I've been very successful at Death March for a long time now, and I thought I would share my builds. Pre-Death March Warrior Build # 1 [GL] Barazagril Level 18 Dwarf Warrior The Lunginator Petochl's Sword Lochaber Axe Spiked Tlahuiztli Slippery Shield Helmet Of Thorns Sticky Slippers Apprentice Ferocity Novice Bruising This dwarf was very murderous. Many games were ended when my warrior landed next to their dwarf wizard and Mighty Bludgeoned him in the face. Sundering Strikes were great when my opponents left their backs exposed since they had Toughness. Now make a duplicate dwarf and add one Dwarf Wizard (see below) and you have build 1. Dwarf warrior build #2 [GL] Barazagril Level 18 Dwarf Warrior The Lunginator Lochaber Axe Warrior's Mace Spiked Tlahuiztli Slippery Shield Helmet Of Thorns Goat Boots Solid Rock Novice Bruising And this build is slightly less murderous, but less likely to Blind Rage himself to death. Still very effective. PS: The Lunginator is amazing. Not far from Warrior's Mace, though. Again, I used two of these guys + the Magic Man. Now for the aforementioned Wizard: [GL] Vornduk Level 18 Dwarf Wizard Illusion Trembling Staff Rod Of Winds Rod Of Winds Rod Of Winds Rod Of Winds Rockshard Robes Naradoc's Boots Solid Rock Electroporter Novice I should have named him, "Up up and away!". Nothing was more effective than spamming Whirlwind Enemies. This is the only time I would use WW/WWE ever, because it was so darned effective against all the Wall of Stone /campy firestorm opponents. Note that I didn't even use up my Gold token. Naradoc's Boots were the source of many, many wins. I attribute a fair margin of success to having 2 Immovable in each character's deck. Add some big attacks and whirlwinds, and you have a recipe for murderizing. Now post-balance: Death March build (Current) [GL] Barazagril Level 18 Dwarf Warrior The Lunginator The Lunginator The Strongarm Sparking Shell Hawlic's Surging Shield Necalli Cap Sticky Slippers Solid Rock Novice Bruising 6 x Lunging Bash 3 x Surging Shield Block 1 x Thick Hide Armor 5 x Strong Hack 1 x All Out Attack 1 x Wild Run 1 x Parry 1 x Toughness 2 x Mighty Hack 4 x Unnerving Strike 1 x Bludgeon 3 x Immovable 2 x Quickness Aura 1 x Weak Strike 2 x Shimmering Aura 2 x Bruiser [GL] Vornduk Level 18 Dwarf Wizard Illusion Illusion Cinnabar Ring Ring Of Appropriation Rod Of Palver Pree Sander's Force Mirror Rockshard Robes Mouse Boots Perfect Toughness Electroporter Novice 1 x Cautious Sneak 2 x Toughness 1 x Resistant Hide 1 x Boiling Armor 1 x Dissolve Armor 10 x Illusory Barrier 2 x Gusts Of War 2 x Flanking Move 1 x Spark Generator 1 x Hot Spot 1 x Spark Inductor 3 x Stone Spikes 1 x Dimensional Traveller 1 x Rusty Armor 2 x Flash Of Agony 3 x Telekinesis 3 x Force Cone [GL] Guzagrul Level 18 Dwarf Wizard Kazmir's Staff Kazmir's Staff Cinnabar Ring Ring Of Appropriation Rod Of Palver Pree Xochu's Icy Circlet Firehide Robes Mouse Boots Perfect Toughness Electroporter Novice 2 x Freeze 1 x Rusty Armor 2 x Missile Block 1 x Resistant Hide 1 x Boiling Armor 2 x Firestorm 1 x Dissolve Armor 1 x Spark Inductor 2 x Gusts Of War 2 x Flanking Move 1 x Spark Generator 4 x Flash Of Agony 1 x Cautious Sneak 4 x Potent Spark 2 x Cone Of Cold 1 x Stone Spikes 1 x Dimensional Traveller 1 x Hot Spot 2 x Toughness 3 x Telekinesis 1 x Force Cannon This is my latest build. It isn't perfect, but it works pretty well with the two wizards. It also showcases some of my ridiculous duplicate legendaries.
