A few observations

Discussion in 'Castle Mitternacht Playtest' started by Frostguard, Sep 30, 2016.

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  1. Frostguard

    Frostguard Thaumaturge

    I've played seven or eight games so far. I used two parties, both had a dwarf warrior, wizard and priest, respectively. I played the first party for two games, and all three characters were focused on their respective transformations; in the second I tried to test a few specific cards for each class. I'll update this post sometime soon with the exact decks.

    Dalin
    Level 2 Dwarf Warrior

    Darur
    Level 2 Dwarf Wizard

    Baran
    Level 1 Dwarf Priest

    My first party was very similar, except I used the focused transformation skills instead of the ones here.

    Lycanthropic Form: To be honest, it almost feels a little underpowered to me, at least compared to the other two. They get a good amount of penetrating attacks and Sundering Strike, which is all good, but I found that armour is practically nonexistent in most games I played (for a reason I'll detail later, but I'm sure you all know anyway). Mighty Charge is good, but considering that your werewolf is going to be in melee most of the time, it's hard to get much use out of it.

    Ethereal Form: Dangerous. It turns out that immunity to non-targeted damage affects many more cards than I'd initially thought. They get a number of cards that seem immensely powerful for their value and to which it's incredibly hard to answer - Boo!, Mind Muddle and Unholy Curse, to just name a few. They have Travelling Curses, from which they'll take no damage due to Ethereal Form, either. They make up for all this by having a few lacklustre cards, such as Beam of Hate, but they are generally hard to deal with.

    Vampiric Form: Their decks seem to be the most consistent. They rarely seem to get useless cards. Flight Aura might not be what you want in a few situations, but even then it can be handy. For the most part, however, I got the feeling that when you have characters in vampiric form, you hope to either get Vampire's Kiss or Swarm of Bats, or both if possible. And the game itself will be very different depending on whether you get those or not. In other battles I find that the game is eventually decided by a huge vampiric brawl, and generally the side that first succeeds in not giving its opponent Vampire's Kiss or Swarm of Bats through their very own Vampire's Kisses tend to come out winning.

    Vampire's Kiss: About half the games I played included at least two vampires on my opponent's side. Vampire's Kiss feels the most overpowered card to me so far, and by a wide margin. Removing all cards, armour included, is a powerful effect that allows vampires to easily overcome one of the two things that used to be their only weaknesses. And I'm not even talking about healing for twice the amount of damage dealt yet. Ordinarily that's twelve points of healing, nearly half the health of a human priest, and then we haven't even had frenzies yet. I've seen vampires heal nearly to full health from a single attack. The idea's good, but the balance seems really off to me, and then there's the issue of just how many it's possible to put into a deck.

    Boo!: Closest contender to Vampire's Kiss, I believe. It also seems to be one of its few counters, and of vampires in general. I don't think I met a single Purge in my games (it seems that I was wrong about that), which made Boo! a frighteningly potent card in most of my matches. Putting it on buffed characters is especially evil, forcing your opponent to choose between discarding all those attacks or all the buffs they spent so much time applying. It's also good at self-preservation. All in all, I feel it might be too powerful overall, and it's very cheap at silver.

    Swarm of Bats: Skip taken up to eleven. Probably too good even for gold quality. For the increased cost you got a removed die roll, and you can take four steps and teleport. That's huge. It allows the vampires to hunt down fleeing near-dead characters, which suits them, I suppose, or to avoid an attack. Why I'm mentioning it, however, is the final phase of battles. When you're in that phase, attacking a vampire tends towards suicidal. Because if you do, you're essentially giving them a cantrip move with four steps and teleport, which they're going to use to conveniently position themselves behind your weakest character, not bothering with blocks, and winning the game. Vampires, of course, will almost invariably be the ones surviving into that phase, and this makes them unreasonably hard to deal with.

