While the others struggle against strong guards...
When this book was still viable, one of the main points was that the grizzlies melted guards like a hot knife through butter. While one could opt to go for the throat (usually the better choice with most mages/books), this book created a hopeless situation for opposing mages panicking to cast creatures that frequently died the same round they were cast, regardless of size, creating a terribly lopsided efficiency of turn issues.
The best way to stop this was lots of reverse attacks, transfustion/jynx, and the FM mirror was a real bitch until I started running six dispels to eat through charms, crushes, and MC. I also started running up to three force fields in pretty much every FM book because they are the the first thing the opponent wants off the board. Causing them to spend several rounds on dispelling force fields created a sort of soft lock on their mana while the fatties laid waste.
In my opinion, the FM, and specifically this kind of book, is not playable these days with so much meta aimed at psychic immunity, and corrode turns these fatties into meat bags. A few lucky rolls early game and this book falls on its face hard now, and yet at one time it was powerful enough to end Charm's unholy 50-70 game win streak. Sad face.
I toyed around with revisiting a more classic thoughtspore build that utilized an attack spell toolbox. Fire blast and burns in general are the most widely effective attack against so many things now, and things lke wave, corrode, and other range 2 attack spells can be nasty. Spores require constant support with blocks and nullifies to stop nukes and sleeps, which is a timing/maintenance nightmare that stressed me out, but was often godly with double-tap fire-blasting everything into the dirt.
Ultimately, I have pretty much stopped playing because I strongly prefer FM and she is just sad now. She has received very little love,and went from one of the best to one of the worst mages, in my opinion, which I suspect was a reaction to how uber she was before. I'm pretty bummed because I invested heavily into this game and don't know if I will pick it back up. There is no way to undo all of the psychic obsolescence that has mounted steadily. This book was a totally unorthodox hack-around to deal with this trend, and it was in turn stamped out, basically. It's like the designers regretted creating the FM and forced her retirement.
Wow, that was ranty! Somebody call the waaaahmbulance for me.
