanglevine is a Vine and the Mohktari is a Tree

please elaborate? or I have to guess....

You wanna bond with mohktari?

You wanna cast tangle vine further than 2 zones away?

Well yeah   These two cards are obviously a vine and a tree respectively and they should have those traits so that they can interact with the Druid's abilities if you so choose.  Just makes sense. 

[Altropos]

Tanglevine and Mohktari are getting errata... What about Wall of Thorns? Seems like a natural fit.

As an aside I hope she has an incantation that allows her to place additional vine markers. Something like Verdant Growth - place 3 vine markers, one after the other. 

[Koz]

Tanglevine and Mohktari are getting errata... What about Wall of Thorns? Seems like a natural fit.

As an aside I hope she has an incantation that allows her to place additional vine markers. Something like Verdant Growth - place 3 vine markers, one after the other.

Yeah, Wall of Thorns should be a Vine too, I thought of that one but hadn't listed it

[Wiz-Pig]

Tanglevine and Mohktari are getting errata... What about Wall of Thorns? Seems like a natural fit.

As an aside I hope she has an incantation that allows her to place additional vine markers. Something like Verdant Growth - place 3 vine markers, one after the other.

It does though, I could see them passing on that one. It could be interpreted as a bush or something. Tanglevine and Mohktari actually say they are a vine and tree in their names. Great idea on the incantation!

[Wiz-Pig]

I do hope that there's a good alternative to Etherian Lifetree, now that we know what it does. Casting it seems like a chore. You've got to cast a tree conjuration for treebond, and it'll probably help your creatures some, but it's also going to buff your opponent's Vamp or Hydra or Troll or Gorgon or whatever. It's great against Necromancer, and Earth Mage, but it's very much not an aggressive card and breaking the symmetry seems more a matter of chance than intent.

Well Togorah the Forest Sentinal is a tree and I'm sure they are going to errata Moktari the Great Tree of Life to be a tree, so there are three options right there.  Hopefully there will be at least one more, but we'll see.

Edit: ugh, it needs to be a tree conjuration so Togorah doesn't work.  Lame.

Togorah, doesn't work as a Treebond unfortunately since it is a creature and not a conjuration. If it did, wow! That would be insanely powerful.

[Koz]

I do hope that there's a good alternative to Etherian Lifetree, now that we know what it does. Casting it seems like a chore. You've got to cast a tree conjuration for treebond, and it'll probably help your creatures some, but it's also going to buff your opponent's Vamp or Hydra or Troll or Gorgon or whatever. It's great against Necromancer, and Earth Mage, but it's very much not an aggressive card and breaking the symmetry seems more a matter of chance than intent.

Well Togorah the Forest Sentinal is a tree and I'm sure they are going to errata Moktari the Great Tree of Life to be a tree, so there are three options right there.  Hopefully there will be at least one more, but we'll see.

Edit: ugh, it needs to be a tree conjuration so Togorah doesn't work.  Lame.

Togorah, doesn't work as a Treebond unfortunately since it is a creature and not a conjuration. If it did, wow! That would be insanely powerful.

Yeah, I had editied my post already because I caught that.  Knew it was too good to be true

[ringkichard]

Tanglevine and Mohktari are getting errata... What about Wall of Thorns? Seems like a natural fit.

As an aside I hope she has an incantation that allows her to place additional vine markers. Something like Verdant Growth - place 3 vine markers, one after the other.

The rules do explicitly allow for vines to target zone borders, so I'd say there's a good chance.

Hypothetical Verdant Growth would be pretty great, but then so would a War incantation that made creatures Veterans. Come to think of it, I want a War incantation that makes creatures Veterans!

[Locusshifter]

A lot to digest with this mage, not sure how I feel about her just yet.  She seems cool, but there are so many components to her that it's hard to see how good she will be (plus we haven't seen all of her toys yet).  It looks like they are going to have to issue errata on a few cards though to work with her, someone already mentioned Tanglevine plus there is the Great Tree of Life which is not listed as a tree... Issuing those kinds of errata's are kind of messy and not good IMO because you don't want people to have to always be referring to a FAQ in order to play the game, but it would be kind of lame to NOT errata them too.

Not all of the spells that come in this set are new, so I'm wondering if they'll be including the updated versions of tanglevine et al.