    Vengeance: I'm unsure. The damage is slightly lacking, but the effect of the card is incredible. It's Sparkling Cloth Armour, sure, at least at first glance. But it's much more than that. It's attack/boost, which might not seem to make much of a difference at first, except for two things. One is that it's effective against acid wizards, as it's attack/boost. I've had a single Vengeance in hand once and traversed nearly the entire battlefield at just the start of a single round, skipping from acid tile to another. I assume it's intended to work that way, that is, as a counter to acid wizards. Another important thing to note is that players can get many of them scarily effectively (either on weapons that barely cost any tokens or on ones that are costly but come with a powerful array of cards), which, together with the fact that their effects stack, may cause balance issues.

    Acid Leak and Hex of Dissolution: I might be playing it completely wrong (also, my wizard had a few copies of Boo! in his deck as well), but acid wizardry seems fairly balanced to me. Hex of Dissolution rarely seems to deal more damage than 7-8, which doesn't feel too much considering how much work it takes to set that up. It's also not problematic in terms of availability, as a few other powerful cards are, considering I've only seen it on a few staves (three at most) and on arcane skills, but using those skills would heavily compromise the damage bonus from Acid Leak, so it seems counterproductive. The only thing I'm a little worried about, regarding acid wizards, is that their ability to flood the battlefield with acid tiles is yet another blow to armour, which is already hit really hard by other things.
    Edit here: I'll probably take this back now; only posting my deck made me realise I had fewer acid cards in the deck than I thought I did. I felt I drew them pretty often. I'm going to try to put more of those in my deck and see how it works.

    Wind Dancer: I love the concept. Please don't get me wrong, I really do. But to be entirely honest, I'm almost convinced that it's fairly useless, especially at silver. After I was done with lycanthropy, my warrior did plenty of dancing with the wind. He spent rounds with three and occasionally even four Unreliable Blocks in hand, and he invariably ended up discarding them. In lower quantities they just won't trigger except if you're really lucky, and by the time you get to the point where their chance to stop an attack grows... well, not high, but at least reasonable, your opponent is likely to have few attacks left and even more likely to keep those in hand, ending the round and watching you discarding all those blocks. Again, I might be doing this wrong, but there seems to be little reason to use it. One interesting combination could be a movement-heavy warrior stocking up on Unreliable Blocks and then getting bitten by a friendly Vampire's Kiss; I'm not really sure. I'll probably play around with that later.

    Blight: Hard to use effectively. I tried to mess around with it; the main problem is that it doesn't seem to have much of a place in a deck right now. It fits on a priest who wants to be close to as many enemies as possible but also no allies, and those priests will usually want Talented Healer or Vampiric Form instead. Trying to pair it with Sacred Shroud should be interesting, speaking of which...

    Sacred Shroud: I'm not complaining, Holy Armour needed some love. So far I've only played against it, so it's harder to tell if it was effective on its own or because it was on vampires; nevertheless, it augments their already extreme survivability. On the other hand, most of the time it doesn't stay too long in the game, because... you know... vampires.

    Walpurgis Night: Very chaotic. I've only been playing against it, and if brought in sufficient quantities, it really messes up everything on the battlefield. All characters end up with a random assortment of cards from all forms, varying even on a single character. It leads to some really broken combinations like Vampire's Kiss from vampiric form combined with All-out Attack from lycanthropic form; it even happens that you're lucky enough to have a Swarm of Bats and if an opponent attacks you, you get to teleport behind an enemy for the kiss.

    As a sidenote, it's more than likely that I'm going to return to edit this post later, both because I have the decks to add and I'm sure I've forgotten a few cards I'll only remember after I click the Create Thread button. I can also provide the list of my opponents and the approximate decks they used, if it's any help.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2016
    Frostguard, Sep 30, 2016
    #1
    wereviper, Maniafig and Flaxative like this.
  2. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    Thank you, and yes, please edit later with your decklists and your opponents' names (you don't need to post their decklists but describing how the game went would be nice).
     
