Dwarven Control Wizards

There, fixed.

 

Here's the "secret" control wizard build I'm currently using in the Peasant tournament (Peasant means common/uncommon cards only, in case someone doesn't know). I had to make some big changes but the basic idea of trait cycling is still there. This build is much less effective and versatile than the real thing, but it's still pretty powerful as long as you do not draw Fright at the wrong time. I have beaten regular builds with it in casual testing games. All three wizards are identical.

Pearwood Staff has some great cards, but it also has the biggest weakness of this build: Fright.

I took Counterblast Staff because I was expecting a lot of wizards. I haven't seen that many. Encumber staff might have been a better choice.

Armorbane Pendant has been pretty effective in getting rid of enemy armor. It's basically a much less effective version of Short Perplexing Ray. Good thing about it is that it's tokenless.

That's it. It's a pretty straightforward build. If you want to try control wizards, copy-paste this build and maybe replace some of the cards with rare versions if you have them, starting from Trembling Staff.

3 x Dwarven Wizard
Level 20 Dwarf Wizard

Pearwood Staff​

Counterblast Staff​

Runestone​

Runestone​

Runestone​

Armorbane Pendant​

Robe Of Lightness​

Glimmer Boots​

Perfect Toughness​

Electroporter Novice​

​

1 x Cloth Armor​

5 x Winds Of War​

2 x Sorcerous Blast​

1 x Hardy Mail​

1 x Spark Generator​

1 x Memory Loss​

1 x Frost Jolt​

1 x Dissolve Armor​

3 x Wall Of Fire​

2 x Counterspell​

1 x Surging Blast​

1 x Run​

2 x Hover​

1 x Spark Inductor​

1 x Jarring Block​

1 x Combustible​

1 x Fright​

1 x Rusty Armor​

1 x Dimensional Traveller​

1 x Mighty Spark​

1 x Acid Jet​

4 x Squeamish​

2 x Toughness​

​

 

Scared Little Girl, this is a terrific writeup! I have been watching you climb the rankings and I was curious when one of the high-rated 3D decks would reveal its mojo. Your build confirms some things I have been wondering about, in particular the question of whether to continue to use the robe of lightness (I have them on two of my mages). I have a couple of questions for you:

1) What do you think of elves? I love their mobility and have been resisting the urge to follow the pack and switch to dwarves. As I go on though the low health is just brutal. Any thoughts on whether elf mages are viable and how to use them? I have a post here where I talk about my build (which bears some very small resemblances to your masterpiece)

2) Regarding that build, what do you think of using a priest? I have been trying to see if there is again a good path here but I have heard so much about the weakness of heals and have also had lots of problems with a vampiric priest as they get their a## handed to them in the necessary close-quarters combat. Is there a possible priest/warrior that can not only work well with your lava strategy but actually enhance it?

And Jarmo, thank you for the great notes on store probability! OMG this makes me much more optimistic about investing the time to check the store daily for various stuff. Do you or anyone else have a list of must-have common/uncommon items that people should look for?

 

I feel like I heard someone call my name...

Vampires are only good when supported by a second priest.

This is the main wisdom I can impart at this point.

 

Here is my opinion on the "essential" commons/uncommons. Basically, these are items that are some of the best choices for their given slot, even when compared with higher rarity options.

General
Advanced Flexibility
Perfect Toughness (or Solid Rock)
Insight

Wizard
Runestone
Electroporter Novice
Robe Of Lightness
Chillwood Staff
Pearwood Staff

Cleric
Rusted Angel Mail
Novice Piety
Glinting Eye Hammer

Warrior
Fool's Coif
Sharp Bashing (Although you'll probably want all the tokenless 2 trait warriors skills)
Double-Edged Sword
Bejeweled Shortsword
Blocking Mace

Welcome to any suggestions.

[Edit: Organized by class]

 

Flaxative, your advice is spot on! I just learned this first-hand when I played against a really neat trio of priests combining heals, vampirism, and buffs. I get it. Now I have to decide if I have the gear and will to go down that route

Vakaz, thank you so much! This is now my go-to wish list. Happy new year!

 

Can you expand on this a bit? What is it they lack and need in support? I've never tried them in multiplayer.

 

Oh dang, what rating was your opponent? Triple priest including vamp is a combo I haven't seen except for when I tried doing it really poorly back on the Halloween rotation

Sure. The thing about vampires is you want huge consistency on your drains. If you have Talented Healer and/or Slippery at the wrong time, you're boned—you need to have drains in hand. And the best way to have drains in hand is to make sure that drains are as big a part of your deck as possible. This means eschewing a lot of the cards you want on a priest in a melee-focused build—nimbus, frenzy, etc.. Basically, if you want to make use of your drains you need to have them every turn, more or less, and if you've got a priest who's drawing mostly drains you're going to need to outsource the frenzy.

