Queen of the Hunt(Johktari)

[FrostByte]

Whats up guys.   Been out of the mage wars scene for a spell(I'll see myself out).   Anyway I've been trying to work on a Johktari Beastmaster book and so far this is what i've come up with.   I'm looking for any info/tip/help that can be provided as i don't know the current state of the game.

[spellbook]
[spellbookheader]
[spellbookname][/spellbookname]
[mage]Johktari Beastmaster[/mage]
[/spellbookheader]
[spells]
[spellclass]Attack[/spellclass]
[mwcard=FWA04]2 x  Hurl Boulder[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKA01]2 x  Surging Wave[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Conjuration[/spellclass]
[mwcard=mw1j13]2 x  Mana Flower[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1j22]3 x  Tanglevine[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNW01]2 x  Bloodspine Wall[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1j10]1 x  Lair[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1w04]2 x  Wall of Thorns[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Creature[/spellclass]
[mwcard=mw1c07]1 x  Cervere, The Forest Shadow[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1c34]1 x  Steelclaw Grizzly[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1c37]4 x  Thunderift Falcon[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNC16]3 x  Spitting Raptor[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1c04]3 x  Bitterwood Fox[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1c38]3 x  Timber Wolf[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Enchantment[/spellclass]
[mwcard=mw1e01]2 x  Bear Strength[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1e03]1 x  Bull Endurance[/mwcard]
[mwcard=FWE03]1 x  Falcon Precision[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1e21]2 x  Hawkeye[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1e02]1 x  Block[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1e29]2 x  Nullify[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1e20]1 x  Harmonize[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1e36]2 x  Rhino Hide[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1e28]2 x  Mongoose Agility[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Equipment[/spellclass]
[mwcard=mw1q23]1 x  Regrowth Belt[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q07]1 x  Elemental Cloak[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q02]1 x  Bearskin[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q13]2 x  Ivarium Longbow[/mwcard]
[spellclass]Incantation[/spellclass]
[mwcard=mw1i06]3 x  Dispel[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1i24]1 x  Seeking Dispel[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1i28]2 x  Teleport[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1i07]3 x  Dissolve[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1i23]3 x  Rouse the Beast[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1i17]2 x  Minor Heal[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1i12]2 x  Force Push[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1i03]2 x  Call of the Wild[/mwcard]
[/spells]
[cost]Total cost: 120 pts[/cost]
[/spellbook]

[Halewijn]

Can you post an opening? what is your main strategy?

[Laddinfance]

Missed having you around FrostBite.

[FrostByte]

I'm leaning towards lair/harmonize turn 1 and Mana Flower/ring of beasts turn 2.  It's been atleast over a year since i last played and didn't have too much experience before.  However the game is making a comeback in my LGS and i'd like to be able to compete.

[FrostByte]

Missed having you around FrostBite.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you remember me.

[Laddinfance]

How could I forget someone with Ice Man as his icon? Also, I thought at one point you used the awesome pun "byte", in your name. Which works on many levels

[Halewijn]

you're 1 mana short to do that. And personally I don't think a lair and a ring of beasts combine well. If you plan on summoning the creatures from a lair then the ring is pretty useless. You should at least plan to cast 4-5 creatures with the ring before he is worth it. your mana flowers are better. Harmonize on the lair is a good move, but don't forget it makes it even more a target to kill, it can backfire.

Other thoughts about the deck.

8 mana for a hurl boulder is a lot for her. I would change 1 for a hurl rock or 2.

3 teleports seem a bit much. Maybe change 1 for 2 force pushes? (personal taste)

I used a deck with only bloodspine walls in it to shoot at the enemy, but they can also shoot at you. When battling a very aggressive fireball warlock it's lovely to have a real wall. maybe a wall of earth or a wall of bones.

3 mana flowers + harmonize (+ring of beasts) are a lot of economy cards. Although there are some wizard builds (Keejchen's) that can really pull it of, so who knows... 

Brace yourself. enough said.

[RomeoXero]

Hi there! Glad to see you've picked up mage wars again! As to your book I really like it, but I've got a few questions and the answers to them may help you out (at least I hope so! Lol).

1. You've got 4 mana generators, and if you don't get them out early they really drag on the tempo. I think you can probably pare that down to 2 and still be safe, esp if you are running harmonized lair. Just wondering if you think you will have the time to set all of them up, also wondering why you feel you need to channel 12 + 3 (lair I'm assuming) when you want (it seems) to be shooting stuff with your bow.

2. Hail of stones. I've never been able to make this spell work for me. It might be tough to field as well if you are trying to run a swarm (4 foxes, 4 falcon) as your smaller creatures Could get in the way. You also ( aside from this surging wave which won't help against flying stuff like Fellela) haven't got any unavoidable attacks. I might free up 4 points and replace one or both of these with something else, an arc lightning or even another boulder or lightning bolt ( for stun) maybe. Either way that's just a thought.

