The Philosophy of Fire (Discussion and Example Spellbook)

[Zuberi]

The scimitar is autonomous. In the rules for autonomous it explains how it functions independently from the creature. It does not trigger counterattacks or damage barriers, because it has no life to be damaged, and does not remove guard tokens (though it still must obey the targeting rules for guards).

[baronzaltor]

First, I'd like to point out that dancing scimitar does not take away a guard's token when it attacks.

However if you are keeping your opponent at 0 armor an extremely efficient maneuver is to cast wall of thorns and push them through it.  It separates them from their guards, it cost 11 mana and does 10 dice of damage, and if you are not next to the wall yourself then a reverse magic has no significant effect.

I almost shouldn't post this since I'm one of your main opponents. :p

Interesting.  I thought Scimitar counted as an attack from your Mage, and as such would draw a counterattack.

Wall of Thorns + Push doesn't become efficient until the 2nd push.  Otherwise it's worse than Fireball or Fireblast.  However, it does get very efficient from the 2nd push...  And they can run away from the wall.  It's interesting, but I think you need to be set up in just the right timing position to exploit it.  Still... good thought.

^^

Push them through the wall with Jet Stream instead.  2 more dice of damage, 2 less mana. (since Jet Stream has no extra mana cost for walls).  It makes the combo more stylish.

You are then trading cost for having to use the Effect Die, but Jet Stream is reliable enough that I use it as my "push alternative" in quite a few books.

[Wildhorn]

First, I'd like to point out that dancing scimitar does not take away a guard's token when it attacks.

However if you are keeping your opponent at 0 armor an extremely efficient maneuver is to cast wall of thorns and push them through it.  It separates them from their guards, it cost 11 mana and does 10 dice of damage, and if you are not next to the wall yourself then a reverse magic has no significant effect.

I almost shouldn't post this since I'm one of your main opponents. :p

Interesting.  I thought Scimitar counted as an attack from your Mage, and as such would draw a counterattack.

Wall of Thorns + Push doesn't become efficient until the 2nd push.  Otherwise it's worse than Fireball or Fireblast.  However, it does get very efficient from the 2nd push...  And they can run away from the wall.  It's interesting, but I think you need to be set up in just the right timing position to exploit it.  Still... good thought.

^^

But it has an extra effect... It create a 2 zones wide dead-zone where yout opponent wont go.

[ACG]

Wall of Thorns + Push doesn't become efficient until the 2nd push.  Otherwise it's worse than Fireball or Fireblast.  However, it does get very efficient from the 2nd push...  And they can run away from the wall.  It's interesting, but I think you need to be set up in just the right timing position to exploit it.  Still... good thought.

^^

But it has an extra effect... It create a 2 zones wide dead-zone where yout opponent wont go.

Of course, you also probably don't want to go there (most mages have some sort of push spell), so that is a bit of a wash, unless you have other ways to exploit this.

[webcatcher]

I think most mages who plan to use the push + wall strategy will also be packing eagleclaw boots