Game 1- Beginner Forsaken Wastes Normal
I open Archer Commander, War-Enchanted Groble, Elven Archer, Dwarven Medic, Spontaneous Growth. I lead with the Elven Archer and manage to also deploy the Groble...then realize it's because I misclicked and deployed the Commander instead of the Elven Archer. I always enjoy playing new runes and being surprised by things; like how the Lodestone Construct is a large-base. My mechanical men stomp their way over the broken bones, and I only lose one Timber Wolf the whole match! Medics are a nice cheap healer, and Immunize saves one of the wolves. Other than that and the need to heal a War-Enchanted Groble one time, there's no notable challenge.
Game 2- Beginner Savage Tundra Normal
I open to Centaur Skirmisher, Groble, Groble, Full Plate, Dwarven Mogaslicer. I drop the Skirmisher, and a second one two turns later; Speed 12 means they're still getting 7 ap on ice, which is nice. I put Full Plate on a Mogaslicer and he becomes fully immune to most of the enemies on the screen. I briefly consider just destroying the shrine, but instead I let my Centaur run around and throw spears into things, while my Mogaslicers mow through the northern shrine's defenders.
I'm once again going to shift my play over to the Trials, because I don't think I learn a ton playing against the Beginner missions.
Game 3- Trials of the Ironfist Stronghold Normal
I open all three archers, Timber Wolves, and Glorious Charge. I drop the Wolves since I know I'll be running into dogs when I spring the Mead Trap. I take the first font and clear the first wave with no real difficulty, though all my aura guys get bunched up when I'm fighting the Earth Golem- I only have an Outcast of the Flame for non-physical damage. That means my Slicers are weakened enough that when I cavalierly charge into an Earthmover/Barbarian Commander, they die pretty quickly...both go down in one round, actually. That misplay costs me, because now I'm facing down a horde of melee fighters with a bunch of...archers. And a wizard. I slap Full Plate on a Centaur Skirmisher, using him to clog the entrance for a couple rounds. That actually works pretty well; with Mobility and Speed 7 he's able to shift and attack without worry. He goes down and my Seed of Potential-Bearing Archer Commander dies when I forget that Ancestral Rage sets your Range to 1. The War-Forged Groble, however, is a true champion. He's got a Seed on him, and then I also slap the Righteous Deflection down. Since he's bolstered by Ironfist spells, and he's a Spellswallower and Adaptive-Ironfist, with the AI spamming Unobstructed View, his damage is well over 20. Every time I heal him with Repair, too, that increases his hp by a further 5. Sadly, he can't survive Stone Dragon/Groble Pulverizer/Ghoulhunter. The Lodestone's just a big sack of dying, and then it's two Medics facing...everything. A Full Plate-wearing Groble tries to assist, but I pay the price for my hubris and go down bleeding. The Groble puts up a great fight though; Defense 45 and Resilient means he's really not being hit by anything.
Game 4-Trials of the Ironfist Stronghold Normal, Redux
I'm shamed by my previous misplay so I decide to run this map again. I definitely feel that it had been my game to lose. Sapelah and his gang are back for blood, and I pull Groble, Archer Commander, Outcast of Flame, Grimlic's Mirror, Repair. It's my 11 Speed Outcast of the Flame, so he hits the ground first. I use a Medic to trigger the mead trap (he ends up very dramatically in the center of all three dogs. My Mogaslicer tears up the Beastmaster, and then I drop a delicious Repair to take him from 10 hp to 48. I'm much more careful with my auras this time, and they let me avoid a lot of attacks by killing creatures on the end of my turns. I manage to get the War-Enchanted Groble out early on, and it's glorious. He's getting +2 Damage, +1 Attack, and +1 Defense with every useless Unobstructed view my opponent casts.