3. Teleport. I understand that the older meta had teleport as the most important spell ever, but with astral anchor, and the proliferation of jinx and nullify in the current meta, unless you've got a crazy good reason id probably pull at least one. If it's for mobility than I'd replace one with 2 force push instead. Cheap enough to reposition yourself for a bow strike, and you get 2 for the price of one teleport! Also you are packing some blood spine walls but you've got no way to force folks through them. Those pushes will do double duty! Lol

4. Armor. I'm usually a proponent of a 4 Armor stack, anything beyond is situational, but you appear to only have 3. Not that that's bad but one dissolve or orchid and you are practically defenseless. I might consider and a rhino hide or two. Even if you don't use it on yourself ( though you should lol) I've found that Cervere survives so much longer with one! Barring that maybe a backup for your bear skin.

5. Block. I don't really like this spell. Yeah it's useful sometimes but I find its usually wasted on a small attack and only really gets use mid game and hidden in a decent stack of face downs. I only see 3 enchants that will likely go on the mage ( Hawkeye, nullify, and block) and Hawkeye will be face up.

Aside from all that I think it's very interesting. Most folks completely ignore the bow with this mage as her fast trait really doesn't help it much. So I'm curious to see how it works out for you! Keep us posted, and I certainly hope I was of some help!

[FrostByte]

How could I forget someone with Ice Man as his icon? Also, I thought at one point you used the awesome pun "byte", in your name. Which works on many levels

Fixed.  I don't remember when i changed it or for what reason.


Halewjin,

I may have changed the post after you looked at from Bow to Mana flower but i do see some of the things you mentioned.   I thought RoB would help trim down the cost of some of the bigger creatures but it may just cost me an action.  I will look it over again and rework it.   I should be able to get a game in tonight as well and test some of these things.  The players are still noobies so I'll have to keep that in mind with the results.

[FrostByte]

Ok Made some changes to the above

-1 block
-1 mana flower
-1 teleport
-1 Ring of Beasts

+2 force Push
+2 wall of thorns
+2 rhino hide

[Halewijn]

5. Block. I don't really like this spell. Yeah it's useful sometimes but I find its usually wasted on a small attack and only really gets use mid game and hidden in a decent stack of face downs. I only see 3 enchants that will likely go on the mage ( Hawkeye, nullify, and block) and Hawkeye will be face up.

Block is pretty good in the current meta since most people think it slows down their game. I've stopped many fireballs/hurl boulders with it.

Although I would only use it for rangers were you keep your distance. (this deck) When melee battling the block will be wasted on something small.

[sdougla2]

1) Remove some other creatures and find room for at least 3 Timber Wolves. They are quite tough for their cost, they work really well with Wounded Prey, they have no egregiously bad matchups (zombies and Iron Golems aren't great matchups, but they're a lot better than Dire Wolves or Emerald Tegu in those matchups), and they're about as expensive as you can play regularly out of a Lair without disrupting your ability to take other actions if you don't have time to significantly increase your channeling.

2) Pull Cheetah Speed for Mongoose Agility. You're already fast and run some fast creatures. Additional ways to get fast aren't as valuable as the ability to get away from your opponent's creatures in a single action. Being able to ignore hindering is huge. I always want to run at least 2 Mongoose Agility with the Johktari Beastmaster.

3) Take out the Hail of Stones. You already have a big investment you want to make with your full actions (bow), and when you're not doing that, you generally want to be repositioning. I much prefer taking range 0-2 attack spells on the Johktari Beastmaster. With Academy you can opt for Kajarah, in which case it makes sense to use more range 0-1 attack spells, but when I'm playing a Johktari Beastmaster centered around a bow, I like to maintain range 2 as much as possible.

[FrostByte]

Played against a Zombie Necromancer tonight with this book.  The player is relatively new to mage war but is known good player(min/maxer) in other card games/miniatures games.  I won pretty handily because i was able to get the pressure on early and manage to keep it there. 

I will be pulling the cheetah speeds out.  And i did not realize when i put Hail of stones in that it was a full action. I had debated the Timber wolves and i will see if i can make some moves to try them out.

[wtcannonjr]

Some other ideas for you to consider.

1. Add 2-3 Call of the Wild.

2. Add Animal Kinship to reduce actions needed to get mage Elusive, Armor +1, Melee +1, etc.

3. Consider Giant Wolf Spider. Works well with Tanglevine and the added ability to Stuck a creature works nicely with the Wounded Prey ability.

[FrostByte]

wtcannonjr -  I don't see Animal kinship being useful for this deck as most of the creature that will be out will be canine and the melee+1 isnt going to help my mage poking from a distance.  I did add 2 call of the wilds though.

Here is the changelog of the book currently and i will update the OP. After one game i feel pretty confident i can make this book work but it will be a true test when i play a really good player.

Changelog -

-2 Hail of Stones
-2 Cheetah Speed

+2 Mongoose Agility
+3 Timber Wolves
+2 Call of the Wild