Coshade dukes it out with Lord0fWinter

[ArcaneDuels]

While Coshade was out at DragonCon, he decided to meet up with Lord0fWinter and do a special Arena match on the channel for it. Check it out, they both have some pretty wild strategies.
— Episodes —

• Part 1 | https://youtu.be/xoTS1G46YM4
• Part 2 | https://youtu.be/wnQT_AQ173k
• Part 3 | http://youtu.be/4CxaWa3lTwY
• Part 4 | https://youtu.be/IiSmxv6KRRk

— Players —

• Coshade | Malakai Priest
• Lord0fWinter | Wychwood Druid

— About The Match —

• Mode: Arena 1 VS 1
• Board: Mage Wars Standard

Coshade shot this away from our recording space, so the quality isn't as up to snuff (especially the intro/outro that had to be recorded after DragonCon). Hopefully that doesn't stop people from enjoying the series! 

[Boocheck]

I will wait for the other two to be released. I hate cliffhangers

So far, great arcane duel

[Sailor Vulcan]

Very interesting so far!

Quick question. Why'd LoW choose Druid for his build? He could use basically the same strategy but better with straywood beast master, using only one wolf (and petting it too) along with fellela and transfusing enchantments to the Mage rather than another wolf when the wolf dies. He'd get a lot more dice in that way, and his opening wouldn't be  so slow. He doesn't need the tree on because the beastmaster has regrowth belt, and he can deal with deathlock and poisoned blood easily enough with force hammers or purify, not to mention the battering ram promo. And the extra life from the tree bond isn't necessary because the straywood beastmaster already starts with 36 life.

As for your priest build coshade, do you have reinforce in it? Holy Avenger only works as a deterrent to melee attacks against your temple, not ranged. Additionally the Malakai priest wants to be melee attacking the enemy. If the enemy rushes him he wants to stay back, but if the enemy turtles he wants to rush. The priest's abilities and training mean he is meant to recklessly start attacking the enemy Mage with light attacks, landing dazes to make it harder to hit him back, and burns to do a little extra damage. The holy avenger is meant to either deter enemies from attacking the priest and his stuff, or to punish them severely if they try.

After watching this. I realize that people underestimate how efficient healing spells are. Regrowth and regrowth belt each cost one quick action and each heals 2 a round. A regular heal spell costs 9 and heals anywhere between 0 and 16 one time.

They might spend 5 rounds to get you to almost dead, and one heal can potentially cut all that damage in half, whereas a regrowth belt won't do that.

Minor heal costs 5 mana and does 5 dice of healing. Compare that to a flame blast, which costs the same amount but deals 4 dice of damage plus the effect die. Seems like it's just as efficient right? No quite! Aside from the burn conditions, flameblast can't ignore armor. On the other hand, healing is always entirely direct. It ignores armor. Furthermore each heal only costs one quick action. Generally speaking it usually takes at least 2 quickspells to do 8 dice of damage (or one full spell). With that in mind, one quick action and 9 mana for 8 dice of healing using the regular heal spell is amazingly efficient.

With this temple build, you spend a quick action on a mana crystal that you wouldn't need with the priestess, and the only advantage that the priest's abilities have over the priestess here is that if they try to melee attack your temple you can punish them for it. But they're more likely to use attack spells instead anyway so that's kind of moot.

Great match so far! I can't wait to see more!

[Coshade]

Hey guys!
 Sailor I'll have to respond to you on Monday! You asked a lot of great interesting questions and I would love to answer them back with as much thought back at ya! Hope you guys like the videos!

[Lord0fWinter]

Quick question. Why'd LoW choose Druid for his build? He could use basically the same strategy but better with straywood beast master, using only one wolf (and petting it too) along with fellela and transfusing enchantments to the Mage rather than another wolf when the wolf dies. He'd get a lot more dice in that way, and his opening wouldn't be  so slow. He doesn't need the tree on because the beastmaster has regrowth belt, and he can deal with deathlock and poisoned blood easily enough with force hammers or purify, not to mention the battering ram promo. And the extra life from the tree bond isn't necessary because the straywood beastmaster already starts with 36 life.

