Wizards without Wizard's tower?

[Sailor Vulcan]

It seems to be the general consensus that the vast majority of good wizard spellbooks need wizard's tower to be competitive. How much success have people had in making competitive wizard spellbooks without wizard's tower? And of the attempts that weren't so competitive, how viable were they?

So far I've only come up with two wizard spellbook lists that don't include wizard's tower. At least one of them is unexpectedly rather viable, but unfortunately not that competitive. The other one I'm not as sure about.

[BoomFrog]

I don't understand your distinction between competitive and viable. To me a viable book is one that has a decent chance to beat the best books and the game will be decided by player skill and dice. It must have the tools to counter popular known strategies.

[ringkichard]

The only time I wouldn't want Wizard's Tower is if I'm not including hardly any attack spells. Fire Wizards are right out, as are Earth and Air. Maybe a Water Wizard wouldn't want the Tower if the book was stocked with mana denial instead of attack spells?

Still though, Wizard's Tower + Acid Ball is a hell of a combo, and with Wizard's tower so cheep, I don't see why you wouldn't include it just for that.

[Biblofilter]

I dont think i can make better Wizard Spellbooks without Wizards Tower.

With Wizards Towers i can include a "toolbox" of different attack spells, so im better prepared for "any odd situation" there might come up.

I don´t really run Wizards Tower to nuke people to death, its the flexibility and the ready marker, thats so atractive. Heres a list of some spells i would like to have unlimited access to:

5 Acid Ball (armor removal) r 0-2
5 Arc Lightning (daze/stun+etheral & unavoidable) r 0-1
5 Flameblast (unavoidable) r 0-1
9 Force Hammer (slam, etheral, conjurations) r 0-2
4 Geyser (daze, unavoidable, antiburn) r 0-1
4 Jet Stream (push, etheral, flyers) r 0-2
5 Surging Wave (slam+push, extinguish, unavoidable) r 0-2 nonflyers
6 Windstorm (push, sweeping, unavoidable, flyers, etheral) r 0-1

Relying to much on Wizard Tower is a danger, as you could end up without attack spells, because your Wizard Tower got smashed with your last copy of an important attack spell or because Wizard Tower is out of range of your desired target(s) Thats especially true for the range 1 spells on my list.

I think you could make a Blasting Banker without Wizards Towers and still do quite well, several copies of Fireballs/Acid Ball and leave home without all of the utillity spells.