    Flaxative, Oct 1, 2016
    #2
  3. Frostguard

    Frostguard Thaumaturge

    I'm going to write my battles here, as trying to edit them into the previous post resulted in a post over 15000 characters. Since then I've played seven more battles; I'm going to write about those as well, probably in better quality as they are more recent.

    I played against Lucky Dice, who brought two acid wizards (more focused than mine) and an elf warrior. The map was Citadel Light Hall; my dwarves drew no extra moves first round, which ended up giving away a few victory points, considering that seas of acid made it much harder to even get close later on. If I remember correctly, Boo! gave a hard time to the elf warrior and my own warrior managed to Vengenace his way to the victory squares eventually, but it was too late; I lost.

    I played against Valadilene, who had vampires with Sacred Shroud. The game was fairly long, and included a few vampires nearly killed, but in the end I didn't stand a chance. Most of my experiences regarding these new vampire priests can be found under Vampiric Form, Vampire's Kiss and Swarm of Bats above, so I doubt I'll write too much about them; I'd end up repeating myself.

    Same opponent, same map, but I had a different deck this time, roughly what you can see above. It worked better, but not by much. Due to Vampire's Kiss I ended up with vampire cards anyway, and I might've lasted a little longer, I still lost in the end.

    My opponent was tmzerozero with three dwarf vampires with Cause Fumble added, the map was Host. I managed to delay the inevitable with Boo! and some positioning, but blocks and vampirism don't add up to an easy battle. I lost this one, too.

    I played against adajon, who had an acid wizard and two vampiric priests. I managed to severely injure one of the priests. I won the game when my priest got Swarm of Bats and used it to catch up to the fleeing priest and kill him, and my warrior cornered the acid wizard and killed him, too, though it was a very close call.

    My opponent was Maniafig, who brought an elf warrior, wizard and priest with transformations and plenty of Walpurgis Night. The latter resulted in utter chaos. My wizard drew plenty of acid, which my opponent's ghosts could easily shrug off, and I positioned poorly, which cost me the game.

    Similarly against Maniafig. The party was the same, but the end result very different. He drew Walpurgis Night much more often, resulting in a much more chaotic game despite my own Antimagic Skins. I had vampires with Mighty Charges, Invigorating Touches boosted by All-out Attacks, and the like. I managed to win in the end, due to a lot of vampire-werewolf hybrids clustered together in the middle when a chain of Mad Dogs went off and favoured me in the end.

    I played against Fanturluche, who brought two priests with some vampirism and a wizard with Inquisition Bolts. I managed to win the battle. My warrior turned to a werewolf at some point (I believe a Howl gave him Lycanthropic Form) and died not too soon after, but the other two characters saved the day. Hex of Dissolution had a large part in it, as well as Boo!, which allowed my own somewhat vampiric priest to fight successfully against two similar ones.

    This was the end of yesterday's battles; the first thing I did today was removing Wind Dancer and Blight and switching to more conventional tokenless martial and divine skills (Novice Impaling and Stalking Vampirism). I made minor and occasionally major changes to my decks after almost every battle; I'll list those changes, I can try to recreate the decks but I don't think it's worth pasting in here multiple times just for changes in a few items.

    I switched out Focused Dervish, like I said, and Captain Cedric's Vow to Stolen Torch. I changed my priest to have fewer vampiric attacks and more Sparks of Undeath. I fought against Maniafig, who brought control, Impenetrable Nimbus and Ancient Grudge. I'll detail my exact thoughts later, while I came close to killing two of the elf wizards, in the end I didn't manage to win, though an untimely Trip had much to do with it. As for the tenth, our parties were the same, mostly, but I switched out Apprentice Resilience to Beginner Toughness. Both maps featured generous amounts of blocking terrain, which favoured the elves with their suddenly increased number of Gusts of War and Pipes of Hamelin; and by the time I managed to get close they had enough cards in discard to deal huge amounts of damage.

