I've been playing around with a lot of Smoke Bomb recently and I wondered if anyone could provide deckbuilding ideas for smoke decks. Searching the Deck Building forum for smoke decks, I didn't find any serious decklist posted later than 2013. There are several dilemmas people may have with building decks with a smoke wizard. What's the "golden number" of copies of Smoke Bomb, so that you don't draw it too much but don't draw it too little? What will the wizard do when smoke is laid down? What will the wizard do when the opposing team has no wizards? What other builds work with smoke other than smoke wizard + 2 warriors? What is the best race for a smoke wizard? Also, do you think smoke is really viable, as in 1700+ viable? --- Some of my thoughts on the topic: I'm not sure if the wizard should have encumber, burst, or whatever. It would be difficult to make those cards not dead if smoke is already laid down. Force Cone I guess would work, but on these maps it might be better to stick to Telekinesis. Yes I know, my name's Deepweed and so people I'm all about the Smoke. Get on with it.
Smoke has far broader use then shutting down enemy wizards. It shuts down any targeting casting (priests and the ever present scouting run) as well as any range 2 attempts at melee. Its buffing your step attacks, violent spins, any sort of cantrip moving you can think of, your dodges and skips etc., especially in the face of stabs and control. It shifts the chances that youre the one opening a confrontation heavily towards your characters. It counters bless and and might smoothen difficult terrain for opening up new paths, even preparing for charges. Make no mistake though, smoke isnt a tool for offense, it just tilts the conditions in the area you have choosen to make your stand. In the end its a clear commitment to counter burfft and will never be able to overcome that concession in terms of elo - unless all you face is indeed wizards. Theres no golden number. I settled with six, since i felt upgrading to 8 didnt help avoiding the surreal patches you get sometimes when you just wont get any smoke for rounds. Also there is no real decision to be made against telekinesis - smoke pin is THE smoke item. Not sure what you mean with dilemma. Might adress that smoke cuts both ways. If you want a wizard who still can partake, mulliks blisterstaff is the best there is if you don't wanna bring low brow volcano to the table. Firestorm is one of the few things that lets you turn enemies from afar while still dealing some damage. As smoke wiz you wont necessarily stand within the smoke. Youll be outside and shove anyone back in sticking his neck out. Alternatively youll deal damage to that lone character. Smoke isolates your opponents team from each other the same as it does with yours. But in most cases you are the one better prepared for that situation. Timing is something you need to mind or even support with cards. You will have to renew the smoke whenever it dissolves, not leaving enemy casters a window to do stuff. In the case of 2 Wr 1 smoke wiz, healing is the most fearsome thing to happen. There have been interesting developements with smoke itemization lately, Smoke on the Water and Wizard Hat, the latter being the more interesting addition. Sorry gulo, but a smoke wizard how i conceive one has no use for the floods. The short barrier on the other hand fits the function.
Rob covered most of the points but additionally: a) If you play the meta, you can certainly hit 1700+ and I've hit 1800+ a few times with a smoke deck. You can definitely hang out in 1700+ this month too. b) 3 Smoke Pins is the best, no other smoke item comes close c) The way I contrast Smoke vs Illusion is this: Smoke is offensive, Illusion is defensive. Illusion is so simple for enemy to walk around, you place is closer to you. Smoke is much larger radius so you can send it out farther and disrupt sightlines. d) Smoke forces close range battle so Heartripper / Blisterstaff our my staves of choice. Heartripper also has the additional synergy that once the smoke clears, your opponent will most likely be holding a larger hand. e) Human best support wizard by far. Leadership or team moves are far superior to anything a dwarf or elf can do. f) Smoke has incredible synergy with step attacks g) If the enemy doesn't have a wizard, they might have a priest, if they don't have a priest, you can hold onto Smoke as dead cards and hope the enemy thinks they are Punishing Bolts. h) I've theorycrafted a 2x wiz, 1x priest smoke deck that could work. Revolves around Entangling Roots. Otherwise, if you're running smoke, you definitely need two melee to have any chance at beating a melee-based team. Whether that be 2 warriors or some use of a priest is up to you. 2 warriors works because they have the mobility.
I been playing not long ago ilusión in great way past weeks VS wizards or warriors i dont think they are worse than smoke. My team with it stay in +1700 without dificult. On topic i think now smoke its great, the wizards teams forgot about defenders and focus on damage and run just tk, so VS other tools most of then are "indefensos" no way to counter. By the way smoke its strong against illusion. Heartreaper its needed for smoke wizards. No matter what they say, defense is the core of the game. Evem my feared warriors have a defensive strategy.
I've actually run a triple wizard smoke deck, which surprisingly turned out to be competitive. It was tricky to play, and I was missing some items, but >50% wins at >1500 level can be considered as a proof of concept. The idea is to be much better prepared for loss of LOS than your opponent may be, through buffed Cone Of Cold, and a decent amount of suitable control (e.g. Force Cone, Violent Spin). Success with this build depends on careful positioning so that you don't cone yourself and Force Cone will push enemies away, and on strategic use of smoke so that your wizards can remain in action while your opponent is hindered. The Cone of Cold synergizes well with the smoke because it makes it that much harder to escape. I also found Wall Of Fire to occasionally be useful in clearing some smoke when it favors you, or just for dealing damage. I agree on the 3 Smoke Pin point. I used all three races dwarf, human, and elf for this build.