As for why you "need" frenzy, drains typically deal low damage—the highest is 6, and the average is 4. If you're hitting from range with the much-loved Spear Of Darkness, you're dealing 3. To make a vampire scary, you really want that Mass Frenzy. Packing a second priest enables your vampire to pick up Frenzy, Nimbus, Martyr's Blessing, and other random benefits without diluting his ability to draw drains. At least, this is my experience bringing vampires to 1500+.

 

You're welcome, I'm glad you found them useful! I don't have a list myself, but you might get some good item ideas from the Hidden Gems thread.

 

I tried elves a bit when I first started doing MP but switched to Dwarves pretty quickly because I like the higher HP and Dwarf racials.

Elves seem to be best as Warriors. Elf Wizards are probably the worst race/class combo in the game because their HP is just way too low, and no amount of mobility will fix that. You never see Elf wizards in the top-10.

Speaking of elves, I recommend every new player to make a 3 elf build that is based on Insight and Club Of Devastation (or something similar). You might not get to top-10 using that build, but it's pretty fun and highly educational because you see all the cards almost every single round, which forces you really to think your moves.

Superb Footwork is another great Elf item that I like to use.

I haven't tried a Priest with this build. I don't usually play a healing/protecting Priests because they slow things down. I like to do a full damage, Mass Frenzy, vampire Priest. With a build like that you can own pretty much all Warriors in 1 vs. 1 situations. The only disadvantage is lack of mobility.

These Dwarves are powerful and two of them can do pretty decent damage so it is definitely possible to simply replace the 3rd Wizard with something completely different. I don't think that 3rd character would necessarily enhance the lava strategy, but it could make the build more versatile, which is always a good thing. You should test different setups and see for yourself.

I disagree actually. I've played maybe 200+ MP matches with a build I called "Bouncing Dwarves" that had 2 Dwarf Warriors and a vampire Dwarf Priest. It was my main build before I found control wizards. It worked really well and my rating was around 1400-1500 because of it.

My Priest had pretty much nothing but Mass Frenzies (its main job), vampiric attacks (those nice tokenless items), and a couple of Purges. I didn't have any kind of healing or protection spells. It was a real anti-Warrior machine (opponents were often surprised by the damage it dealt) that was great in capping victory squares. Only problem was mobility and wizards, but Savvy Attacker (with Team Run) on the warriors helped a lot.



So yea.. a second Priest is definitely not needed.


But this is getting off-topic.

 

I mean... Fair enough, if you have two warriors benefiting from your frenzies then your vampire's dead turns don't matter much.

 

Thank you, Scared Little Girl! Your post revealed so much to me that I feel I really knew nothing about the game before reading it. I've never realized that switching cards is good (always tried to keep as many Armors as I could), and never even though that drawback cards can be sought upon! My mages always tried to maximize damage, though I have a nice collection of SPR and use it.Natually, I'd like to build the Control Wizards, but I lack some key items and don't like to copy other's decks. There are few thoughts about the game in general:

1. Negative traits should NOT be replaced. Drawbacks should be... er... drawbacks, not the advantages!
2. Winds Of War should be nerfed. Move 2 characters 3 squares from range 6 and even inflict damage on top of that??? 1 damage isn't much, but it shows you what armor does the opponent have. Also, you shouldn't move the enemy characters yourself: that makes abusing terrain too easy. The characters should be moved away from the caster.

As for your deck, I'd choose Frosty Staff just because people are going to play Smoke Bombs against you, and Cone of Cold doesn't require a target. Also, your Squeamish may prevent you from casting Frost Jolts.

 

Smoke bomb is not a very big part of the meta, and it stops cones.

 

Sorry, Flaxative, but I think you're mistaken there. Cones spread from the caster as always, smoke or no smoke.

 

Huh, are they different from lines in that regard? I know my flame jets have been stopped by smoke before, just assumed it was that way for all set AoE attacks. EDIT: Durr, lines are still targeted. Ignore me.

 

Nice build for sure SLG. The Only reason I havn't joined the DC domination yet, is that I don't have any trembling staffs.

 

Ahhhh the (not so) nice old days

 

arcane curse got put in there instead of vulnerable so now your build is not as consistent... :/