    My opponent was Stupid531 with two wizards and a priest, on the map Cyberspace Arena. The wizards seemed to have Short Perplexing Rays, Firestorms and Fireballs, the priest was a vampire. The battle was really close, but I lost; I probably misplayed a few times, but it'd be hard to deny that Short Perplexing Rays nearly always discarded the most important cards in my hands, so there was some luck in it. Due to the wizards consistently staying in my line of sight I managed to use Spark of Undeath offensively, my acid wizard got rid of the enemy priest's Sparkling Cloth Armour, who then in turn gave my wizard Invigorating Touch and Swarm of Bats. The latter nearly won me the game, as the enemy wizard had four hit points and I had a Hex of Dissolution, but Short Perplexing Ray saved the day for my opponent.

    I fought against Maniafig, who brought an acid-focused party. An early Vengeance let me slay his priest, though I lost my warrior in the process; an offfensively used Spark of Undeath on one of his wizards weakened him enough so that he could be killed next turn by an Unholy Wellspring. It did well in showing that Spark of Undeath is a decent offensive card against enemies with low mobility (mostly wizards), but is only safe to use at the end of the round. It's an effective tool of denial as well as said wizards will not draw their ranged cards next round, either.

    Maniafig again, who brought an improved party. I added more Vengeances, switching to Talissa's Trident and back to Captain Cedric's Vow. I equipped Lantern Helmet with the spare blue token. I lost the battle; it didn't stand out from other battles against acid wizards and vampires; I'd mostly repeat myself if I described what exactly happened.

    I fought against Maniafig who seemed to have a mostly unaltered deck, I tried to theme mine more around Spark of Undeath. I included Accelerate Time on the wizard (I didn't draw any) and Inquisition Bolts, only to find out that they don't deal extra damage to zombies. Needless to say, I lost; I based this deck on that combination.

    Maniafig again, but I did away with the entire concept of zombies and acid. My warrior still focused on Vengeance, my wizard had a few Silver Bolts (none of which showed up) and some control, as well as six or seven Boo!s. Needless to say I won the game, Boo! managed to practically stunlock a wizard until he was killed, and sometimes one of the other two characters on the side as well. My priest went back to being a vampire, and Swarm of Bats allows to close the distance to wizards really quickly. At one point I had three Vengeances in hand; go figure.

    I'll try to provide additional details should questions arise. As for now, some updated comments on cards.

    Vengeance: Everything I said above still stands, but I underestimated this card. It's very powerful, I often found myself deliberately standing on my opponent's acid tiles only to get the move from it. At this point it seems a powerful counter to acid, but also to wizards in general. Another thing is that I think there's a chance it might be bugged: sometimes I get second and third moves when I hop from acid to acid with Vengeance, other times I don't seem to. It occurred in battles where I didn't bring my own acid cards, either (more specifically in my last battle), so it's not just that I confused my own acid terrain for my opponent's, either.

    Ancient Grudge: As I've mentioned before, I played a few matches against it (and put a few in my deck for a battle or two but never drew them). Large damage numbers can be achieved frightfully quickly. The problem may not be so much with the card but the fact that it's incredibly easy to stall. I'll admit I may be a little biased, but I'm not at all sure that a staff with three Gusts of War on it is a good idea, especially with Pipes of Hamelin. And I haven't even seen the dreaded Pathfinding - Ancient Grudge combination yet.

    Hex of Dissolution: I'll follow Stanter Callman's good example: I take it all back. My wizard was not focused enough. In a few matches both my opponent and I have been running acid wizards, and the damage adds up quickly.

    Boo!: Everything I said above, but more. Putting enough of it in a deck - I had six or seven, and I could've had more - can lock down characters for virtually the entire duration of the game. That's nothing fun to be up against (and it's not much more fun to play with, either, but I feel others might be inclined to disagree).

