Earth Elemental

[Donovan]

I was playing against an Air Wizard.

To my surprise he pulls out an [mwcard=FWC02]Earth Elemental[/mwcard] in the first turn. I was a Warlord, so I had armour and an outpost prepared.

How to deal with that?

While trying to create damage, 2 turns later he plays a second one.

I started to move around, but lost full actions because of that. I felt it took the Wizard 2 turns to spawn one, but it would take me longer to get rid of one.

Then comes a third and a fourth...

Ignoring them is OK as long as there is just one, but when there are 3 or 4... each rolling 7 dice and having 35 life...

Obviously when you know this, you can design a spell book to counter it. But how to react with an all round book for a Warlord with War and Earth spells? Remember that Arcane spells cost 3x for him. Of course I could do the same trick myself, but where is the fun in that? Additionally the Wizard can pull out one in he first turn - the Warlord cannot.

[Kelanen]

Summon a creature or two, then just keep moving - they have no Quick Attack.

Earth Elementals are generally considered weak - just keep moving and use Hurl Rock/Boulder from your wand (all at -1 cost) .

[Halewijn]

agreed, movement is key.
How did he manage to summon 4? That's 60 mana! It sounds like you gave him the time to summon 4.

Something really cool I thought about today: Lesser teleport will make slow creatures stronger. A warlord could now summon earth elementals and support them with arcane ward and lesser teleport. 

I am also incredibly happy that lesser teleport does NOT work on enemies. In other words, force push is still worth it and unmovable creatures are still worth it.

Lesser teleport is an amazingly nicely designed card!

[Coshade]

Earth Elemental is amazing against conjurations. They can secure and zone out areas of the map very effectively. That being said you either ignore it or just throw tons of dice at it. Since it has no armor you can really kill it by focus firing. Don't be afraid if they guard since they have no quick attack counterstrike.

If they keep pulling them out, you should be hitting a timing where you also have tons of mana on the arena for damage.

#hale - Lesser Teleport rocks! I've used it on Grogon and Earth Elemental to some success to far

*edited to fix Grogon

[Halewijn]

Grogan?

[Coshade]

Err GorgOn Archer. Typed really quickly there

[Kaarin]

Something really cool I thought about today: Lesser teleport will make slow creatures stronger. A warlord could now summon earth elementals and support them with arcane ward and lesser teleport. 

Arcane Ward also works against its controller spells so You would have to choose either lesser teleport or the ward

[Halewijn]

I know, but with some careful planning you can do a lot.  i just meant that warlords can finally give their army some arcane support.

[Donovan]

Earth Elemental is amazing against conjurations. They can secure and zone out areas of the map very effectively. That being said you either ignore it or just throw tons of dice at it. Since it has no armor you can really kill it by focus firing. Don't be afraid if they guard since they have no quick attack counterstrike.

If they keep pulling them out, you should be hitting a timing where you also have tons of mana on the arena for damage.

#hale - Lesser Teleport rocks! I've used it on Grogon and Earth Elemental to some success to far

*edited to fix Grogon

So the question here is: An Earth Elemental has 35 life. So to win the race you need to:

a) kill it in 2 rounds (round 2 and 3)
b) save some mana while doing that

How can I do 18 dmg per round in 2 rounds while still maintaining b)?

If I ignore them, he'll soon have 3 and 4 (yes that is an enormous amount of spell points, but he did that).

And ignoring 4 of them is impossible.

If I hurl 5 average boulders at him (35 dmg), I spent 40 mana and 3 turns on a creature that cost 20 mana.
If I ignore him, there will be 2 by round 3, 3 by round 5 and 4 by round 7. You hardly ignore 2 of them and 3 or 4 is impossible.

My problem is that ignoring leads to a wipe out of my Warlord conjurations. And not ignoring them cost more mana and more rounds than the other mage needs to re-stock.

Other creatures with high dmg output are often Epic or Legendary - the Earth Elemental is not.

So imagine you just played:

ROUND 1
-----------
WARLORD
6 mana - Deflection Bracers
12 mana - Barracks

WIZARD
20 mana - Earth Elemental

ROUND 2
-----------
WIZARD: moves Earth Elemental towards you 1 zone
WARLORD:
WIZARD: passes

ROUND 3
-----------
WARLORD:
WIZARD: moves Earth Elemental towards you 1 zone
WARLORD:
WIZARD: 20 mana - 2nd Earth Elemental

I don't see how to get out of this in a winning position?

