Terrain - is it fair right now?

[bigfatchef]

Since PvS we have terrain conjurations. They can only be countered through another terrain. And they are limited.

Right now we have:
- Consecrated ground. Good for holy. Regen + aegis. cheap
- shallow sea. Good for water. Regen + melee + kind-of-aegis. Cheap
- steep hill. Good for ranged shooters. Propably good for war. Expensive
- swamp. Good for aqua. Expensive
- elephant grass. Good for nature survivability and can generally hide stuff. Expensive

So when playing a forcemaster or warlock or necro or wizard none of all terrain will help you. If you face a holy, water or nature mage you have to live with the fact, that the whole enemy team will get big bonuses, or regenerate away whatever you do. Also you will play with less dice.

What can you do?
- You can pick elephant grass or steep hill and pay 4 sbp just to pay about 13 mana just as a counter maybe even without own advantage... Bad idea.
- deathlock/poisoned blood. That will work at least against regeneration, but after some rounds could be gone. Will get focused.
- tweak your strategy to get your enemy out of its safety zone.
- ignore it

In my experience the last two or 3 are probably the way to go at the moment. It is manageable to stop everything from healing, to get damage through aegis and to ignore some problems, but it is always a fight uphill.

How do you feel?
I personally don't like that terrain can not be countered and that there is no useful terrain for a fm or warlock. Especially fm who often goes solo now has big issues against aegis/regen (making his galvitar + scimitar 3+3+2=8-regen1 instead of 4+4+3=11. Cutting of 1/4 of dice)

How do you all handle this?

P.s. I really hope to see some fire-terrain, force-terrain and poison-terrain soon. Then everything will be fine again!

[Zuberi]

tweak your strategy to get your enemy out of its safety zone.

Does this really require tweaking of your strategy? Positioning has always been important in Mage Wars, and "pit" strategies aren't really anything new. I've never run a book without some means of influencing positioning, which may affect my view on the matter, but I don't see that terrain has really changed the game much at all. If they set up a kill zone, you simply want to fight someplace else.

Also, I like how a difference of only 3 mana is all it takes to go from cheap to expensive. Where's the middle ground? I do agree that there needs to be more terrain, but that can be said about a lot of things. This game always needs more of everything, lol. But I don't think it is currently problematic, nor do I have issues with it being so hard to get rid of.

P.S. Consecrated Ground doesn't give Aegis.

[drmambo23]

At mace i ran consecrated ground in my necro book. Only 3 sbp. I had it to counter other terrains, trigger bloodthirsty for my zombies, or help in a mirror match.  It was able to destroy a skeletal knight. Overall it worked out. Not in school or the most useful terrain but finding ways to use existing ones is part of the fun for me. Steep hill is another fun one to work with too.

[iNano78]

I would definitely like to see Terrain for each of the other schools, especially Dark and Fire and Air. I could imagine each of the Domination terrains getting something analogous as a Conjuration-Terrain. Consecrated Ground is quite similar (though not identical) to Samandriel's Circle. A fog-like Air one (analogous to Domination's Mist) could make sense, eg for obscuring your Wizard's Tower, but I guess there's already [mwcard=MWSTX2FFJ06]Rolling Fog[/mwcard]. A Fire and an Acid Terrain could be very similar to the Domination ones. A Dark one might reconstruct skeletons and/or zombies.

As for Pit strategies, pits themselves got weaker with Terrain since a new counter is to cast your friendly Terrain (Sea or Ground or Grass) in the same zone to make it more hospitable while you make your escape rolls. On the other hand, counters to Terrain are similar to counters to pits - eg Teleport(and removal for Astral Anchor).

[bigfatchef]

For pit strategies you have maybe a seeking dispel in advance, most times an escape roll,  sometimes can fight it (tanglevine) or dispel it (force hold). Teleport is an option to leave the zone.
With terrain you can also levee the zone, but you can't do anything against besides playing another terrain. The zone stays dangerous.
So now everybody is forced to include terrain in a spellbook even if it's a 3 sbp holy spell that is mediocre in a necro deck.

P.s. Sorry for getting confused about aegis at concentrated ground.

[reddawn]

I'm currently testing out a more or less ranged-focused Wizard deck that uses Steep Hill, since it naturally works well with him and some of his creatures.  Might be worth building around, not sure yet.   

I don't think terrain is overpowered, and I like that it rewards decisive decision-making.  Obviously, there should and I assume there will, be terrain of many different school types, but simply increasing your board position is a good way to force your opponent out of an entrenched position.  If they spend mana on a terrain that does not adequately benefit them and you spend mana on increasing your channeling or dice count, you're going to have the advantage.

I don't actually see why a Dark mage would be afraid of terrain...with easy access to Idol of Pestilence, Plauged, Malacoda, Altar of Skulls, etc, you aren't hurting for zone/arena-wide damage. And, with Bloodreaper and Zombie strategies, you should be considering ways to deal some initial damage anyway if you can't just do it through attacking. 

The Wizard, even though he's only Air school now, can still use Poison Gas Cloud or Mordok's Obelisk. 