    Swarm of Bats: Same thing. I forgot to mention that it's shockingly good at closing the distance to wizards. I feel that between Swarm of Bats and Vampire's Kiss, vampires lost the only two weaknesses that had been keeping them in check.

    Spark of Undeath: I really like the concept and it's very versatile. It works great offensively against wizards, who are going to stay in your line of sight but will avoid melee, so they'll be unable to use up the attack cards you give them and may take damage from Blind Rage. Obviously, this works best if they've already used up their cards (they tend to). It's much more risky on melee characters, who tend to have enough moves to rush to yours if they aren't there already. It's also usable as a buff in a few situations, for example on a character stuck in melee against a wounded enemy, but it's less abundant and zombie cards aren't too good to begin with, with the exception of Infected Bite and Brains!. The latter, however, is hard to get much use out of, since I often get the feeling that casting Spark of Undeath on allies is more of a last-resort move, so you need to keep Brains! in hand to benefit much from its stun. All in all it feels fairly balanced to me.

    Inquisition Bolt: I realised too late that it doesn't get extra damage from zombie cards, and doesn't say it does, either. Honestly I don't really understand why it'd give extra damage against all three forms but not zombies, but I guess it's not my place to discuss that. Inquisition Bolt is otherwise powerful against characters who enter forms voluntarily, but that's the rare case, I find; and it's mostly ineffective combined with Vampire's Kiss as enemies will just heal up with the vampire cards they got. Worse yet if they also have Swarm of Bats and can attack the wizard instead. Risky, but practically everything is risky that involves attacking vampires.
    EDIT: I'm not sure if it's working the way intended or not, but my opponent's Inquisition Bolt once revealed (and gained damage from) a Sundering Strike from my priest's Huetotl's Firebrand. I'm aware that Sundering Strike is a werewolf card, but in all honesty it still feels a little unfair and counterintuitive that certain cards fuel Inquisition Bolt only because one of the three forms use them. I'm almost completely a layman as far as this thing goes, but since cards show the item they're from on their information bar, it must exist in the game as a variable, maybe Inquisition Bolt could use that to determine what to reveal? If a card's source is Lycanthropic Form, Ethereal Form or Vampiric Form, I mean. Maybe also Howl. It's just an idea.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2016
    Frostguard, Oct 1, 2016
    #3
    Melancthon and wereviper like this.
  4. Kalin

    Kalin Begat G'zok

    It's probably the order terrain attachments are checked, next time it happens note which direction you moved. You should get extra hops when moving toward the upper left corner, but not when moving down.
     
    Kalin, Oct 1, 2016
    #4
  5. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    Thank you for the detailed writeups. I'm putting you at 15 games played!
     
    Flaxative, Oct 1, 2016
    #5
  6. Frostguard

    Frostguard Thaumaturge

    Dalin
    Level 2 Dwarf Warrior

    Darur
    Level 2 Dwarf Wizard

    Baran
    Level 1 Dwarf Priest

    ​
    I fought against Maniafig, who used a warrior with steps and Wind Dancer, a priest with Greater Heals and Sacred Shroud and a wizard who mostly seemed to have Smoke Bombs and Flash Floods, as well as a few Inquisition Bolts. They all had a few Lucky Charms and Vanguards scattered across them. I played a warrior with Wind Dancer and many more steps than the last time before, a wizard with mostly Boo! and some control, and a priest with a pronounced focus on vampirism. I drew Medium's Garb early in the game, which allowed me to put Doom on a warrior, a moment that actually won me the game four rounds later. It also generated an Ancient Grudge late on the game, which killed the priest (to be fair, though, it went through two Lucky Charms by sheer luck alone. It also doubles as excellent armour. The core concept was to generate great number of Unreliable Blocks on the warrior and then convert them into vampire cards; it seemed to work decently, but my warrior died too fast.

    Against Maniafig once more, decks unchanged. I rushed in with the warrior too quickly, losing him, but managing to kill the enemy wizard as well. This one had one victory square instead of four, and I managed to stand with my vampire on it; she was brought down in the end, but not before she bit my undamaged wizard, who then swarmed onto it after my priest died and won the game.

