Banish!

[Aquila]

Hey guys, is there anyone who has ever used Banish in a game?
I don't get this card... Buying you some time for 16 (!!) mana, and after that, nothing has changed and you face the same problem as before... Two fireballs will do better!! Or Lightningbolts, or everything else...
Every card in this game, has a minor or major meaning! There are a lot of cards whose effects or strategy appears with time played the game. And that's realy awesome!! Thats why i love this game so much!
I remember numerous times, where i thought to my self: " What should that be?... Strange card...Hmm!"
And than, it jumps right into my eye, and hits me with a surprising new advantage!   Great!!!
But Banish never did this to me...   ... bad Banish...
By the way, Resurrection is the little brother of Banish... I don't get this either!

[pixelgeek]

Some suggestions

End of turn Final Quickcast : Attach Essence Drain
First Quickcast of next turn: Banish
Creature now costs 6 Mana and the Essence Drain can't be removed for three turns

Banish their 16-20 Mana creature the turn after they summon it

Banish their biggest offensive threat

Banish your own big unit when it is down to a few damage

Banish an enemy unit and then put a Firetrap or similar spell in the space they will come back in.

[Archwizard07]

Imagine its late game, you have your opponent backed into a corner with some weaker creatures ready to finish him off.

He just spent most of his mana summoning a big baddy and put it on guard. It will likely kill your creatures in the counterstrike and survive to come after you.

You banish his pet, send in the troops to maul him and win the day!

Also Pixel gave great examples!

[Aquila]

Thanks a lot for the ideas! I esteem them very much!
But finally i can't see the advantage of them..

1) End of turn Final Quickcast : Attach Essence Drain
First Quickcast of next turn: Banish
Creature now costs 6 Mana and the Essence Drain can't be removed for three turns
--> Why 6 mana? And i'm not shure if this realy works! In your preparation phase you can chose not to pay the upkeep..
2) Banish their 16-20 Mana creature the turn after they summon it
--> Put it to sleep, fireball or Lightningbolt it!
3) Banish their biggest offensive threat
--> like 2)
4) Banish your own big unit when it is down to a few damage
--> does not help my creature when it comes back weak..
5) Banish an enemy unit and then put a Firetrap or similar spell in the space they will come back in.
--> Thought for this on myself, but 20 (!!) mana for 4 dice of damage..?
6) You banish his pet, send in the troops to maul him and win the day!
--> also like 2)

I don't want to sound annoying, realy, but i don't see the advantage?

But never the less, thanks for trying to light up my dark Banish tunnel... :-P

[krj]

@Aquila
it's useful but you don't see it. I had powered up Lord of Fire with Bear Strength and Cheetah Speed, so my quick spell attack was 8 dice, and full 6 for 2 objects. with flame innmunity fireball will be just funniest thing which somebody could do. lighting bolt? 5 Dice? what would do?

my opponent banished my liitle devil for three turns and could prepare for his back, and what is most importand survive next three rounds (Adramelech was killed few rounds later which was very, very disappointing :/).

[wtcannonjr]

I think of it as a simple tradeoff which can be worth it in the right situation.

Your opponent has just spent 16 - 24 mana bringing on a high level creature. For the cost of 16 mana you have now removed 3 turns of benefit the opponent would have received from this creature including the extra action. Note - IIRC if you Banish the creature after it has acted in the current turn, then it returns with the action marker in the same state and remains inactive for the turn it returns to the arena.

[baronzaltor]

Banish is great for disrupting combos/synergy, making a familiar go 3 rounds without casting spells or generating mana, it can also be an extreme method of removing a guard or even be used on one of your own creatures who is near death to keep them from getting killed if you dont have a heal prepped for it that round.  it can also be used just to ease pressure, you cant guarentee a kill with a fireball  but if youre staring down 3 creatures you can reliably move one of them from the fight and by the time he comes back his friends have been taken care of.  Its one of my favorite creature control cards.

Also, conditions that are on the creature continue to effect it.. so its kinda fun to banish a creature that has something like Ghoul Rot on it, as they have to keep taking damage but cant recieve heals or have the curse dispelled basically making it a coffin nail if the creature was withen 6 points of death.

[Mathias]

Banish an enemy unit and then put a Firetrap or similar spell in the space they will come back in.

Pixel,

I've been thinking of this strat too. But the card says 'return it to the zone'. Because there is no move-action specificaly, I'd say trap does not trigger?

[pixelgeek]

I guess it depends on what the definition of "enter" is.

[residualshade]

i really dont understand why you think you can deal with the kind of creatures we are talking about with a couple of fireballs.

2 fireballs will deal 6 dice of damage twice. the kind of creatures we are talking about on average have 14 health and atleast 2 armor. unless your consistently lucky with your dice rolls i don't see how you expect to get a kill.

6 dice will do a average of 3 normal and 3 crit damage.
so 2x6 dice will do a average of 8 damage to a 2 armor creature.

[alex02144]

I love banish.  Often use 1 or 2 near the end of the game with my Wizard.  People hate it =D

[Locusshifter]

I was playing against my wife, who was running BM. She had a wolf with a stack of enchantments on it, and it was her freaking pet. In hind sight banishing it would have been a good solution.

Now that I think more about it though, is there any reason that Sleep isn't a better solution; not to mention cheaper?

[Paleblue]

I was playing against my wife, who was running BM. She had a wolf with a stack of enchantments on it, and it was her freaking pet. In hind sight banishing it would have been a good solution.

Now that I think more about it though, is there any reason that Sleep isn't a better solution; not to mention cheaper?

I guess against a low level creature sleep is an ok solution. The problem I have with sleep is that it's easily removed by attacking your own (sleeped) creature. Sometimes you might not end up even making the creature lose one action - at least banish is guaranteed for 3 turns.

[Locusshifter]

I was playing against my wife, who was running BM. She had a wolf with a stack of enchantments on it, and it was her freaking pet. In hind sight banishing it would have been a good solution.

Now that I think more about it though, is there any reason that Sleep isn't a better solution; not to mention cheaper?

I guess against a low level creature sleep is an ok solution. The problem I have with sleep is that it's easily removed by attacking your own (sleeped) creature. Sometimes you might not end up even making the creature lose one action - at least banish is guaranteed for 3 turns.

I'm new to the forums and I've been going through "catching up". I came across this about sleep, and we missed that fact in our initial plays. I appreciate this response too, as if I had not found it elsewhere it was something invaluable that we'd missed.

Indeed now I see the superiority and value of banish.

[Tacullu64]

What I like about banish is you pay your 14 mana and then you get a three turn vacation from some baddie. I think force hold would be the closest you could get to the benefits you get from banish but for a cheaper cost. The problem is how much you get out of it is situational. A creature with a ranged attack could still attack you if you come in range. It's an enchantment and therefore subject to dispell. However under the right circumstances you could get the same 3 turn vacation for 10 mana with the option to continue paying the upkeep to extend the effect even longer.

I think AW has done a fine job costing the spells so I guess it comes down to the sure bet of banish vs the potential to get the same benefits cheaper with force hold.