First Impressions / Observations for DvN

[ACG]

I received DvN yesterday and tried it out today with some modifications to the suggested decks. I played the druid and my opponent played the necromancer. I ended up winning with no damage due to my success in keeping the necromancer and his minions far away from my mage. Thoughts:

- Samara tree is very good. I lifebonded it on the first turn and soon started popping out seedling pods. I definitely prefer it to the vine tree (which I also cast, but which saw less use). I think part of the appeal is that you can continuously have it casting spells without having to decide immediately what they are, whereas with the vine tree you have to either cast a spell or else lose the benefit of its action for that turn.

- Thornlashers are excellent. Definitely my favorite of the Druid's plant creatures. Vine Snappers and tangle/stranglevines also work very well together.

- Meditation amulet is fantastic (at least for the druid). Using my plants to keep the enemy at bay (a task for which they are very well suited), I meditated for all but 3-4 rounds in the game. Definitely an autoinclude for druid, and probably other swarm mages as well (to perhaps a lesser degree).

- I underestimated the impact of the lack of armor for the Druid's creatures. It hurts a lot, even with the regeneration. I also underestimated the strength of the resilient trait - very few of my opponent's zombies were destroyed (although this might also have been because I focused my attacks on the enemy mage). I won mostly because my opponent was not able to prevent me from attacking him. The necromancer is definitely a mage that should stay in the shadows, as far from the action as possible.

Some interesting combos to note:

- Put two Thornlashers in adjacent zones with a Bloodspine wall or Wall of Pikes between them. Then have them play a game of "volleyball" with the creature of your choice. Bonus points with Bloodspine wall if it can bleed.

- Mordok's Obelisk is an autoinclude in any Druid deck, since it only affects creatures (and the druid has many alternatives). Even against a mage that only uses 2 or so creatures, it will pay for itself quickly.

- Eternal Servant + Plague Zombie is an amusing, if rather disgusting combo. As long as you keep some mana in reserve, you can quickly rack up rot conditions. Sacrificial Altar works especially well with this. It essentially amounts to 9 mana per round for zone autorot and +2 Melee/Piercing for a minion of your choice (besides which the Plague Zombie also gets an attack with piercing +1) - a pretty good bargain, I think. This would be my Eternal Servant of choice, though I have not tried it yet.

In summary I am really enjoying the new set. I was a little disappointed not to receive the promo cards with my preorder though - I guess it only applies to sets preordered directly from Arcane Wonders.

[Laddinfance]

I'm glad you're enjoying this set!

Also, where did you get your preorder from?

[ACG]

I ordered it from CoolStuffInc.com.

[lettucemode]

My first game with the new mages went pretty much the opposite way - as the Druid, I wasn't able to get to the Necromancer in time. I tried to create a little chokepoint for defense, but ended up missing a ton of my Snatch rolls whenever a skeleton wandered through it - I think I wasted 15 or more creature actions that game since they weren't in range to attack anything.

Once the Necromancer had 4-5 creatures out, he put down an Altar of Skulls and started playing defensive, killing all Vines I sent his way. The immobility of the Druid's creatures really hurt me here - I had three or more creatures on my side of the map, but they couldn't go over and kill his stuff Everytime I got a creature up on his side of the map, it died that same round. Togorah went down to a guarding Skeletal Knight and Mort. Eventually the Altar powered up and that was that.

Samara and Vine Tree are pretty great, no argument there. Thornlashers are cool but I need to set them up in such a way where failing the Snatch roll doesn't hurt me as badly. And Skeletons are sick, man. With those cheap Reconstructs they never die. We also had a Zombie Skeleton wandering around at one point during the game, which we determined was illegal afterwards (since Rise Again only targets Living creatures). Oh well, was pretty funny at the time.

Looking forward to more games with this set. Thanks for everything, AW and playtesters, it's pretty neat stuff.

[Laddinfance]

I'm glad you're enjoying it. It was a blast to make. Lot and lots of tough choices though.

[barriecritzer]

I played two games last night, my opponent used the necromancer both games. My first game I played as the druid and lost because I was not rolling critical hits so I could not damage his resilient creatures. The 2nd game I used my Warlock and simply got in his face by 3rd round and started pounding his mage with my lord of fire and fire spells

[Battlehamster]

Ah so you're on here too eh Barrie? Just know next time we meet, my Necro won't burn as easily...

[sdougla2]

I always love when my opponent realizes how flammable they are...

Fire retardant armor is important. It makes it harder for a Lord of Fire to reduce you to an oozing pile of charcoal. It's especially important as all of those cards were just released that are relatively weak to fire for whatever reason, so people have more incentive to bring ways to light you on fire. I'm looking forward to exploring these matchups when I get a chance.