    One more battle. I changed to Prankster's Feystaff and Chask's Relief. My opponent drew double Medium's Garb fairly soon, and I got Boo! a few times, ultimately costing me the match.

    Darur
    Level 2 Dwarf Wizard

    Baruk
    Level 1 Dwarf Wizard

    Baran
    Level 1 Dwarf Priest

    I played two acid wizards and a priest with ample Bless and Cleansing Rays to counter Acid Leak in case it gets under my characters against Mania's unaltered decks. It played out poorly, I drew no Hex of Dissolution and he drew no Smoke Bomb. In the end I had a warrior murder my wizards.

    We played the same battle with the same decks. This time I drew ample amounts of Hex of Dissolution, and the amount of acid, Bless and Cleansing Ray allowed me to kill both my opponent's warrior and wizard. I lost both my wizards, too, eventually, the first to the warrior rushing in and me lacking control and the other to a lingering Flame Jet and a failed armour roll. With the two priests alone on the victory squares we had an endless stalemate as he had double Sacred Shroud, we couldn't deal each other damage we couldn't outheal. My first battle that ends in a draw, I think.

    Same builds but on a different map (Oasis, whereas the previous two were in Batford's Kitchen). Acid wizards reigned supreme. My opponent had a hard time keeping up with the growing sea of acid with Smoke Bombs, Hexes of Dissolution frequently dealt ten damage or more. Bless and Cleansing Rays completely negate the harmful side-effects of Acid Leak. It wasn't that one-sided, though, at one point I had to use Brains! and Zombie Mob on a wizard so that the other doesn't die to Blind Rage.

    Detailed in a post below.

    My acid wizard squad versus Maniafig's stalling Grudge elves. It was fairly standard as far as acidic matches seem to go. Covering half the map with acid wasn't too hard to do, and Hexes of Dissolution finished off both his priest and one of his wizards (the priest was only reduced to four health, but I had a few Acid Blasts in reserve, so I could put one under him when my opponent gusted him from the acid he was previously standing on; the wizard was on 13 hit points and a Hex of Dissolution took it all). Another highlight includes using acid defensively to replace lava terrain with it after I ran out of all my Cleansing Rays and Blesses.

    New thoughts on cards follow.

    Medium's Garb: Insane card advantage and decent armour. The fact that ghost cards are a grab bag and contain a few that can easily turn a game on their own isn't much in its favour, either.

    Wind Dancer: It seems relatively usable if your deck is chock-full of steps. My opponent generally managed to squeeze a few successes out of them, I didn't. Converting the blocks to vampiric cards seems like a good idea, but can be countered if your health is worn down quickly.
    IMPORTANT: Wind Dancer seems to be bugged. It triggers on attacks like Dancing Cut or Nimble Strike or Vicious Thrust, but I never saw it generate an Unreliable Block when I played Penetrating Lunge or Lunging Bite. I'll try to test other steps soon.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2016
    Frostguard, Oct 1, 2016
    #6
    40c_rudy, Maniafig and wereviper like this.
  7. Frostguard

    Frostguard Thaumaturge

    It might be my confirmation bias, but you're probably right. I remember two cases, one when I skipped through half the battlefield with Vengeance, when I fought in Citadel Light Hall and started from the lower section, so I advanced upwards; and when I fought in a crypt map, and tried to advance downwards, but Vengeance didn't trigger on the second acid square. I don't remember if I took the damage from it, however.
     
    Frostguard, Oct 1, 2016
    #7
  8. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    20 games, thanks!
     
    Flaxative, Oct 1, 2016
    #8
  9. Frostguard

    Frostguard Thaumaturge

    I'm going to write this in a separate post because it seems so broken. I only tested it in one match so far, against Potato Priest, who was using three human warriors with lots of team moves and heavy attacks. My deck is as follows.

