Temple of Light, six months later.

[IndyPendant]

Hi all.

(Edit: Post re-written to more clearly convey what I wanted to say.)

It's now been nearly six months since AW released errata on these three cards.  They happened before my time, happening just as I started getting interested in Mage Wars, so I never got to try the combos that inspired the nerfs.  Battle Fury and Hand of Bim-Shalla both seem to have survived their erratas very well; they are still included in many spellbooks.

But what about the Temple of Light?

Priestess is one of my favourite mages, currently second only to Beastmaster.  With the Temple of Light errata, I never bother to include it in any of my books.  Even with the Necromancer and Wizard and their current nonliving-heavy meta, I never include the card in my books.  I've never had the card played against me either, not once.

I do understand why *a* change was necessary; as originally written, I agree that the card was too powerful.  However, I thought then, and six months later, I still think that AW has nerfed the card into utter uselessness now.  AW has made mistakes in the past, and I consider this to be one of them.  So I thought I'd check in with the community here: we've had time to playtest the change, what do you think?  Am I missing something?

And, from those players that may defend the errata, I would like one more question answered: is it included in *your* current Priest/Priestess book(s)?  (Do you walk your talk? ; )

For those that agree with me that the errata was too much, what would you have done instead?  (My personal idea was to leave the card unchanged, except that X does not add to the effect die roll.  So no mana cost, the number of temples in play still determines the damage dice rolled, but the effect die remains 9-10 Stun/11+ Daze.  Possibly reverse the Stun/Daze positions, so that +2 vs Non-Living is a little better.  Problem solved.)

[krj]

i Agree with You. now it's almost useless card. i sometime put it in my spellbook when i was playing Priest, but almost never used it. I agree there shouldn't be any mana cost for shooting, i would leave dice system as it is/was from the begginning (also with effect die roll). MAYBE i would add Epic trait for it, so it wopuld be better and useful, but cannot be replaced after destroying it.

[DeckBuilder]

Oh, Indy, you are going to get me into trouble here...
Firstly, the usual proviso: this is just my personal opinion etc. etc.

I too believe Arcane Wonders made a mistake, panicked by a broken combo.
Or at least approached it wrongly with card erratas rather than rules tweaks.
They later made Battle Fury into a single attack sequence with the new FAQ.
This solved many of the issues,

We shouldn't talk about 1 card in isolation, we have to consider the erratas as 2 combos.


BATTLE FURY + HAND OF BIM-SHALLA

Battle Fury: for 5 mana (a Warlord pays 4), you gain a maximum of 6 dice attack at range 2
This is because Melee +X, Charge, Vampirism only applies to the first attack in a sequence
While card is vague, the FAQ is explicit that the extra attack is in the same attack sequence.
But this requires set-up of a full action summon of that 6 dice creature and getting it there
The cheapest 6 dice is Iron Golem (13), it moves there Slow and its attack is utterly vanilla
The best 6 dice attack is probably Lord of Fire (24), pricey but this also gives you 0-2 burn

For 8 mana, you get 7 dice at range 2 with Slam (Hurl Boulder) or 0-2 Burn (Fireball + Ring)
And there is no set-up cost in mana, action or tempo, just a spend of double spell points

So is Battle Fury really that broken that it needs this clunky errata?
Let's look at the 1 attack mage kill scenario with tournament legal cards if current errata was removed.

I am playing the Forcemaster; I have Galvitar, Gauntlets of Strength, Bear Strength, Vampirism (predictable)
I have 6 Hand of Bim-Shalla (fragile, zone exclusive) and 4 Thoughtspores, each with a Battle Fury on them.
Let us assume the enemy mage is Marked for Death, has no armour and has fully activated, adjacent to me
My 4 Spores each cast Battle Fury on me then I QC Battle Fury on me before a full action double-strike attack
First attack is 4 (Galvitar) + 2 (Bear) + 1 (Gauntlets) + 6 (Hand of Bim-Shalla) + 1 (Marked) = 14, all Vampiric
I then roll 6 follow-up attacks, just 4 dice each (double-strike and 5 Furies) = 24 dice (5 attacks +2 piercing)
So that's 38 dice, which is a 1-attack mage kill death - but the set-up is ridiculous!
Battle Fury being part of the same attack sequence has now obsoleted the errata

Let's look at Earth Wizard
With 1 Iron Golem (13), 1 Huginn (11) and 3 Battle Furies (15), 1 Golem deals 24 dice of damage
With 1 Iron Golem (13) and 4 Battle Furies (20), the Golem deals 36 dice of damage over 2 turns
But this is attacking with a Slow creature on an enemy mage who just won't move away (set-up)

