Errata the Necromancer.

[silverclawgrizzly]

This is a long shot but after giving it lots of thought I'd like a simple errata to the Necromancer as is.

The Necromancer is the poison master. He should be trained in any card with the Poison subtype. This only adds Poison Gas Cloud to him right now I think but still. Yeah there's a Poison Gas Wall coming too I know but that's a little ways off. It just makes sense.

[iNano78]

That would be wonderful!

I've tried hard to build a Necromancer around Poison Gas Cloud but find it just costs too much - both for the clouds themselves (at 4 sbp each) and all the out-of-school positional control spells you'd need to pull it off (e.g. Force Push effects, Teleport, spells to restrain the enemy, like Tanglevine or Force Hold).  Giving him training in spells with the "poison" subtype would go a long way to making a poison-based Necromancer easier to build, if not competitively viable.

Related discussions:
http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=15551.0
http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=15281.0

*edit* That said, Plagued will definitely be a welcome addition to most Necromancer books, especially those with a poison DoT theme.

[DaveW]

When Plagued comes out, the Necromancer is going to become my #1 tournament mage. Add a cheaper (in terms of spellbook points) Poison Gas Cloud and other similar spells and (in my opinion, of course) the only tough battle he will face is against another Necromancer....

[iNano78]

Maybe Plagued and Astral Anchor are enough to tip a poison Necromancer to the "strong" side. 

Before, I was trying to build around Poison Gas Cloud and other DoT effects but still felt I needed to have a swarm of undead critters to keep me safe, and I couldn't seem to afford both.  But if you based your Necromancer around Malacoda yelling "come to daddy!" with Astral Anchor and Eagleclaw Boots keeping your Necromancer and Malacoda stationary (for the most part), most melee creatures and mages are going to have trouble dealing with stacked DoT from Malacoda, Idol of Pestilence, Plagued, Ghoul Rot, Magebane, Chains of Agony, Poison Gas Cloud and your Necromancer's Plague Master ability triggered by something that deals tokens with the poison attribute - which could be anything from Drain Soul to Venomous/Plague Zombie to Grey Wraith to Ichthellid Larva.  Then you just have to worry about other Necromancers (!) and mages/creatures that can kill you from afar (e.g. Wizards, Adramelech Warlock, Johktari Beastmaster, Druid, maybe Warlords and Priest(esse)s that make heavy use of archers/snipers).

[Nealo]

I'm curious why Plagued will make such a difference for Necromancer. Is it just because it's one more DoT curse the necromancer can add to a Mage? Am I right in assuming that the poison damage from Plagued does not trigger the "pay one mans to deal 1 direct poison damage" ability (since it's only poison condition markers)?

[JasonBourneZombie]

You are correct. It has to be a condition marker.

[Nealo]

I can see why this would be a big boost for the Necro. I have played a curse necro recently and Mage Bane and Ghoul Rot are really the workhorses of the deck. Having one more pesky DoT spell plus a wardstone or two is pretty hard to deal with and the mana sink required to deal with all of it is very stifling. Harshforge Plate would be a good answer, but for a lot of mages this will be very hard to deal with. If it becomes common in the meta Purge Magic will probably have to go into more spellbooks.