    Darur
    Level 2 Dwarf Wizard

    Baruk
    Level 1 Dwarf Wizard

    Baran
    Level 1 Dwarf Priest

    I'm pretty sure you know the concept just by looking at it. It's been mentioned already that Vampire's Kiss could have a good synergy with Inquisition Bolt, except the targets will heal back the damage with vampiric attacks. So what's the solution?

    The solution is what it always is when it's not vampires. It's Boo!. The concept is simple. Boo! someone, use Vampire's Kiss on them (it might be wiser to do it the other way around if your target isn't cornered) and then use Inquisition Bolt. It's ridiculously abusive. I've been dealing damage up to 19 points using this. And my build is far from streamlined.

    Another fight against KKarma, I lost. I feel I misplayed quite a few times, the most prominent among them is when I passed, thinking that my opponent needed two more victory stars to win, but needed only one. Still, I only managed to kill his wizard due to a lucky Maze (unlucky for the wizard who actually cast it); he managed to kill one of my wizards earlier on with a lucky Mighty Charge and a stray Silver Bolt.

    One more note: If you have Talented Healer, your options are expanded even further. You can kiss first and Boo! later, or if your opponent is already frightened, kiss and immediately follow up with an Inquisition Bolt. Damage can be insane.

    Next battle against Maniafig's stalling Grudge elves. It wasn't an easy victory, but cantrip Vampire's Kiss followed by an Inquisition Bolt can make short work of an elf wizard. The vampire didn't really have enough mobility to get to them until later, but Boo! can still lock them down pretty bad. For this battle I changed my setup slightly; now I have two identical wizards (Baruk is equipped exactly the same as Darur). I'm getting the feeling that Frightening Wand is overpowered even above the way Boo! manages to be, and that's saying something.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2016
    Frostguard, Oct 1, 2016
    #9
    Lucky Dice and Flaxative like this.
  10. Frostguard

    Frostguard Thaumaturge

    Today I decided to play around a bit with Vanguard, seeing how its effect looked very powerful but I never saw it in parties where I thought it'd be the most effective. Generally I don't like to play three or even two identical characters in a party, but for the sake of simplicity and putting my team together quickly I decided to do so; here's the human warrior of which I had three.

    Vornqin
    Level 1 Human Warrior

    I played three mostly identical stepping Vanguard warriors with some Vengeance against Maniafig's two direct-damage elf wizards and Walpurgis priest. It was a close match, but I ended up losing; elves are too good at running away, and an Inquisitor's Strike against a warrior with three attachments definitely did hurt. I didn't draw a single armour card, however, and the map was friendly to wizards; even then, I find that Vanguard is incredible. Humans needed the decent traits, and three warriors with Vanguard can approach enemies at an alarming rate.

    Same combatants but on Gladius Wall. The single Walpurgis Night surprisingly didn't mess the game up too badly, except for the ending; I managed to kill my opponent's priest and one of his wizards, he in turn ended one of my warriors and got two victory points. One of my warriors got turned into a vampire with no move cards whatsoever and two Inquisition Bolts destroyed him afterwards. I was about to get my last victory point but the game was decided by his remaining wizard in ghost form getting two Ancient Grudges and Hex of Dissolution (one of those from Medium's Garb).

    Cyberspace Arena, opponent was Fanturluche. My triple human warrior against two elf warriors with Anvil Strikes and a Walpurgis priest. Anvil Strike is still really powerful, and my opponent's Ethereal Forms gave him Boo! sometimes as well, which made my life significantly harder. Vengeance is really useful when the opponent is trying to withdraw injured characters from battle and presses forward when another; I supposed it would be harder to use well against warriors, but it's still powerful and it's good damage if nothing else. In the end I managed to win the battle due to an organised effort from my two remaining characters to take out the enemy priest in vampire form as well as the two victory stars I've gained earlier, but it was a narrow battle.