Pyrious, was that you I faced in the Mausoleum a couple days ago? Someone with three wizards if I recall correctly, but the human wizard carried smoke. Very surprising. I think I lost that one by a hard-fought landslide. Deepweed, I couldn't tell you about 1700s, but I can say my triple elf war-war-wiz team rocked the house during the Gladatorial Arena maps and the Halloween maps last year. Coning through smoke is great -- and the thing about Step Attacks is that you can use them advantageously, but uh don't forget to account for your opp trying to set you up to Step Attack you, too. $;^ J
I agree that smoke is far far better than illusionary barrier but in the current rotation the illusion seems to be very strong against warriors coz of the difficult terrain esp. in the map with a single diagonal LoS. And as the general strategy for smoke, you need at most 3 x Smoke Pin with the team spread out on the map on extreme ends so as to reduce the advantage of burst. And for the volcano builds just narrow them down in the Smoke. I don't know any more formations. Plus as mentioned earlier you do need the Heartripper. And now for the build: Heartripper, Smoke Pin x 2/3, Mirror Of Melting / Akon's Amulet, Vinorkin's Boots, Raging Battler or Toughness, Electroporter Novice Spoiler: Anti-burst go around strategy It is important that you keep at least 5 blocks between advancing characters so that your enemy doesn't target your characters at all and even if they do then just distribute the damage by hiding the injured char in smoke, heal it and then hit the enemy when it is weak.
Oh hey, you asked how much Smoke is too little/much. Personally, I wound up with Smoke Pin x3 x4 and Smoke Robe -- and was generally willing to pay a major on my third fourth Smoke Pin. So yeah, Smoke Bomb x8 x10 almost always drew the right amount while still allowing my elf proper defenses. From there, you can load your warriors up with Parry and crazy range 1 damage + solid steps (Vicious Thrust, Laser Thrust) since *you* know you're forcing your opp into range 1 for the most part -- whereas your opp might have penetrating/draining stabs and lots of magic. Burst 2 of course has to be dealt with specially because the center of the smoke can be reached (~sigh~ ha ha) but it's probably most easily dealt with by very simply throwing more than one Smoke Bomb (common enough draw) which'll last two turns. And yeah, depending on your opp party, you might... hide them in smoke to waste supporter moves; hide yourself in smoke to scare their wizards away and draw their warriors/priests inside; chunk smoke all over and in front of their dwarf wizards first thing, letting them dread the onslaught to come $}^ J and often knocking them out for an entire first round; remove their terrains in spades (Illusionary, Healing Beacon, Laser Beacon, Lava, Spiked, Hypnotic Beacon, Water, whatever comes) -- often disabling their ability to "fix" your removal (except for more Volcano and Bless of course); skip round 1 difficult terrain while watching your opp overcoming it with more cards (yet another way to help them dread the onslaught to come ha ha ha). I'm not joking about dreading onslaught. I saw many round 1 resignations after 2-3 Smoke Bombs hit the ground. One kinda newcomer (for whom I actually had the elf bomber and two human priests) gave a face, yelled, "NOPE!" and left immediately. One old-timer I was afraid was about to throw the match, but he let me know, his suped-up slaughter party just wasn't equipped in the least to deal with Smoke; victory. Then, sometimes, you have someone who can kill your Smoke -- lots of Cleansing cards and three-adjacent-square wiz terrains, or triple close-up warriors .. or some players figure out how to bypass the warriors to gang up on the wiz or heh figure out it's best to leave the wild wiz chase alone -- and you just try to face them, and you might not make it, (but you might,) and you know the deal, it's difficult for any party to deal with every party, so hey. P.S. Smoke party vs. Smoke party often became fascinating, vicious, down-and-dirty, knock-down-drag-outs because (upon realization of what the battle is) you each know what your parties are essentially built for, and you each have to just plain-out outdo the other in the same overall tactics -- now who can position better? build decks better? psyche/bluff better? Pretty awesome stuff. $E^ b EDIT: Whoops! I was thinking only 3 Arcane Items for some absentminded reason. I meant I maxed out on Smoke Pins + the Smoke Robe for 10 Bombs total (out of a deck of 30-32). I fixed it in the text above.
I'm trying this build now and it doesn't wrk that good as mentioned here. Strong burfft will still destroy it and Hearipper that I dn't have is mostly dead card because of poor range. I am seeking some variant that would use different staves but can't find anything that would fit in. And what about warriors? I am using now BJSS+Nova+Rageblood, not that good neither.
Heartreaper its for punish opponent warrior or priest, not working against burfft. If i would run smoke and want to take the VP i would use two warrior, one with bloodchopper, blocks, armor and violent spins and other with some tech vs wizards. I find the best way to smoke its a 2 or 3 squares of the opponent wizard, and try to the victory points not at reach of burst 2. In this maps not always smoke its good.
I tried it and I had closest games vs 1750+ burfft users. Much closer, sometimes decided by rolls than games against some strange 1300 triple priest/max nimbus builds that totally wrecked me. The problem is with balancing it out, to be good vs burfft but not be bad vs everything else.
Well some ramdom loss with some weird team is not a bad thing, i got sorprised by an human priest with all out attack in a 1350 build or so. You may try 2 pearwood on the wizard or pearwood and the other with 2 gust of war. What are exactly the issues that you need to solve?
Against burfft, if you don't draw smoke when they buff it means you always lose. Against everything else, you are just bad. As for staves I found out best are ones that deal huge ranged damage, Heatripper has too short range and there is something wrong with Supercooled Laser that makes it does not work.
I've made a version that's flexible enough to face just about everything (blitzed a 3 elf war team) but does lose to burrft in Lichard's Mausoleum (Ranked) when smoke is not drawn. It does very well against wizard teams though, which is what I was after.
