The fabled Watergate Wizard

[Shad0w]

Lets get this train back on track

[zot]

so charmyna, you morphed the grizzly build into saving spell book points and adding in more arcane creatures and the spawn point. it seemed to me that while the grizzly is certainly awesome and powerful, it just costs too much to play it out of school. that is just my opinion though. i am a huge fan of the archer over the hydra becuase it is so useful for wimping out opponent creatures and beater mage builds. it is really fun to weakend the blood reapers and avengers until they are basically useless and then ignored for the remainder of the game.

[Charmyna]

so charmyna, you morphed the grizzly build into saving spell book points and adding in more arcane creatures and the spawn point. it seemed to me that while the grizzly is certainly awesome and powerful, it just costs too much to play it out of school. that is just my opinion though. i am a huge fan of the archer over the hydra becuase it is so useful for wimping out opponent creatures and beater mage builds. it is really fun to weakend the blood reapers and avengers until they are basically useless and then ignored for the remainder of the game.

Well, I still really like the grizzly build and im not sure which of these two builds has a higher chance to win if facing each other. The grizzly build is the more aggressive one so I guess its better suited in a short game whereas the watergate build has much more creatures to summon and therefore shines in the long run.

[Wildhorn]

I tried it yesterday... That spellbook is just da bomb. It is so versatile, it can be used oftensive or defensive. And the amount of dispell/disolve/teleport is a PITA for the opponent.

[ringkichard]

Has anyone tried playing Watergate in a 4 or 5 round tournament? I feel like I might get to the finals, but I'd be totally braindead for the last match.

Though I'm probably more susceptible to attention fatigue than most.

[Wildhorn]

I bring this back to ask how the Watergate evolved with the latest expansions?

of course Acid Ball made its way into the spellbook and at least 1 hydra got changed for a jelly. But what else could have changed?

[ringkichard]

Charmyna eventually turned it into Blasting Banker, I think, because of Acid Ball.

If you were interested in playing Watergate these days, there isn't much in Forged in Fire to help you out, as far as I know, other than Rust, and that points more toward BB, same as Acid Ball did. Defend and Brace Yourself are novice, so those are options, too. Akiro's Favor isn't terrible with Surging Wave, but it costs 2 spellbook points, and that's not how WW wants to play.

[zot]

Charmyna eventually turned it into Blasting Banker, I think, because of Acid Ball.

If you were interested in playing Watergate these days, there isn't much in Forged in Fire to help you out, as far as I know, other than Rust, and that points more toward BB, same as Acid Ball did. Defend and Brace Yourself are novice, so those are options, too. Akiro's Favor isn't terrible with Surging Wave, but it costs 2 spellbook points, and that's not how WW wants to play.

   i do not have such an interest. i felt then and still do, that running out of school creatures is not the best way to run a wizard. better to save spell points for other things rather than waste them on novelties. though i am sure to get negative feedback for that opinion.

[ringkichard]

We must be thinking of very different spellbooks. Watergate as I understand it is a Water trained Wizard, running Gate to Voltari. Its a spellbook-point efficiency focused strategy that summons Hydras, Gremlins, Gargoyles, Jellies and Gorgons while packing 6 Dissolves, 6 Dispels, and a whole lot of Nullifies, Teleports, Acid Balls, Surging Wave, etc. It's the last spellbook on earth that would want to run an out of school creature.

If you look at Charmyna's initial post, the creature mix is:
3 gremlin
2 hydra
1 Gorgon
1 Huginn
1 gargoyle

Though I know it evolved a lot from that, later.
What's Watergate like where you play?

[zot]

You are very correct. I was thinking of the book containing grizzlies. I felt that was a fair amount of wasted spell points. Eventually I think he ended up changing it.

Of course for fun casual play it would be enteraining to drop things like that on an unsuspecting opponent.

I think the water wizard is not quite viable yet. I suspect after pvs drops that would likely change presuming there would be some additional water spells or perhaps creatures.

In my area we build our own books and do not copy from online. So there is no watergate play going on. I play against Steve who won last years Origins and Gencon, plus some other decent players.

[Wildhorn]

@zot: Water Wizard is probably the strongest mage at the moment. Watergate build was the strongest build as far as I can tell. Eventualy Charmany switched to Blasting Banker, but I am still wondering if he continue to play Watergate because I think WG and BB are very different.

[zot]

We will simply have disagree. The only thing i can say to convince you otherwise is mana/dice ratio...

[sdougla2]

Mana/Dice ratio? What are you talking about? The Watergate Wizard is built around hardcore attrition. It runs 6 copies of Dispel and Dissolve, efficient creatures that can be brought out with Gate to Voltari, and is dedicated to gaining a spell book advantage by using more efficient cards to answer your threats.

The water attack spells are certainly nice, but they're not primarily for dealing damage themselves. You don't use Acid Ball to deal damage, you use it to strip Armor so that other things can deal damage (like Darkfenne Hydra). You don't use Surging Wave to deal lots of damage, you use it to put out fires or make a guard lose an action.

Having cheap access to Dissolve is the primary reason to run a Wizard with water training at the moment.

[ringkichard]

I can see Zot's point. If the game goes long enough, Watergate inevitably wins, but if the game can be made into a question of mana efficiency in the medium run, Watergate can have problems. Curse Warlock, for example, can be a bad time if they bring enough Nullifies and curses.

[Wildhorn]

But a curse warlock would have a very hard time landing a curse. Would need to bypass all the nullify and transmuted jinx. Then curse would get dispelled.