Priestess - Counter Warlock Beatdown Deck

[sIKE]

Koz,

Great post! How are you dealing with Deathlock and Idol of Pestelence? That was my main issue with your approach. Yes Daze/Stun will slow him down, but do come off at the end of the round. Every other round he will have initiative and if you get hit by the LOH and have some burns placed on you they are much more effective than Daze/Stun as they potentially cause damage each round.

Depending on Rolls of 9+ to keep your attacker at bay seems quite risky. At round 2 you have two temples out so you are getting 2 Dice to roll. With the potential to re-roll once someone's dice.

Compare that to the LOH "if" it hits you, then its Burn rolls start at 7, much closer to 50/50 of one being added to your creature and if you get two on you from one roll, your (and mine too) Priestess will start going down real quick then the actual dice damage from the melee buffed Warlord/LOH. Between the DOT's, the in-ability to heal or add Life points and if luck is on your side and if only 25% of the LOH hits you, the Warlord will still win the duel rather quickly.

I haven't even touched on curses and such. Many who play the Warlock like to use Curses and place them on your Mage. Typically one or two in a round. At that point you typically have to Dispel all of the Enchantments on your Mage, think about Cobra Reflex.

One last question, why Cobra Reflexes instead of Defense Bracers? 4 Cost vs 2 and Mana cost is 9 vs 6. To help with ranged attacks? Avoiding Explode or Dissolve?

[Koz]

Koz,

Great post! How are you dealing with Deathlock and Idol of Pestelence? That was my main issue with your approach. Yes Daze/Stun will slow him down, but do come off at the end of the round. Every other round he will have initiative and if you get hit by the LOH and have some burns placed on you they are much more effective than Daze/Stun as they potentially cause damage each round.

Deathlock and Idol can be rough, no doubt.  The good news is, if they spend their mana on that, they aren't spending it on direct offense so that gives you some time to get out stuff you need to try and win.  Basically, the defense route I chose is stacking miss chances, in the hope that they will be missing so many swings and actions that you won't NEED to heal.  If it goes poorly and the dice aren't rolling average or better I may end up getting hit a lot and then I'll be in real trouble.  It happens.  Adapt the best you can.  

Depending on Rolls of 9+ to keep your attacker at bay seems quite risky. At round 2 you have two temples out so you are getting 2 Dice to roll. With the potential to re-roll once someone's dice.

You aren't depending on a 9+ to keep your attacker at bay.  Take another look at the strategy.  Firstly, when the Temple of Light attacks you add the number of Temples you have in play to the effect die, so even with just itself in play it Dazes/Stuns on 8+.  With the Dawnbreaker out that you cast first turn the Temple of Light is Daze/Stunning on 7+, which is 50/50.  Now add in the fact that you also prepared a Pillar of Light which Daze/Stuns on a 4+ and you have a Cobra Reflexes on which provides a 50/50 dodge with a re-roll and you have a very strong defense that works vs melee or ranged (including Fireballs and the like).  Obviously an Unavoidable attack gets around the Defense die, but that's where you hope the Daze/Stun takes care of that.

I haven't even touched on curses and such. Many who play the Warlock like to use Curses and place them on your Mage. Typically one or two in a round. At that point you typically have to Dispel all of the Enchantments on your Mage, think about Cobra Reflex.

Curses kill slowly though so while some of them are a problem, they aren't so scary that they need an immediate reaction from you to deal with.  

One last question, why Cobra Reflexes instead of Defense Bracers? 4 Cost vs 2 and Mana cost is 9 vs 6. To help with ranged attacks? Avoiding Explode or Dissolve?

I choose Cobra Reflexes initially because it works vs both melee and ranged.  If you just go Bracers then they can smack you with a Fireball or something and not worry about the Reflexes just yet.  Having out the Reflexes backed by a Temple of the Dawnbringer forces your opponent to deal with it or ignore it and pray to the dice gods.  As a side note, I also run the Bracers in my build as well as Force Sword/Orb.  It's all about stacking miss chances as a means of survival, as well as Aegis and armor.  I don't even run that much healing because the plan is not to get hit too often.