The pass is clearer this time, meaning I can move my small base figures up while the Outcast deals with the Earth Golem. One of the Slicers spends a big chunk of time stuck away from the enemies because there's no room for him, but I do get to put a Barbarian Commander between 3 Aura 3s at one point. Two War-Enchanted Grobles (thanks to Grimlic) can kill the Dwarven Sharpshooter in a single attack each. Even my standard Groble is doing 20 damage by the time the AI starts spawning purple-base champions. My War-Enchants have over 100 hp and are regenerating 4 hp a turn, and I wipe everything the turn it lands.
Obviously most games won't work out that same way with the War-Enchant, but that was sure fun. A full-faction group sounds even more appealing; I can't say that I was drawing a ton of benefit from the K'Thir end other than the speed boost, but I think it'll prove more valuable in a more challenging game. The Ironfist Map bunches things up and lets a few big melee characters really hold their own- mobility isn't much of a factor.
Spending XP, I buy Rend 3 for both Mogaslicers. My Groble without Pulverize 2 gets it. I increase the Lodestone's Speed to 8, and buy Speed 9 and Immunity-Fire for the unleveled Outcast of Flame. Both Medics pick up Cleanse, which heals as well. Keeping an eye on the goal of beating Grimlic, I buy Resistance-Fire up to 2, looking longingly at the Resistance-Physical I will one day purchase. Four games is also where I like to consider what is and isn't working within the bg, and make the necessary changes. Unfortunately, I don't see any rune that demands to be removed. I'm keeping the Commander in until she can get the ability to grant Rain of Arrows, and will decide if that's awesome once I get a chance to use it. Similarly, I haven't had a cause to summon the Dwarven King, but can easily see benefits in doing so at some point. I leave the bg completely unchanged for now.
Champions Cost/Level/Attack/Defense/Speed/Damage/Hp/Range
Archer Commander 56/1/13/12/7(8 w/ Faction)/10/38/3-6, Commander:Archer
Centaur Skirmisher x2 70/1/14/11/11/7(8 w/ Faction)/7/42/2-4, Mobility, Blitz
Dwarven King 97/4/14/22/9(10 w/ Faction)/14/58/1, War Cry 3, Divine Favor 3, Melee Specialist 2
Dwarven Mogaslicer x2 71/1/15/12/9(10 w/ Faction)/12/48/1, Damage Aura 3, Rend 3, Charge 2
Elven Archer x2 83/3/13/11(12 w/ Faction)/11/12/30/4-7, Barrage 1
Groble x2 86/3/10/25/9(10 w/ Faction)/10/42/1 Immunity-Fire, Pulverize 2, Siege, Fury
Lodestone Construct 57/1/10/18/7(8 w/ Faction)/11/46/1 Blacksmith, Construct Immunities, Pilfer
Medic x2 45/1/5/12/7(8 w/ Faction)/5/37/1 Immunity-Disease, Cleanse, Heal Champion 2, Passive, Immunize
Outcast of the Flame 65/13/11/8(9 w/ Faction)/14/37/3-6 Fire Aura 3, Incinerate 1, Dissipate, Confuse Attacker
Outcast of the Flame 84/2/13/11/10(11 w/ Faction)/14/37/3-6 Immunity Fire, Fire Aura 3, Incinerate 2, Dissipate, Confuse Attacker
Timber Wolves 83/2/10/10/9(10 w/ Faction)/9/24/1 Detection 1, Skirmisher, Timber Wolves
War-Enchanted Groble 64/1/10/19/7(8 w/ Faction)/11/45 Spellswallower, Resistance-Fire 2, Construct Immunities, Adaptive-Ironfist, Loyalty
Spells
Ancestral Anger
Butterfly Wings
Glorious Charge
Grimlic's Mirror
Hammer Strike
Light as a Feather
Repair x2
Righteous Deflection
Spontaneous Growth
Equipment
Full Plate
Seed of Potential x2
Showing posts with label Champion Selection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Champion Selection. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Deck Construction: Full-Faction Forsaken Wastes 1- Champion Selection
I find it fascinating how unevenly rune distribution seems to break down when picking up packs. There are 8 factions in Pox, and 10 runes in a pack; I don't know how they handle pack sorting but I don't believe there's a ton of care put into ensuring that every faction is represented. This isn't a bad thing, since the game's setup really encourages sticking to one or two factions and developing your ability with them.