I had a couple of reasons.

• The biggest one was her vine markers. They're useful both offensively and defensively, allowing me to cast Vine spells through them as well as hindering enemy movement. This would prevent them from chasing me if I have to run away, or prevent them from escaping themselves through normal movement. In this match so far, Coshade hasn't moved much and I haven't cast any Vine spells so neither of those things have applied yet.
• 2nd most important was her Treebond. It is incredibly powerful defensively, giving the Druid a pseudo "Regen 2" with the Lifebond that actually can stack on top of other regeneration. If I ever get in trouble, the plan was to cast Barkskin on myself to give me armor and basically Regen 4 each upkeep phase.
• I also wanted access to level 1 water spells. Most importantly Acid Ball, Dissolve, and Crumble, but also Geyser in case my stuff catches on fire.

Looking back, considering I was only using Timber Wolves, the BM may have been the better choice. The Pet ability would have been very helpful and I could have used Joined Strength as well for another attack die. But regardless I wanted to try this book out.

It was extremely fun to play and Coshade is always wonderful to be around!

[Halewijn]

The wolf needed 3 damage instead of 2 since the avenger has piercing +1. I really hope Coshade has a purge magic or manages to kill the wolf. If not it's probably game over for him.

[Coshade]

The wolf needed 3 damage instead of 2 since the avenger has piercing +1. I really hope Coshade has a purge magic or manages to kill the wolf. If not it's probably game over for him.

I don't have a purge magic

[Boocheck]

Will you have it now?

I remember that after one very short game i had as an old warlord, i was including mana prism in my book for like a 6 months. It was unnecessary and just psychological

[Halewijn]

In general I wouldn't include it. But lately I get the feeling people over-enchant 1 creature too much.

- holy/nature: their creatures
- Force: itself or grizzly
- warlock: Curses on the enemy mage

In the current meta I think I'm going to run it in most books. Once the meta changes again and people only use 1-2 enchantments per creature I'll take it out again.

[sdougla2]

I like the ideas of both books, but I feel like both of them could be improved with some refinement and switching mages. The Priest is able to daze with his attack, but the Priestess can cast healing spells much more efficiently, and is better at stacking armor in order to make healing spells even more efficient. Your opponent can't strip your armor off with corrodes very effectively when you can just remove them all with one action. The higher base channeling would also help with being able to summon slightly larger creatures.

Healing spells should not be an alternative to armor, they should complement armor. The stronger you are defensively, the more efficient a healing spell on you is, since it takes more work to deal that much damage to you.

The Druid could have been at least 2 rounds faster, and hit harder as a Beastmaster. Yes, the Druid has more defensive wiggle room, but you want to go on the offensive if your opponent is playing a stronger economy than you. Spamming enchantments can let you do a reasonable amount of damage, but eventually an opponent that has 5 times as many creatures as you will overwhelm you.

You spent too much on playing every conceivably useful enchantment when you could have had another creature up with similar enhancements and another backup creature in case one of those got killed instead. You put too much emphasis on that one threat at a time, which made it much easier to deal with. Your opponent was able to keep pace with you by just casting a healing spell every round, which means you weren't getting to the point of dealing enough damage, although a Poison Blood would help.

Why play Harmonize on Fellella? That just makes her a more tempting target, and it's not that more efficient than other economy options.

I like this as an opening better:

Turn 1 (19): Fellelle, Pixe Familiar -> Enchanter's Ring (5)
Turn 2 (14): Pet Timber Wolf -> FD Enchantment -> FD Enchantment (0)

The Timber Wolf gets stronger faster, you can use Joined Strength, and the option to use Vampirism + Packleader's Cowl makes it much harder for your opponent to win a direct engagement.

The way you were playing, it would have been better to put Teleport on a Mage Wand and Teleport the Timber Wolf out immediately after attacking each round. That way it wouldn't have gotten overwhelmed, and you could have tried to force your opponent to move out, where your vine markers could have come into play more meaningfully.