Alternatively, that Earth Wizard could spend 32 mana to deal 28 dice at safe range 2 via 4 Hurl Boulders
Add Wizard's Tower re-using Hurl Boulder and it is clearly the easier option to Battle Furies on a Golem
Especially when you add in the Slam benefits

And a Fire Wizard or Warlock with Fireshaper Ring can spend 32 mana to deal 28 dice via 4 Fireballs
And there you have 0-2 burn from each of the 4 attacks dealing the missing damage

Does anyone see anything so wrong about spending 5 mana for a maximum 6 extra dice?
When you have to summon the attack-delivering creature and maneouvre it so it's possible
Battle Fury in multiples (not cast via QuickCast) is highly telegraphed that it's also unlikely!


TEMPLE OF LIGHT + HAND OF BIM-SHALLA

Now for Temple of Light powered by multiple cheap but also fragile zone exclusive Hand of Bim-Shallas

I was never a fan of the inelegant Temple of Light errata (I'd proposed just make it Epic).
But leaving Temple of Light as was (with Hand of Bim-Shalla not Unique) is plain broken.

The Priestess/Priest Aggro Staff and Temple build was so reliable at stun-locking, it removed fun.
Especially with a (single) Battle Fury to double-use the daze/stun chances on the Staff of Asrya
As each 5 mana spent on a Hand of Bim-Shalla meant both +1 Melee and +1 Temple die & effect

Temple of Light now has more toolbox usefulness with Necromancer around, cheap at just 2 spell points?
You also have to consider "future Temples" like the promo card Temple of Peace which synergises so well
(Let's not discuss Altar of the Iron Guard which is a Legendary coin-flip game advantage in current form!)

Any rule change solution to permanently solve the ready marker abuse issue were scuppered by Flowers
So we now have to discard ideas like "Each Reset, you flip just 1 used ready marker on your conjurations"

The bottom line is you have to compare Temple of Light with Wizard's Tower, the dominant Wizard's toy
The latter is cheaper (considering Temple support), not zone exclusive, has so much spell versatility etc.
It just seems so unfair that they shafted Holy while at the same time giving Arcane the superior version!


MY PROPOSAL

1. Battle Fury's errata is rescinded. People can read the card exactly as it is written. The FAQ covers abuse.

2. Hand of Bim-Shalla remains Unique, a simple errata. It also explains why the Core Set only has 1 copy.

3. Temple of Light reverts to original text but range now just 0-1, its function is to freely defend Temples!

I hate the fact my cards are "wrong" (Tanglevine and Mokhtari are simple errata).
I would prefer simple erratas like "they forgot Unique" or "range should read 0-1".
Currently, we have an unsatisfactory state of affairs and lessons should be learnt.
Holy is not in the same class as Arcane, Nature or Dark, yet has a Core Set mage.
Range 1 free-to-use Temple of Light is just a defensive piece in line with Priestess.
Just as Wizard's Tower and Galvitar are totemic, Temple of Light should be similar.


It would be great to hear other views on this topic?

[baronzaltor]

I still run Temple of Light. 

Even with just itself and a Hand of Bim Shalla its 2 mana for an extra long range 2 or 4 damage ranged attack (4 if undead) and daze/stun chance that didn't come out of your action bank.

Its not the powerhouse it was, and its not as good as Wizard's Tower.. but it still a source of very cheap and effective extra attack actions each round.  And its typically going to take your opponent more resources or actions to destroy it than you spent to play it.

[jacksmack]

I was very glad they decided to do something about HoB and ToL comboed with Battle Fury.

But I would have prefered they had changed HoB to into unique (like they did) and nothing else.. That would have fixed all my problems.

[Mrmt]

As someone who has no interest in tournament play, and is relatively new to this game, can I assume the game works fine if I simply change the hand to unique? That would certainly make life easier, especially as I only have one anyway.

[baronzaltor]

As someone who has no interest in tournament play, and is relatively new to this game, can I assume the game works fine if I simply change the hand to unique? That would certainly make life easier, especially as I only have one anyway.

Hand of Bim Shalla was officially made Unique on its errata. 

[DeckBuilder]

As someone who has no interest in tournament play, and is relatively new to this game, can I assume the game works fine if I simply change the hand to unique? That would certainly make life easier, especially as I only have one anyway.

With Core 1 set, just play cards as they are written, the game works fine with 1 Core Set
Just appreciate that if you see any enemy Temples, you need to aggressively destroy them
Else Temple of Light will appear and also attack and cost you a lot of resources to remove