Still, there are a couple of factions with what feels like really lackluster representation in my collection. I often feel like the Wastes are one of them, even though I should ostensibly love this faction. It's almost entirely made up of undead, be they skeletons, zombies, or more exotic creatures. It's focused on debilitating effects, weakening your opponent in ways that your own creatures can ignore, and profiting from the death of your own and your opponent's pieces. This meshes extremely well with the Wastes' faction bonus, which is a reduction in the wait time before your dead creatures recover (the cooldown). To reflect this, many of the runes are extremely fragile, sometimes ridiculously so. Cooldowns for creatures are based on total nora cost, and there are many runes which a full-faction FW deck can cast every few turns; a few, I believe, can even be cast every turn if you don't do much to upgrade them.
As someone whose favorite color in Magic when he started was black, whose first truly great Magic deck was a black deck focused on graveyard reanimation, and who gradually came to appreciate the permission assholery of Blue in conjunction with black, I should love everything about FW.
Unfortunately, FW decks seem to be extremely dependent on a few crucial, excellent runes. That's one thing that runs differently than Magic or DnD Minis: certain runes simply become must-haves. Although some cards are simply excellent in Magic, the tight 60 card limit most serious players try to adhere to and high percentage of resource cards that are necessary combine to prevent any color from having must-play cards. Particular deck archetypes might hinge on a few key cards, but a different deck in the same color might ignore them entirely. In Pox, certain runes seem to be must-haves across the board- if you're playing the faction, you're playing it in part to have that rune (or two of that rune). It's no surprise the runes in question aren't commons.
I don't have most of the critical runes in the FW set. I don't have the Unholy Tomb, which damages non-undead and pays you for it. This is a critical rune not only because you're profiting and hurting all the living foes you face globally, but also because it sets up all the extant creatures to be targeted by Festering Wounds, another must-have (non-rare, surprisingly!) rune of which I only possess one. Festering Wounds inflicts a disease effect on all wounded creatures currently in play; disease both reduces the creature's attack/defense stats and inflicts continual damage over the next 5 turns. Not only does this soften your foes for the killing blow, it also breaks stealth on hidden units, mediates the effects of regeneration, and increases (albeit slightly) the damage all of your units do.
FW runes don't have great area of effect spells, and generally aren't doing the greatest damage. Many runes are initially slow, and as I mentioned before they're often fragile. Those hurdles are overcome in part by the FW having some of the techiest abilities of any faction. There are powers that screw with healing, powers that feed your bank or repair your home base, and many keyworded powers that just don't exist anywhere else.
Starting with my champions, then, here are the key pieces I'm interested in using:
Animated Blade-C Stupidly fragile, the blade is a quick flyer with multiattack and shatter. Shatter helps me avoid dealing with equipment, and I'm simply a sucker for multiattack. Multiattack feels like breaking the game to me; getting more attacks with fewer points means increased efficiency. On an Animated Blade, though, the rune is usually dead before it can pick up enough AP to achieve the fabled 3-swing turn- at least without Mobilize.
Anthropomancer-U I love healing because I feel it lets me get greater use out of my runes; Anthropomancers heal the entire group when they come into play, and I think that's valuable. They also have curse 2, which lets you gang up on a creature and tear him down, or nerf an opponent's speed in order to drastically reduce their threat. Their third ability, auruspicy, grants an extra rune reveal and bonus action points when the Anthropomancer scores a killing blow. While neat in theory, it seems difficult to set up.
Arctic Beast-C This is another one of those runes which are presumably horrible, but I can't help but love. The picture for this rune would actually display when the game loaded during an expansion in which it wasn't released, and the grinning, skeletal zombie-G'hern was very attractive. I like that the beast has climb, which is an easy 1st turn font on a couple of maps which are otherwise tricky. Chill and attack-frost are also nice, because outside of the Savage Tundra you don't run into a lot of frost resistance/invulnerability. Their base damage is also high- the only real problem with the Beast is that it has horrible defense.