Mohktari (in general) and Temple of Meraveran (for holy swarm builds) is a solid way to fight on enemy turf.

Elephant Grass can certainly be an issue with how powerful it is, but you can also destroy it, unlike most terrain.   

[Phillus]

Necromancer should get a Blight terrain like in Warcraft 3.
Also Fire Terrain, Air Terrain, Lightning Terrain.
Blank Terrain?

[Beldin]

I'm currently testing out a more or less ranged-focused Wizard deck that uses Steep Hill, since it naturally works well with him and some of his creatures.  Might be worth building around, not sure yet.

Take a look at the highly calibrated wizard. A steep hill version is a viable option.
I don't think terrain is overpowered, and I like that it rewards decisive decision-making.  Obviously, there should and I assume there will, be terrain of many different school types, but simply increasing your board position is a good way to force your opponent out of an entrenched position.  If they spend mana on a terrain that does not adequately benefit them and you spend mana on increasing your channeling or dice count, you're going to have the advantage.

I don't actually see why a Dark mage would be afraid of terrain...with easy access to Idol of Pestilence, Plauged, Malacoda, Altar of Skulls, etc, you aren't hurting for zone/arena-wide damage. And, with Bloodreaper and Zombie strategies, you should be considering ways to deal some initial damage anyway if you can't just do it through attacking. 

The Wizard, even though he's only Air school now, can still use Poison Gas Cloud or Mordok's Obelisk. 

Mohktari (in general) and Temple of Meraveran (for holy swarm builds) is a solid way to fight on enemy turf.

Elephant Grass can certainly be an issue with how powerful it is, but you can also destroy it, unlike most terrain.

[Alex]

I think we need more terrain for all schools.

[iNano78]

Blank Terrain?

Interesting idea. It would certainly be level 1, probably Novice. What would be the mana cost? "0" might seem like the obvious answer, since you still need to pay for any Terrain already in the zone (and anything attached to it), but that would be too powerful in Domination or other format when there are "permanent" terrain you might be covering up. Unless instead of "Blank Terrain" it's more like "Remove Terrain" (Incantation) that restores the original battlefield, which might have a Domination Terrain already in it (and which can't be removed, as per Domination rules). I could imagine this removal Incantation costing 1 mana, with text: "As an additional cost, pay X mana, where X is the cost of any Terrain conjurations in this zone plus any spells attached to them" or something.

In comparison, a Conjuration - Terrain spell that effectively does nothing should cost more, like 2-3 mana, since you could play it over Domination Terrain.

By the way, Siren still wins this battle since Shallow Sea has Cantrip, and you'd only be able to pack 6x "Remove Terrain" (Incantation) and/or "Blank Terrain" (Conjuration - Terrain), before even accounting for any mana discounts for Aquatic spells or when cast by Naiya.

P.S. Perhaps "Blank Terrain" should be called "Sistarran Academy Arena Floor" or something more thematic. It's a familiar albeit dull and boring terrain that doesn't impact Mages in any way, presenting a level playing field.

[exid]

the blank terrain is a good idea.
it should be a "glass" terrain: it would destroy a conjuration terrain but wouldn't cover the domination's terrain (which isn't destroyed)!

[Halewijn]

Idk... It's a good idea, but then the denial games start all over again. I really like that there is no easy "dispel" for terrain. That's the big difference between conjurations and enchantments.

Many terrains cost more than 1 spellbookpoint to include, so it would be annoying if some novice card destroys your expensive terrain.

[bigfatchef]

Idk... It's a good idea, but then the denial games start all over again. I really like that there is no eassy "dispel" for terrain. That's the big difference between conjurations and enchantments.

Many terrains cost more than 1 spellbookpoint to include, so it would be annoying if some novice card destroys your expensive terrain.

Good point. I haven't seen it from that perspective, yet. It really is good that not everything is undoable.
Also not all schools should have the same cardpool. But anyway more terrain (maybe expensive and restricted) would feel more balanced in my eyes. At  a dark fire-terrain has to be added - I like fire 

[wtcannonjr]

Idk... It's a good idea, but then the denial games start all over again. I really like that there is no easy "dispel" for terrain. That's the big difference between conjurations and enchantments.

Many terrains cost more than 1 spellbookpoint to include, so it would be annoying if some novice card destroys your expensive terrain.

+1 to this idea.

More terrain is nice along with more clouds. I don't see a need for easy destruction of conjurations. We don't hear anyone asking for a novice spell that destroys creatures or walls.

Why the hate for terrain? I like that creatures are not the only durable spell in the arena.

[iNano78]

It would be nice to have a way to reinstate the Domination terrain though (without killing the mage that controls the Conjuration - Terrain). Otherwise, you might cover up an Altar of Oblivion, effectively drawing out a game, as happened to us on Wednesday. Conjuration - Terrain becomes an auto-include, with Consecrated Ground being treated like "novice" for all but Warlocks and Necromancers (and it's even a good option for them), since it can cover up both dangerous Domination terrain and terrain that helps your opponents, and at most all they can do is replace your Conjuration - Terrain with their own; e.g. they can't reinstate the Altar of Oblivion / Vtorrak / Samandriel's Circle, etc.