The only way out I see is to put 4 of them in my own Warlord spellbook?

[Brian VanAlstyne]

Fliers, walls, archers watchtower

[Halewijn]

I have to say, mad respect for your opponent. Pretty awesome what he did.

Flyers indeed help, but you were a warlord, so you probably didn't have that. I don't think I would start to attack all 4 of them. Maybe 1. [mwcard=FWC10]Ludwig Boltstorm[/mwcard], [mwcard=FWC14]Sir Corazin, Blademaster[/mwcard], and [mwcard=FWC07]Grimson Deadeye, Sniper[/mwcard] would probably help. Goblin grunts can also deal decent damage. They can hit with 3 dice and if they manage to pull of another attack they have been gold for their manacost. If you add [mwcard=MW1E21]Hawkeye[/mwcard] on your warlord, you can deal 6 dice of damage for 4 mana with [mwcard=MWSTX2FFA02]Hurl Rock[/mwcard] and 5 more with the [mwcard=MW1Q13]Ivarium Longbow[/mwcard].

[Coshade]

Keep in mind you can guard and have creatures with defense make that big attack miss. As it's brutal to get hit by that big dice attack, it is equally as brutal to not have that hit to your opponent.

Or just sacrifice a guarding Goblin Grunt while you wreck the Elemental's face.

[Donovan]

The problem is, all these ideas work somehow, but you will need more turns to get rid of 1 Earth Elemental than the opponent spawns them.

Also, your small creatures are faster destroyed than the opponent Earth Elemental, so you already lost fire power, while the opponent still has his 7 dice.

I think the Warlord suffers more from this than other mages, because:

- The Warlord pays 3x for Arcane spells, which would be good to buff himself or diminish the power of the Earth Elemental.
- The Warlord relies on conjurations, which are a sitting duck for the Earth Elemental.
- The Warlord typically has not a lot of flying creatures and typically doesn't have a lot of enchantment to cause flying.

I think the only option really is to have 4 Earth Elementals in your own deck, although the Warlord can only spawn his first Earth Elemental in round 2 and the 2nd in round 4. And the Warlord is kind of forced to pass in the first round when he has the initiative, because when he plays conjurations, he cannot spawn his 1st Earth Elemental until round 4 and his conjurations (and mana) are likely gone.

Personally I think the Earth Elemental should be Epic or at least Unique.

[Puddnhead]

The problem is, all these ideas work somehow, but you will need more turns to get rid of 1 Earth Elemental than the opponent spawns them.

Also, your small creatures are faster destroyed than the opponent Earth Elemental, so you already lost fire power, while the opponent still has his 7 dice.

I think the Warlord suffers more from this than other mages, because:

- The Warlord pays 3x for Arcane spells, which would be good to buff himself or diminish the power of the Earth Elemental.
- The Warlord relies on conjurations, which are a sitting duck for the Earth Elemental.
- The Warlord typically has not a lot of flying creatures and typically doesn't have a lot of enchantment to cause flying.

I think the only option really is to have 4 Earth Elementals in your own deck, although the Warlord can only spawn his first Earth Elemental in round 2 and the 2nd in round 4. And the Warlord is kind of forced to pass in the first round when he has the initiative, because when he plays conjurations, he cannot spawn his 1st Earth Elemental until round 4 and his conjurations (and mana) are likely gone.

Personally I think the Earth Elemental should be Epic or at least Unique.

I really think you're over reacting.  There are a lot of good suggestions here.  Remember that each elemental only gets one attack a turn so, yes, he can kill something, but if even one of those attacks doesn't one shot something you come out ahead because the wizard is casting one every two turns and doing nothing else which in my opinion is a huge blunder.  If he spends time killing your conjurations you win because he's not killing the stuff that's killing his creatures.

Even with your proposed opening of Barracks and Deflection bracers you can guard your creatures from the 7 dice attack.  The warlord has the HP to take a couple of hits to ensure that his creatures survive.  Your wizard friend is wasting a massive number of actions to get those elementals out.  You should be able to out action him very quickly and then pick and choose when and how you engage with the elementals so that you come out ahead.

[Halewijn]

I love how you are the first guy ever to talk about the earth elemental as if he is overpowered. Every other time, people consider him weak.

Instead of killing the elementals, destract it with guards and other stuff, while you focus your fire on the opponent.

I find the iron golem much better. 6 dice, only 13 mana, psychic immunity, also unmovable.