Blood Fiend-U For a short time, these guys were insane. They have an interesting mechanic whereby they don't gain action points through regular means, and instead damage themselves for 8 action points- enough to swing twice. Blood Fiends used to be able to activate this power as soon as you cast them, meaning they were faster than any other unit in the game. Now, though, there's a 1 turn delay before the ability is available- I believe it's the only rune in the game with that trait. Since the change I haven't bothered to return to them.
Carrion Colossus-E I have this weird luck when it comes to getting rares, exotics, and limited editions; I very, very often pull runes from the Forsaken Wastes but they tend to just suck. The Colossus is no exception; I'm not sure how to make him great, and he's so expensive to play that once he comes out I really want to see him win the entire game. He does not. I wish he would, though.
Dark Enchantress-R See above. At one point I think I had three or four of these. Her base damage is just ridiculously low, and her defense is wretched. Back when Possess was good she still wasn't able to get the best version. I simply don't understand what the developers want me to do with her. She can serve as an okay road block between charm, fear, and (I suppose) possess; but she's so fragile that she just dies at range and her damage is too low to really help restore her with lifedrinker. She does have Phase Shift though, and I'm eyeing an insubstantial BG which that would benefit.
Dark Seductress-U Yeah, creativity reigns in the naming here. I like this quirky piece, and it would go well with the stealth-insubstantial concept. She also has zealot-lich, but all the liches I have I generally don't care for.
Death Harvester-R I want this piece to be awesome; profiting me to no end as my foes fall. However, his Dead Eater power wants him to be in combat, but he can't attack undamaged opponents. I'm sure this is no problem for people with Unholy Tomb, but as I said earlier...yeah.
Essence Devourer-U I was reading a deck-building column one of the devs for the game maintains, and he built a concept around this guy. It's something I could pursue, I think; I probably have enough token generators to keep him fed and he is big and scary.
Eternal Lich-R I think the name is woefully misleading. When this guy is summoned he produces a relic; when he dies he returns to the space where the relic was, assuming the relic is there. What I was expecting, though, is that he'd then drop another relic. Without that he's not really eternal, he's just something who pops back. Unfortunately, that is his only ability. Despite being a floating wisp he doesn't even fly. His range is awkward and his stats don't blow me away.
Shadestalker-C This is another strange rune; Energy Thief was originally an iconic ability for a sort of stealthy Skeezick creature without much else going for it. Given to a creature without stealth removes the biggest frustration associated with that guy, which was when you'd run around losing action points, no clue where it was. However, I'm eyeing a concept that would give insubstantial creatures stealth, meaning that the Shadestalker might be worth trying out (he has Phase Shift).
Utterdark Spectre This is the guy I'm angling to use. He surges off of stealthed units, gaining increased attack and damage. Since his damage starts at 12, that's already quite impressive. He also gives all insubstantial creatures stealth at the end of each of his turns, and so I think there are several ways I could make that useful. The real challenge is that I think this deck would be best served as a split-faction deck, bringing in the Underdepths for all of their excellent stealth champions and the new stealth spell available there; plus the Shadow Master, which has an area stealth it can drop on all of your units.
I think I'm going to pursue the stealth/insubstantial concept as a full-faction experiment, but I'm already preparing myself to abandon this project in favor of a split faction approach.
Tenative Selections:
Dark Enchantress x2
Dark Seductress x2
Disturbed Spirit x1
Eternal Lich
Ethereal Soldier
Lich King
Mute Stalker
Shadestalker x2
Skeletal Berserker x2
Utterdark Spectre
Vampyre
Wandering Zombie x2
For the most part this is a lot of folks who can go insubstantial, and thus profit from the Spectre. The pieces that aren't that are generally intended for offense (Lich King) or clogging the ground (Zombie). I'm already not crazy about this build, but it is a starting point. I'm already anticipating the need for more range and a little more beef on the ground; if I cave and buy the FW starter to mine for parts I'd definitely add a second Ethereal Soldier.