[Boocheck]

Or just teleported Priest out of his "safe-zone" to a "vine-snapper garden"

Boy, i need a game right now. Curse you working process

[Schwenkgott]

Harmonize on Fellella is kind of wasted, because if you skip one round of enchanting the mana will stockpile on her without the chance to ever use it.

[Boocheck]

Yeah, but her (fellalas) goal was to put each round an enchantement, which she actually does

**spoiler ahead**

When second wolf died, i was somewhat looking for a third one. Transfering them all to a druid was still ok, but i feel that her kamikaze move will not get rewarded. 4th part is still not out but i have an omnious feeling, for which player is coming winter

[Lord0fWinter]

**spoiler ahead**

When second wolf died, i was somewhat looking for a third one. Transfering them all to a druid was still ok, but i feel that her kamikaze move will not get rewarded. 4th part is still not out but i have an omnious feeling, for which player is coming winter

I believe that was my biggest mistake that match. I had prepped a Hurl Boulder and an Acid Ball in the hopes that I could kill him that round, but the Heal kinda ruined that idea. I should have instead prepped the Hurl Boulder and the last Timber Wolf in case he did Heal and prevent me from killing him that round. I knew the Wolf was going to die, I was just hoping to do enough damage to win soon after. The thing I really needed in this match was a way to prevent healing (Poisoned Blood or Deathlock), which I had neither of. I've changed the book since the match though and think I fixed a few problems it had.

Also, at some point I should have used Fellela to cast Nullify on Coshade to (maybe) prevent some healing or at least cause him to burn a spell to get rid of it.

Harmonize on Fellella is kind of wasted, because if you skip one round of enchanting the mana will stockpile on her without the chance to ever use it.

I never actually did skip a round of enchanting with her. Some of the enchantments I put on myself weren't too useful though and her action could have been spent better sometimes.

The Druid could have been at least 2 rounds faster, and hit harder as a Beastmaster. Yes, the Druid has more defensive wiggle room, but you want to go on the offensive if your opponent is playing a stronger economy than you. Spamming enchantments can let you do a reasonable amount of damage, but eventually an opponent that has 5 times as many creatures as you will overwhelm you.

You spent too much on playing every conceivably useful enchantment when you could have had another creature up with similar enhancements and another backup creature in case one of those got killed instead. You put too much emphasis on that one threat at a time, which made it much easier to deal with. Your opponent was able to keep pace with you by just casting a healing spell every round, which means you weren't getting to the point of dealing enough damage, although a Poison Blood would help.

Why play Harmonize on Fellella? That just makes her a more tempting target, and it's not that more efficient than other economy options.

I like this as an opening better:

Turn 1 (19): Fellelle, Pixe Familiar -> Enchanter's Ring (5)
Turn 2 (14): Pet Timber Wolf -> FD Enchantment -> FD Enchantment (0)

The Timber Wolf gets stronger faster, you can use Joined Strength, and the option to use Vampirism + Packleader's Cowl makes it much harder for your opponent to win a direct engagement.

The way you were playing, it would have been better to put Teleport on a Mage Wand and Teleport the Timber Wolf out immediately after attacking each round. That way it wouldn't have gotten overwhelmed, and you could have tried to force your opponent to move out, where your vine markers could have come into play more meaningfully.

Agreed with pretty much everything you said. There were a few key things I was missing that could have really helped (Vampirism and Poisoned Blood). Both probably would have been Dispelled but they still would have been important to have to get at least 1 round use out of.

After taking a closer look, I agree that it likely works better as a Beastmaster too. The Packleader's Cowl was the other big thing I forgot to mention that could have been very useful if using him instead of the Druid. The offensive advantages he has outweigh her defensive abilities.

[Boocheck]

I think that Vampiric would also alter the whole game greatly.

There was a point with corrode markers and barkskin. If you regen during upkeep first and then dont pay upkeep, you would loose those two corrodes. Then you would be able to cast barkskin again.

Stil, very nice game and i enjoy it very much. I would really like to see coshade with priest to fight another mages. I build something similar and name it Asyra Swarm but never actually play it. I cant wait to see spell list

Looking forward to next episode.