My Forcemaster will be running the Temple of the Dawnbreaker too and it will be even stronger with her because her Defense die can't be removed.  

[piousflea]

I think you are off on your analysis of the Temple build.  My Temple build can and does handle beat down well (whether solo mage or mage plus big creature).  Your analysis of the Temple of the Dawnbringer is off because you don't account for it's best feature, the rerolling of Defense dice.

The Temple of the Dawnbringer can be thought of as a fractional Block.

The best case scenario for the Dawnbringer is one of these two:
1) Attacker rolls unusually high (critical 2's). You reroll his dice, and they come up unusually low (all 0's).
2) Attacker declares an attack. You roll a Defense and fail. You re-roll the attack dice. Your Defense succeeds.

Either of these cases are, at best, equal to one Block. (4 mana value) However, both of these cases are far from guaranteed. In fact, scenario #1 is incredibly unlikely (although I have seen it happen) and it doesn't contribute a large % of Dawnbreaker's effectiveness.

It is easy to calculate the additional Defense chance that a Dawnbringer gives you:
A standard 7+ Defense is exactly 50% chance to Avoid. Therefore, there is a 50% chance you will need the Dawnbringer. If you use the Dawnbringer, there is a 50% chance you will succeed. Therefore, a Dawnbringer has an overall 25% chance per turn of functioning as a Block (4 mana value).

Basically, a Dawnbringer is not mana-efficient until it has successfully turned 2 successful attacks into blocked attacks, which on average will take 8 attacks against a 7+ Defense.

The Dawnbringer is extremely efficient over the course of a game, but it is highly inefficient for the first few rounds it is out. This makes it rather similar to Mana Generators - it's good to have, but you don't want too many against a beatdown deck.

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For a Priestess defending against a rush, it is much stronger to combine Stun/Daze with one or two temples, instead of investing very heavily on temples.

If you commit the mana to a Cobra Reflexes (9 mana) + 2 Dawnbreakers (16 Mana), you've spent 25 mana for a "guaranteed" defense against 1 attack, when a beatdown deck can throw 3 attacks per round at this point. (2 creatures + mage)

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On second thought, I think we are actually agreeing with each other. You're saying that a stun/daze heavy build with 1 dawnbreaker temple is really effective against beatdown. (I agree)

I guess my OP was more of directed toward the common (mis)perception that there is a super overpowered "Temples Build" that stacks something like 3 Bimshallas, a Dawnbreaker, and a Temple of Light.

[Koz]

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On second thought, I think we are actually agreeing with each other. You're saying that a stun/daze heavy build with 1 dawnbreaker temple is really effective against beatdown. (I agree)

I guess my OP was more of directed toward the common (mis)perception that there is a super overpowered "Temples Build" that stacks something like 3 Bimshallas, a Dawnbreaker, and a Temple of Light.

Yes, we are on the same page it seems.  I don't go overboard on Temples really, one Dawnbreaker and the Temple of Light is often pretty solid just by themselves.  The Hand is so good I try really hard to get at least one out early, but if I'm unable to do so due to having to adapt to my opponents strategy then I just deal without.  Bascially, if I'm able to start getting out Hand's against beat-down then I am already doing really well and at that point I'm just "winning more".  Most of the time when I get Hands out it's vs other builds (the extra armor is good vs swarms and the + melee and healing is pretty much good vs whom ever).

[Koz]

As a side note, I'd like to comment a bit on a little strategy on using a Dawnbreaker that came to mind while looking at piousflea's excellent breakdown on the math behind using it.  Basically it will be used most often to reroll a failed Defense die.  However, there can and will be situations where you've successfully used a Defense die earlier in the turn without the need of the Dawnbreaker but are then hit by another attack.  Do you use the Dawnbreaker or not?  On average, a player will roll one point of damage per die rolled (don't include armor in this equation).  If your opponent rolled average or lower, obviously don't use the Dawnbreaker, but if he rolled above average, use it.  So if your opponent hits you with a 7 dice attack and rolls 8+ damage, use the reroll, otherwise, don't.  