Still, there are a couple of factions with what feels like really lackluster representation in my collection. I often feel like the Wastes are one of them, even though I should ostensibly love this faction. It's almost entirely made up of undead, be they skeletons, zombies, or more exotic creatures. It's focused on debilitating effects, weakening your opponent in ways that your own creatures can ignore, and profiting from the death of your own and your opponent's pieces. This meshes extremely well with the Wastes' faction bonus, which is a reduction in the wait time before your dead creatures recover (the cooldown). To reflect this, many of the runes are extremely fragile, sometimes ridiculously so. Cooldowns for creatures are based on total nora cost, and there are many runes which a full-faction FW deck can cast every few turns; a few, I believe, can even be cast every turn if you don't do much to upgrade them.
As someone whose favorite color in Magic when he started was black, whose first truly great Magic deck was a black deck focused on graveyard reanimation, and who gradually came to appreciate the permission assholery of Blue in conjunction with black, I should love everything about FW.
Unfortunately, FW decks seem to be extremely dependent on a few crucial, excellent runes. That's one thing that runs differently than Magic or DnD Minis: certain runes simply become must-haves. Although some cards are simply excellent in Magic, the tight 60 card limit most serious players try to adhere to and high percentage of resource cards that are necessary combine to prevent any color from having must-play cards. Particular deck archetypes might hinge on a few key cards, but a different deck in the same color might ignore them entirely. In Pox, certain runes seem to be must-haves across the board- if you're playing the faction, you're playing it in part to have that rune (or two of that rune). It's no surprise the runes in question aren't commons.
I don't have most of the critical runes in the FW set. I don't have the Unholy Tomb, which damages non-undead and pays you for it. This is a critical rune not only because you're profiting and hurting all the living foes you face globally, but also because it sets up all the extant creatures to be targeted by Festering Wounds, another must-have (non-rare, surprisingly!) rune of which I only possess one. Festering Wounds inflicts a disease effect on all wounded creatures currently in play; disease both reduces the creature's attack/defense stats and inflicts continual damage over the next 5 turns. Not only does this soften your foes for the killing blow, it also breaks stealth on hidden units, mediates the effects of regeneration, and increases (albeit slightly) the damage all of your units do.
FW runes don't have great area of effect spells, and generally aren't doing the greatest damage. Many runes are initially slow, and as I mentioned before they're often fragile. Those hurdles are overcome in part by the FW having some of the techiest abilities of any faction. There are powers that screw with healing, powers that feed your bank or repair your home base, and many keyworded powers that just don't exist anywhere else.
Starting with my champions, then, here are the key pieces I'm interested in using:
Animated Blade-C Stupidly fragile, the blade is a quick flyer with multiattack and shatter. Shatter helps me avoid dealing with equipment, and I'm simply a sucker for multiattack. Multiattack feels like breaking the game to me; getting more attacks with fewer points means increased efficiency. On an Animated Blade, though, the rune is usually dead before it can pick up enough AP to achieve the fabled 3-swing turn- at least without Mobilize.
Anthropomancer-U I love healing because I feel it lets me get greater use out of my runes; Anthropomancers heal the entire group when they come into play, and I think that's valuable. They also have curse 2, which lets you gang up on a creature and tear him down, or nerf an opponent's speed in order to drastically reduce their threat. Their third ability, auruspicy, grants an extra rune reveal and bonus action points when the Anthropomancer scores a killing blow. While neat in theory, it seems difficult to set up.
Arctic Beast-C This is another one of those runes which are presumably horrible, but I can't help but love. The picture for this rune would actually display when the game loaded during an expansion in which it wasn't released, and the grinning, skeletal zombie-G'hern was very attractive. I like that the beast has climb, which is an easy 1st turn font on a couple of maps which are otherwise tricky. Chill and attack-frost are also nice, because outside of the Savage Tundra you don't run into a lot of frost resistance/invulnerability. Their base damage is also high- the only real problem with the Beast is that it has horrible defense.