[barriecritzer]

love your handle on here, and yes I am here on the forums

[Moonglow]

Played these books for the first time tonight and had a very similar result.  I'm not 100% sure we played everything correctly; there are a heck of a lot of new keywords in DvsNecro!  My opponent played similar to you, but I did the same, focussed on getting the altar running with some bogdruids, trying to buff Shagroth with the 4 point zombies - although in the end found the Ravenous Ghoul the easiest to buff.  I think by the end resignation, my RG had 5 growth markers. 

In our end game debrief, we'd wondered if the druid should have been playing Thornlashers off vine markers more, rather than trying to cast them and hope I'd come to her.

zombies vs skeletons seemed a hard choice, but in the end so many zombies seemed stronger it wasn't that hard.  We had a few discussions around whether deathshroud staff affected zombies once they left, or entered the target zone. 

Overall, very different to previous sets, can't wait to try it again.


I had some similar frustrations around Necro spells that were redundant - couldn't target epic spells for reanimation etc - zombies are rather impossible to heal, so thank god for resilience!

My first game with the new mages went pretty much the opposite way - as the Druid, I wasn't able to get to the Necromancer in time. I tried to create a little chokepoint for defense, but ended up missing a ton of my Snatch rolls whenever a skeleton wandered through it - I think I wasted 15 or more creature actions that game since they weren't in range to attack anything.

Once the Necromancer had 4-5 creatures out, he put down an Altar of Skulls and started playing defensive, killing all Vines I sent his way. The immobility of the Druid's creatures really hurt me here - I had three or more creatures on my side of the map, but they couldn't go over and kill his stuff Everytime I got a creature up on his side of the map, it died that same round. Togorah went down to a guarding Skeletal Knight and Mort. Eventually the Altar powered up and that was that.

Samara and Vine Tree are pretty great, no argument there. Thornlashers are cool but I need to set them up in such a way where failing the Snatch roll doesn't hurt me as badly. And Skeletons are sick, man. With those cheap Reconstructs they never die. We also had a Zombie Skeleton wandering around at one point during the game, which we determined was illegal afterwards (since Rise Again only targets Living creatures). Oh well, was pretty funny at the time.

Looking forward to more games with this set. Thanks for everything, AW and playtesters, it's pretty neat stuff.

[Zuberi]

We had a few discussions around whether deathshroud staff affected zombies once they left, or entered the target zone. 

[mwcard=DNQ03]Deathshroud Staff[/mwcard] affects all friendly undead within the target zone at the time the spell is cast. Those undead retain the buff for the rest of that round regardless of where they move to. Nothing else can gain the buff by moving into the zone or by any other means.

The Druid can play fairly quickly and needs to when facing the altar, but it may take some practice to get her moving.

[barriecritzer]

Pay to place an extra vine marker every round and you can deploy next to your opponents spawn point by round 3

[isel]

im testing druid vs all mages, and the new warlock, i believe that the druid need something:

-A creature plant of level 1
-A resilent wall, because a fire mage run first turn and destroy your tree and end game. xd
-Seeding post are very slow, don´t work very well many times, maybe an especific spell that gives their +1 channeling, because the former problem it´s that you need 3 mana on seeding post to cast a spell.

[Zuberi]

im testing druid vs all mages, and the new warlock, i believe that the druid need something:

-A creature plant of level 1
-A resilent wall, because a fire mage run first turn and destroy your tree and end game. xd
-Seeding post are very slow, don´t work very well many times, maybe an especific spell that gives their +1 channeling, because the former problem it´s that you need 3 mana on seeding post to cast a spell.

-More plant creatures in general would be nice, but one to fill in this gap would be especially so. I get the feeling she is more about conjurations than creatures, however. Of course, she could always use level one animals, but they are obviously lacking the synergy with her that a plant would have.

-Protecting your tree that you've bonded with is indeed a high priority for the Druid. I believe she can already accomplish this well enough, but even if I agree that she needs some more help with it I don't believe a wall is the way to go. In order for a wall to defend the tree properly, it would have to block passage and line of sight. If it blocks line of sight, she can't use her Vine Tree (the most common tree used for her) to cast past the walls. And if the Vine Tree casts within the walls, it will generally be useless since what gets cast then can't pass through the walls.

- [mwcard=DNC17]Tataree[/mwcard] can water the seedling pods if that's what you were suggesting.

[barriecritzer]

Even using tataree the pods are not using in my opinion since  they cannot cast off the vines.