MACE 2016So I got back from the MACE 2016 Mage Wars tournament and it was so much fun! I had a lot of great games and got to meet a bunch of new people. If you have not attended MACE I highly recommend you check it out in 2017!
I played as the necromancer and ran zombies. I chose this mage and that creature type because:
1. There is really no need to buff a zombie because of their resilient trait and their inherent bloodthirsty. This saves spell book points because I don’t have to account for bear strength, rhino hide, etc.
2. The channel 10 is very nice and the built in poison immunity saves you from many cards that others most likely have that will throw your game off – poisoned blood, ghoul rot, etc. because of this I only ran 2 dispels in this book because there is not many cards that that are too threatening that can target the zombies or the necromancer.
3. Eternal Servant is an amazing concept that gives you immediate benefit without having to pay life or mana like abilities such as blood reaper, pet, holy avenger, etc. You get an inherent piercing +1 (which can be used on an archer if need be) and you can choose to then pay the mana and get the creature back when it dies – but it is not required; so if I want to use it again, I can for free.
4. I think a necromancer is just a really cool concept and I have always played one when given the chance in games such as D&D, Skyrim, Mage Wars, etc.
5. Dark mages ftw
6. Side note, plague master ability is nice but I hardly ever use it and don’t think I used it once in this tournament.
My book used for this tournament was a Zombie Necromancer
Brute-alIncantations:Knockdown x1
Force Wave x1
Teleport x1
Mend x1
Dispel x2
Seeking Dispel x2
Dissolve x3
Zombie Frenzy x1
Drain Life x1
Drain Soul x1
Equipment:Mage Wand x1
Regrowth Belt x1
Leather Boots x1
Leather Gloves x1
Leather Chausses x1
Cloak of Shadows x1
Demonhide Armor x1
Dragonscale Hauberk x1
Death Ring x1
Wispwillow Amulet x1
Conjurations:Tanglevine x2
Deathlock x1
Gravikor x1
Idol of Pestilence x1
Graveyard x1
Wall of Bones x2
Consecrated Ground x1
Creatures:Blood Demon x1
Grey Wraith x1
Venomous Zombie x1
Zombie Crawler x1
Zombie Brute x2
Zombie Minion x2
Skeletal Archer x1
Enchantments:Curse Item x1
Death Link x1
Curse of Decay x1
Chant of Rage x1
Arcane Ward x2
Nullify x2
Brace Yourself x2
Rise Again x1
Plagued x1
Theft of Life x1
Agony x1
Poisoned Blood x2
Rust x1
Attacks:Arc Lighting x1
Total SBP 120
Sorry this isn’t made with the online sbb, I’m having some issues getting the new sets updated on octgn. When I get that working, though, I will update the post with a sbb book list.
The overall strategy of my book was to
T1: 20 mana - move 1 graveyard in center and qc wispwillow amulet
T2: 14 mana – deploy crawler, move back to starting corner to cast cloak of shadows and death ring qc
T3: 11 mana – deploy venomous, cast minion
T4: 11 mana - idol of pestilence, nullify on myself
T5: deploy minon, leather, curse if able or another leather
I did this every game I played and from there I would deploy an archer to fight from a distance and keep my mage out of the way. I never ran my mage into the fight, I sat back with the cloak and if the opponent closed the distance I used a tanglevine and ran away. From then my zombies did the work for me and the attention was taken off me. I started with the crawler because I wanted to have a creature out asap and he would either eat up an attack spell or waste a creature’s action. The idol was dropped so soon so that the blood thirsty would trigger and it would also draw my opponents closer to my graveyard and then the zombies were just that much closer.
Consecrated ground was in here because I needed a terrain card with PvS being legal in the tournament. If I faced a siren I wanted to get rid of the shallow sea/whirlpool. If I faced a holy mage I wanted to get rid of the consecrated ground.
Knockdown is a swing card – knock down a flyer to tanglevine it, knockdown a guard to get an attack in. It can help get that extra damage in when it seems there is no way too.
2 seeking dispels is an auto include now in almost all of my books now, except warlord. If an opponent is planning their next turn or even 2-3 turns around this one card and you ruin their plan with a quick cast and proceed to do everything you wanted…heck yeah!
Walls, walls, walls…2 is good but 3 would be amazing! These cards saved me so many times. When an opponent would get close and I was out of tanglevines I would throw up a wall. Then I would use the grey wraith to teleport though the wall and get a hit on my opponent. A wall can save your skin in a crucial moment.
I only ran agony and arc lighting to deal with a forcemaster if I ran into one. I never cast agony and I only cast arc lightning twice the whole tournament. There are both nice cards but are only used on an as needed basis.
Mend is a very useful spell and is only 1 sbp for the necromancer – well for anyone but that is really nice for a dark mage
If I ever had a free action/qc and only 2 -3 mana to spend I always dropped nullify on myself. This was to prevent a dissolve on the cloak or teleport that would drop me into a death pit of enemy creatures.
Match reports:
There was so much more that happened in these matches but this is a condensed version of the matches I was in. There were 12 players total so many more epic games were played. Here are the ones I took part in:
The preliminary matches:1. Ki – priestess – armor build with angels
First match of the tournament was against a priestess, bane of the necro. She focused mostly on turtling with armor and doing a buddy build with a grey angel. She then threw out Valshalla. The grey angel died during upkeep from the idol of pestilence so Valshalla did not get a wrath token. I then proceeded to place gravikor so that I could hit valshalla and any other flyers to come out next. She put most of her attention on gravikor, sending a highland unicorn after it as well. Once her forces were focused on that, I dropped a deathlock and swarmed the priestess with the swarm for the win.