Blood Fiend-U For a short time, these guys were insane. They have an interesting mechanic whereby they don't gain action points through regular means, and instead damage themselves for 8 action points- enough to swing twice. Blood Fiends used to be able to activate this power as soon as you cast them, meaning they were faster than any other unit in the game. Now, though, there's a 1 turn delay before the ability is available- I believe it's the only rune in the game with that trait. Since the change I haven't bothered to return to them.
Carrion Colossus-E I have this weird luck when it comes to getting rares, exotics, and limited editions; I very, very often pull runes from the Forsaken Wastes but they tend to just suck. The Colossus is no exception; I'm not sure how to make him great, and he's so expensive to play that once he comes out I really want to see him win the entire game. He does not. I wish he would, though.
Dark Enchantress-R See above. At one point I think I had three or four of these. Her base damage is just ridiculously low, and her defense is wretched. Back when Possess was good she still wasn't able to get the best version. I simply don't understand what the developers want me to do with her. She can serve as an okay road block between charm, fear, and (I suppose) possess; but she's so fragile that she just dies at range and her damage is too low to really help restore her with lifedrinker. She does have Phase Shift though, and I'm eyeing an insubstantial BG which that would benefit.
Dark Seductress-U Yeah, creativity reigns in the naming here. I like this quirky piece, and it would go well with the stealth-insubstantial concept. She also has zealot-lich, but all the liches I have I generally don't care for.
Death Harvester-R I want this piece to be awesome; profiting me to no end as my foes fall. However, his Dead Eater power wants him to be in combat, but he can't attack undamaged opponents. I'm sure this is no problem for people with Unholy Tomb, but as I said earlier...yeah.
Essence Devourer-U I was reading a deck-building column one of the devs for the game maintains, and he built a concept around this guy. It's something I could pursue, I think; I probably have enough token generators to keep him fed and he is big and scary.
Eternal Lich-R I think the name is woefully misleading. When this guy is summoned he produces a relic; when he dies he returns to the space where the relic was, assuming the relic is there. What I was expecting, though, is that he'd then drop another relic. Without that he's not really eternal, he's just something who pops back. Unfortunately, that is his only ability. Despite being a floating wisp he doesn't even fly. His range is awkward and his stats don't blow me away.
Shadestalker-C This is another strange rune; Energy Thief was originally an iconic ability for a sort of stealthy Skeezick creature without much else going for it. Given to a creature without stealth removes the biggest frustration associated with that guy, which was when you'd run around losing action points, no clue where it was. However, I'm eyeing a concept that would give insubstantial creatures stealth, meaning that the Shadestalker might be worth trying out (he has Phase Shift).
Utterdark Spectre This is the guy I'm angling to use. He surges off of stealthed units, gaining increased attack and damage. Since his damage starts at 12, that's already quite impressive. He also gives all insubstantial creatures stealth at the end of each of his turns, and so I think there are several ways I could make that useful. The real challenge is that I think this deck would be best served as a split-faction deck, bringing in the Underdepths for all of their excellent stealth champions and the new stealth spell available there; plus the Shadow Master, which has an area stealth it can drop on all of your units.
I think I'm going to pursue the stealth/insubstantial concept as a full-faction experiment, but I'm already preparing myself to abandon this project in favor of a split faction approach.
Tenative Selections:
Dark Enchantress x2
Dark Seductress x2
Disturbed Spirit x1
Eternal Lich
Ethereal Soldier
Lich King
Mute Stalker
Shadestalker x2
Skeletal Berserker x2
Utterdark Spectre
Vampyre
Wandering Zombie x2
For the most part this is a lot of folks who can go insubstantial, and thus profit from the Spectre. The pieces that aren't that are generally intended for offense (Lich King) or clogging the ground (Zombie). I'm already not crazy about this build, but it is a starting point. I'm already anticipating the need for more range and a little more beef on the ground; if I cave and buy the FW starter to mine for parts I'd definitely add a second Ethereal Soldier.
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