If you don't use the reroll for the damage dice, you can always use it to reroll the effect die.  If they roll a "big" effect, such as a Stun or double Burn, then I'd definitely use it, but otherwise it's situational and risky.  You don't want to turn a Burn into a double Burn, that's for sure

[sIKE]

On Tuesday I got to play the v7 of my Priestess Deck and my Warlock opponent added in a couple of Mana denial cards for moving creatures and for the upkeep for creatures. Needless to say my strategy was very slow in the development as a result my Priestess lost her head. I did some turning after that match and came up with the next iteration of my Priestess deck.  After the long conversation about a temple strategy, I decided to go for it. I pulled out 12 points from my spell book and put in three temples (Hand of Bim-shala, Dawnbreaker, Light) and Ring of Fire and Fortified Position from the FvM expansion. This time I caught my opponent completely off guard and after an 1 1/2 hours took his head. I am very happy with the results and I am looking forward to his counter to my counter!

Here is the latest version of my spell book:

Equipment
Dawnbreaker Ring x 1
Deflection Bracers x 1
Elemental Cloak x 2
Elemental Wand x 1
Enchanter's Ring x 1
Mage Wand x 1
Moonglow Amulet x 1
Staff of Asyra x 1

Creature
Highland Unicorn x 1
Knight of Westlock x 2
Royal Archer x 1

Attack
Geyser  x 2
Jet Stream x 1
Ring of Fire x 1

Conjuration
Hand of Bim-Shalla x 1
Mana Crystal x 2
Temple of Light x 1
Temple of the Dawnbreaker x 1

Enchantment
Agony x 1
Bear Strength x 3
Block x 2
Circle of Fire x 1
Divine Intervention x 1
Fortified Position x 1
Harmonize x 1
Hawkeye x 1
Nullify x 3
Reverse Magic x 1
Teleport Trap x 1

Incantation
Charge x 1
Dissolve x 1
Heal x 1
Minor Heal x 1
Piercing Strike x 3
Purge Magic x 1
Rouse the Beast x 1
Seeking Dispel x 1
Steal Enchantment x 1
Teleport x 1

Wall
Wall of Thorns x 1

I tip my hat to Koz!

[sIKE]

Just wanted to update everyone on my Priestess Build. It is much easier for Warlock to make to adapt to my strategy. The next four games played the Warlock came out on top and most of the time handedly. I have gone through a couple of more iterations and landed at v10 of my deck and it played very well yesterday, beating the Warlock in almost exactly 45 minutes. I have say a temple strategy will not work against a very fast agro / beat down deck once Deathlock is out. I tried, trust me I tried. So I did a overhaul on my deck and thinned it out a bit, I now have 38 different cards in my deck with a total count of 45 cards. For the last game I used a Grimson Deadeye, Sniper / Archers Tower / Stone Wall statergery. I kept my mage under the watchful barrel of the sniper and used the Cleric to pick out any reverse attack enchantments and the blasted away with him along with a hurl bolder attached to the Elemental Wand. Dealing out ~15 dice of damage / round ended the game quite quickly and I have to say with a large amount of satisfaction on my side after loosing so many games in a row. I never lost tempo in the game once the armor/cloak came out (along with a well timed nullify) his ability to deal a large amount of damage went way down. Now it all wasn't me, my opponent played a bit more poorly than his use Can of Whoop A#%. His main fault is that he forgot that his demon had the flying trait and at any point could of easily flown over the wall and kicked the snipers booty. Got to figure out what to swap out for Gravikor now. Note only eight different Holy Spells and count of 15 in the total deck which brings the count of holy cards in at 40%. Honestly thinking about removing the Dawnbreaker Ring and Staff of Asyra for Gravikor. Here is my winning spell book.