2. DevilsVendetta – priestess
Second match was against another priestess. This was a very back and forth match. I pumped out creatures through the graveyard and he had a strong set of forces built up that he hard casted. One bad thing about zombies is that they take forever to make it across the board giving the opponent plenty of time to build up a formidable army. He used a few white cloak knights, meditating monk for mana, Artemis, Dawnbrekaer’s Eye, Cassiel, Temple High Guard, Assyrian Cleric, and another legendary creature, I believe. Artemis was very strong against my army since she rolled 6 dice against the zombies if I remember correctly- every time I inched closer she was taking shots at them. It was a constant struggle of both mages dealing damage and healing that back. I managed to curse item the sunfire amulet but he still gained life through other ways – priestess abilities. I could not close the distance to drop poisoned blood on him because doing so would put me right in the middle of the fight. I could not drop deathlock either as I would swing the game in his favor instead of mine. On the final turn he had a little more life than I overall but I believe I had more damage on him; in his zone were 2 brutes, 2 or 3 of his creatures (1 was guarding) and himself. In my zone was a grey wraith, temple high guard, and myself. We were separated by a wall of bones and it was his initiative. I had a deathlock and chant of rage prepared but was one mana short to play them both. Since it was his initiative though he played a heal and we were tied at 11 damage then. Instead of the chant of rage on the high guard I decided to play deathlock thinking he would play another healing spell. He attacked with the high guard putting me at 14 damage. From there I was forced to attack his guards and I could not get to him to do any more damage. The game went to time and he took the victory. Very tough match!
One thing about this game was the priestess used a ton of legendary creatures so it made it difficult to use rise again. By the time I had the mana and the opportunity arise the non-legendary creatures were either out of range or there was a bigger threat that needed to be dealt with.
3. Larrick – araxian crown warlock – sersiryx buddy build
Third match was against an Araxian Crown Warlock. He opened with Sersiryx and mana crystal. He used sersiryx to cast marked for death on my zombies and kept getting the curse back when they died. This was a game of cat and mouse because he chased me around the board and I did not want to get anywhere close to him – bursting fire damage is not fun if you are on the receiving end! I had the cloak of shadows and dragonscale hauberk on so I was prepared for when he closed the distance but I wanted to keep that from happening. It did happen a few times but tanglevine saved me as I was able to get out of range from any more attack spells. I was able to curse item his elemental wand and get rid of that. He killed the crawler, minion, and venomous zombie, I believe. I eventually took down sersiryx and from there I was able to swarm with zombies, use a tanglevine to keep him in place and deal a good amount of damage. The grey wraith ended up getting the final blow and winning the game.
Final Four:4. DevilsVendetta – priestess
This was another intense game that went ended up going to time, in my favor this time. Devil opened up with a temple build and a few clerics. He had the clerics praying to the temple and continued to spawn creatures. I had exhausted every creature I could get out of my graveyard and the only thing left was blood demon but I never had a chance to cast it. I had Idol of Pestilence and Deathlock out a majority of the game and had to find ways around Dorsius? - The new PvS card that heals around finite life – and cassiel. Curse of Decay + Idol helped get cassiel out of the game but marty’s restoration just brought her back. Theft of life + Idol on the priest helped keep her healing/ regen to a minimum. The game went to time with me taking no damage with 32 life total and the priestess with 1 damage and 33 life total. We played 2 more rounds and Devil said he would take the loss because I was walled off on the other side of the map and he was surrounded by 2 brutes in the corner. This was another very intense match and I cannot wait to face Devil again!
5. Sharkbait – Adramalech Warlock – buddies
Sharkbait and I battled for 1st and 2nd place. He opened up with Meghedden and mana crystal I believe. From then he double enchanted himself. I believe this is where the game swung in my favor. I knew an adramalech was going to be aggressive so I had to take some of his tools out and make it more difficult. On round 3 I used both of my seeking dispels and got rid of a hawk eye and akiro’s favor. If he had more than one copy of each in his book I am not sure. But from playing an adramalech warlock myself I know those can be game changers. I truly believe if he had those then the game could have gone a different direction. He 1 shot the idol of pestilence with a Hurl Meteorite that turn or the turn after. Not long after that he double fireball-ed the graveyard and took it out. Meghedden spent most of the game in a tanglevine and I eventually killed it. Once again, rise again could not be used. Knockdown was a very useful spell this game – I was able to knockdown a guarding skeletal knight then attack the warlock with a venomous zombie and get a tainted condition on the mage. With meghedden’s -6 life to warlock she was at a total of -9 life overall. The archer was my saving grace this game as sharkbait wasn’t wearing armor – the archer got 3 or 4 four dice attacks on her before he threw on the cloak of shadows. I was able to finish a skeletal knight off with arc lightning followed by consecrated ground which killed it during upkeep. The game ended when I ran two zones and used force wave to push shakbait into the arena wall for the last bit of damage.
If there are any questions feel free to ask.
Now that I have finally won a tournament with the necro I believe I will start on another mage. Wizard, Beastmaster, and Siren are my top contenders as of now
Lastly, if anyone enjoys Mage Wars and good competitive gaming with great sportsmanship I highly recommend getting in touch with Silverclawgrizzly and coming to MACE in 2017!
