Good review LoW, overall solid points and explanations. The layout was nice, I dig the card sliders
. I feel like the end was a bit too opinionated for my taste, but sharing your opinions is half, or more, of the reason why reviews exist so it makes sense.
The biggest thing for me is that the review sounds like it was written by someone who at least SEEMS to understand/actually plays mage wars, where in contrast, while they're popular, Tom Vasel, Joel Eddy, etc, don't sound like they have a good fundamental understanding of the game when they talk about it, and it really detracts from their review. Not the case here.
Just to hit on a few of the new cards...
I'm trying really hard to like Harshforge Monolith, but for some reason I'm having a logic block on it. I know it's going to be really good (and I'm going to use it), it can easily pay for itself in 2 turns with even a moderate quantity of enchants, but the problem I have is that upkeep +1 might not be that big of a deal, unless there's a HUGE amount of enchants out. I'm sure it'll be great anyway.
I think Conquer is the best card the Warlord is getting in this set. Battleforge and Wizard Tower are both really strong (like you mentioned) and relatively hard to deal with, and having the ability to effectively dissolve them is really strong. I also like the fact that this card will likely force more players to play more creatures, which will make Vet stronger, so this card is not only a direct buff to War Mages but an Indirect buff to Bloodwave and pretty meta changing I think.
Blood demon is awesome but I think he's going to be more situational than DPS's. Flying is obviously pretty annoying to deal with (outside of having access to certain counters) but I think the piercing +2 of the DPS is what really makes blood reaper versions of them hit so hard, whereas blood demons, while rolling the same dice essentially (1+2+3=4+2) will have more trouble with armor.
I think players should pay more attention to Infernian Scourger. Sure, there isn't much on the card, but I bet that with that counterstrike they're going to be really annoying to take down
. I bet they see lots of play.
Oh and last thing is concerning your teleport/dispel section. There's really nothing to be done about the Warlord, or any (non wizard) mage really, paying more for dispel but hopefully this set puts lets emphasis on the absolute need for multiple copies in a book. But more importantly, I think this expansion will do more than you let on to deal with teleport. Between rolling fog, the new, easily included, earth wall, and fumble, I feel like there's a lot of good ways to deal with knowing you might get teleported. I wish rolling fog wasn't 4 points for every mage except possibly the wizard, which is ironic considering I doubt any wizard would ever use it, lol.
But more to the point, I think by the time your opponent is in a situation where teleporting you into a big creature is worthwhile, it will be pretty easy to rolling fog in the first QC step, or drop a wall if you're mana starved, or fumble his big creature. Hell, if you're REALLY mana starved you can drop Brace Yourself and be pretty okay even against multiple big attacks for only 2 mana. Between obscured, the new low cost wall, fumble, and the even lower cost brace yourself, I think the dominance of teleport might not be so strong after this expansion.
That's all just my 2 cents though. I agree with pretty much every card explanation, well thought out, and again props on the layout.