Equipment      
Dawnbreaker Ring x1
Deflection Bracers x1
Dragonscale Hauberk x1
Elemental Cloak x1
Elemental Wand x1
Enchanter's Ring x1
Mage Wand x1
Moonglow Amulet x1
Staff of Asyra x1
      
Creature      
Asyran Cleric x1
Knight of Westlock x1
Grimson Deadeye, Sniper x1
      
Attack      
Geyser x1
Hurl Boulder x1
      
Conjuration      
Archer's Watchtower x1
Battleforge x1
Hand of Bim-Shalla x2
Mana Crystal x2
Temple of Light x1
Wall of Stone x2
      
Enchantment      
Agony x1
Bear Strength x2
Block x2
Divine Intervention x1
Fortified Position x1
Harmonize x1
Hawkeye x1
Nullify x2
Reverse Attack x1
Reverse Magic x1

Incantation      
Dissolve x1
Heal x1
Piercing Strike x2
Power Strike x1
Purge Magic x1
Seeking Dispel x1
Steal Enchantment x1
Teleport x1

[reddawn]

Is this build meant for casual or competitive play?

Also, how exactly do you deal with Adramelech?  Seems like he pretty handily deals with your list.

[sIKE]

Note the reference to Gravikor. He is one tough SOB. I was thinking about adding in the Angel that deals damage to dark critters. I want to test it against a swarming deck before I decide if it is tourney ready. I think I can handle Argo, one/two big. but I am not sure about swarms.

[sIKE]

Ok, had a good day playing Mage Wars with my buddy yesterday. We played two Priestess vs. Warlock matches with me playing the v10 version of her spell book. I won both games. My strategy of avoiding damage  as best as possible early on while building up her strength worked very well. He dropped Idol of Pestilence both games which was fine by me as I would much rather deal with Finite Life than Vampiric.

One valuable lesson learned yesterday was the power of guarding. He kept taking out my creatures before I could get them situated and ready to battle, when I brought out the Sniper I wanted him to last for a while as the sniper is very potent against the LoF. So I had my mage with the Staff, 2 Hands, Bear Strength, Ring of Light on Guard (9 Dice). The counter strike against flying is awesome and if he choses not to attack then the Guard marker lasts through the next round until he is activated again. Which is important for non-initiative rounds. The results were quite clear, he got in around 15 points of damage in both games while took his head. One side note, he was rolling bad through out the day, the D12 for Burns only landed twice while both games ran at 90 minutes.

Taking all of the lessons learned from the last 6 to 7 games, I have updated my Priestess to v11 and I think this deck is tourney ready. I need to test it against swarm types a bit more, but think it is very solid. Once Gravikor is tourney legal I will work it in to the build.

Equipment      
Dawnbreaker Ring x1
Dragonscale Hauberk x1
Elemental Cloak x1
Elemental Wand x1
Mage Wand x1
Staff of Asyra x1
Storm Drake Hide x1
      
Creature      
Asyran Cleric x1
Knight of Westlock x1
Grimson Deadeye, Sniper x1
      
Attack      
Geyser x1
Hurl Boulder x1
      
Conjuration      
Hand of Bim-Shalla x2
Mana Crystal x2
Mordok's Obelisk x1
Temple of Light x1
Wall of Stone x1
      
Enchantment      
Agony x1
Bear Strength x2
Block x2
Divine Intervention x1
Force Hold x1
Fortified Position x1
Harmonize x1
Hawkeye x1
Nullify x2
Reverse Attack x1
Reverse Magic x1
      
Incantation      
Battle Fury x1
Dissolve x1
Heal x1
Piercing Strike x1
Power Strike x1
Purge Magic x1
Seeking Dispel x1
Steal Enchantment x1
Teleport x2