I have something like a 90% win rate on Death March. Basically just spam Illusory Barrier and Force Cannon with one or two Wizards and then have a Warrior with Nimble Strike and bit hits (Infused Greatclub / Bejeweled / Almighty Hack).
With 2 Illusions it doesn't surprise me this build is so successful. Illusory Barrier is super op for Death March, and it makes a HUGE difference if one player has it and the other doesn't. Illusion is, basically, what Vibrant Pain was in ranked MP before the changes, and probably worst. The worst thing is that if you don't have it, it's impossible to counter it unless you want to handicap badly your deck just to be able to deal with it ()like putting tons Wings of Faith in a priest. I know that Illusory Barrier is not such a huge deal in ranked, but I strongly suggest to revise this card for this league for the reasons I said. Now that WW is pretty much gone, Illusory Barrier combined with Force Cannon makes it by far the best build, when all leagues are supposed to have many viable decks and not one above all else. I'm not playing this league again, that's for sure. At least until I get some Illusion myself, but still, it is very boring to have one build so superior to the rest.
I'm saying how things are right now in this league, I'm not sure how the solution would be. Is it possible to ban a card from a league? That would be the best solution in my opinion. The other option is changing the map, but that way the league would lose it's original spirit, so I guess this is not a choice.
Not bad! I want to see what the rest of the players feel about IB in this league, though. One guy's experience is not nearly enough to think about making changes. For example, is there some player with high success rate playing against this kind of build without using any IB?
I would say that Smoke Bombs (burst 2!) counter barriers pretty hard, from experience. Two Warriors + smoke wizard kicks my butt.
Illusory Barrier is even strong in ranked due to its duration 3. I've been pushing for it to be changed to duration 2 since it was revealed. There are counters to it, but it is still insanely strong due to the fact you can easily stack it with Illusion.
I thought the point of Leagues was to make the best possible deck(s) for that scenario? I've thought that Barrier should be reduced to 2 duration but I've never seen it played in ranked. *EDIT* Actually, this makes me think of that small draft tournament I played on the test server a while back. Smoke Bombs and Barriers were pretty great there.
What would be nice for leagues would be to have banned cards. That functionality doesn't currently exist, but it would be something to make certain maps more interesting. And Illusory Barrier is a sleeper OP card. I've seen it a decent number of times in control wizard decks but it is rare only because you need 2 or 3 Illusions to make it work really well.
I play a small amount of Illusory barrier when messing around with my Elf wizards, and I only play as much as I do because I only have that much. It comes in seriously handy when fleeing to better vantage points, and combined with ways of moving the opponents back, it does come in extremely useful. My major concern would mostly be Flash Flood being similar to the wall of stone decks, which are extremely d̶e̶a̶d̶l̶y̶ immobilizing, and combined with some way of protecting the flood casters, it could lock down the opponent annoyingly effectively as well.
Nice Build really gets to the heart of Death March. I just got an illusion and it was not much use to me in MP ranked partially as I was trying it on the crypt maps which I was not ready for and partially I am just not a good control guy (honestly I would love a league with NO victory squares as my brain is much better at kill than control). ANYhow... My one surprise is that you did dual staves on each wiz as opposed to one of each on each, that is just my style. If one gets knocked out you dont lose access to one of the staves completely. I dont think Illusionary Barrier needs to be nerfed... because it is so clear it is OP, but it gives hope to the SP quest players trying to complete the 1HP missions and now that I am languishing in the 1300s I haven't seen it i n a while (darn trying a new build). IF and BIG IF they were going to change Death March I would make the teeny tiny change of having open spaces next to the vic square or of course no vic square at all.
I put all the Cone and Linear attacks on one wizard and all the Telekinesis and Barriers on the other wizard, and I always put the Barrier wizard behind the damage wizard so he doesn't get hurt. Having all of the barriers on one wizard gives me a much higher chance of drawing a Barrier on the first turn. I tell you though, if I had one more Sander's Force Mirror I might have considered making the wizards the same. I'm using Orb of Eex as well. Yoloxl's Staff was pretty good to me at one point, currently I am looking for alternatives to Kazmir's Staff. I do have two Red Flames but I don't think that's quite good enough. There's probably some rare/epic staff combos I should look into... Staff of Blazing Sparks, perhaps? *EDIT* Oxha's Sparkspreader does pretty sweet damage on this map, especially with Spark Generator.
