So there is this new strategy to have 4 thoughtspores sitting in the corner with 4 minds eyes flying around to let them all be in range all the time. Borg postet his book in this thread:
http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=17826.0I run a slightly different one and was quite successful with it. Now I hear voices calling "overpowered" very fast... but is true? Maybe there is a strategy to counter this before that just has to be found.
Everything from here on is pure theorie since I was just playing FM myself, never against it.
Minds eye itself is just a helper in belongings of range. It is flying incorporeal with 7 life. Tough to get rid of.
4 Minds eyes on the field can completely be ignored if there are not enough sources of spells to use them. In my opinion it is wasted energy to go for the eyes. It's the source for spells you want to bring down.
So basically you want to stop spores (and the mage) from casting spells.
A spore is 8 Mana 2 sbp And minds eye is 6/2.
If your goal is to get into range quickly (rush) those 8 sbp are wasted for the fm anyway, setting you in a good position.
As mentioned before eyes without spores are useless. So to bring one spore down you can more or less spend 14 mana, 4 sbp, one full and one quick action to make it a wash. (I know it is a misleading calculation, but you need to start somewehre). That should be quite easy with. 2 hurl boulder for example is 2 more expensive but only 2 qc. Also a hurl meteor can do the job. Or drain life. And so on. The BIG Advantage for the FM is his control over positioning. You have to get in range somehow.
Whatever you do is better if it is done quickly. The toolbox in the book is large and all spells (if bound to a spore) can be used many times. All your damage can be countered if the job is not finished!
That is incredibly strong but it is also a weakness if you look at it.
Since a max of 4 spores is possible in a book they are very limited. The choice of spells to bind on them are the most important for the FM. His toolbox is large and not redundant. If you kill the sleep spore there is no more sleep around. If you kill the teleport spore the FM will no longer teleport.
The most important choice to counter the book is to find out what spore is making you the bigest problems (and this should mean in killing the spores) and also what spore is most important for the FM not to lose.
Well the dissolve spore is pretty annoying but you can bet its one of those few spells FM has more then one copy. Hard choice.
There is also the possibility of DOT on the spores. But as metioned only one mendspore will make that useless, and time is working for the FM. Another weakness of for example idol / deathlock is, that the eyes are flying, making walls to hide the idol useless.
Some cards that are also pretty helpful in my opinion are:
Gravikor: making spores much more vulnerable and reachable for melee attacks
Falcon (swarm) (I know that was mentioned before)
lesser teleport, divine intervention (and also all kinds of quick movement) to get in range.
All weapons with reach + arcane ward
exile (to buy some time)
jinx
chant of rage (making spores move instead of casting and making them come to you)
the force wave / Pillar combo
What I am not talking about is, that on top of all problems there is a vampiress (could be a different buddy) and some enchentments and the FM with bearstrength/galvitar saving the spores from getting attacked.
Summary:
All plans above want to be fast. That makes me think slow books have a hard time against this kind of FM.
I think it is hardly ever good to kill an eye. An errata on it could change this, but I guess asking for this is way to early and the meta too unexplored.
Range 3 one-shot kills can be gamechangers here I guess.
What do you all think?