    My opponent was adajon, who used a priest with Vampire's Kiss, elf warrior and human wizard. The map was Cyberspace Dojo; I still used my three human warriors. The combination of Vanguard and Vengeance can really wreak havoc on the enemy; there's little way to escape. I got lucky and managed to kill the elf warrior in first round because I drew just the right amount of movement and damage. Then I focused on the wizard, but since one of my warriors was turned into a werewolf (by my own Howl, no less - I'm not sure why I still use the tokenless helmet with it) and got a Mighty Charge, it wasn't too hard. In the end the priest blocked a Vengeance boosted by All-out Attack with Defender's Block, but his Vampire's Kisses, both of them, backfired; one gave Enervating Touch to my warrior who still had Prowl on, and the other hit a warrior who had Vengeance and gave him Sneaky Bloodsuck; Vengeance let me move first before it was discarded, which I could use to position myself behind the priest for greater suck.

    I played against tmzerozero on Cyberspace Temple with my three human warriors, he had human wizard with two dwarf warriors with ample amounts of Parries. In the first phase of the battle I managed to get a victory point, then one of my warriors got around to trade attacks with one of his. Both ended up nearly dead, but at the start of next round his wounded warrior fled with a Flanking Move and the other came around to finish the job. In the meanwhile my other two warriors managed to kill his wizard, who had no protection by the warriors; this happened despite the multiple Telekineses to keep them away. After that I retreated onto the victory squares and waited for the two dwarf warriors to arrive; the less wounded one (only took an Extra Hack) arrived there first, but I had Prowl and a few good attacks on one of the warriors and so decided to attack instead. Vengeance with Prowl and Creature of the Night on the target deals incredible damage, and took half the remaining hit points of the dwarf with one shot. He had a few heavy attacks, including Powerful Bludgeon, which made my attacking warrior rather uncomfortable, but I managed to get priority for next round and finished the warrior, winning me the game.


    Silver Bolt: Surprisingly good. I'm possibly at fault, but even in my earlier matches against other people I often see Creature of the Night, less often Monstrous Hide; it's tempting to use those cards since their only weakness is a single type of damage, so stacking up on that type is a good choice in general. Similarly to Combustible, which on one hand doesn't get played all that much (not on the actual server either, anyway), I suppose the popularity of Creature of the Night could be attributed to the fact that we've just got a bunch of shiny new items with them. And then a Silver Bolt can hurt.

    Ethereal Form: To be honest, I think it's the least fun form as things are right now. While Vampiric Form is usually consistent, and Lycanthropic Form is both consistent and definitely tame compared to the other two, Ethereal Form is pure lottery. It includes cards that are downright bad (Beam of Hate) or mediocre (Memory Loss, Curse of Fragility), but many others are game-breaking in their own right (Boo!, Ancient Grudge, possibly Hex of Dissolution). Medium's Garb makes it much worse, a wizard with that and Ethereal Form gets three cards from the list with a high chance of getting one of those.

    Boo!: I dare say if there's a card that's definitely unfun to play against, it's Boo!. I played it for a few battles and hold my opinion that it's doubtlessly too powerful; the fact that spirits can get it at random only makes matters worse.

    Vanguard: The more I play this card the more I love it. The effect is interesting and unique, and Vanguard is also shockingly powerful, especially for its value. Triple human warrior parties were scary enough before Castle Mitternacht, I personally believe with their wide array of team moves they already rivalled the mobility of elf warriors; with Vanguard they have no competition. I didn't even load up too heavily on step attacks (I had a bunch of Vengeances there as well, as you'll see), but Vanguard means that two move cards (step attacks included!) across the three party members are enough to undo a Telekinesis. As I might've pointed out above, it's worth noting that I didn't even put as many steps in my deck as I could have.

    Wind Dancer: I didn't use it this time (though if I make a dedicated build with more steps, I might), I remembered playing against it; maybe not very effective, but I can't deny it's a good deterrent. I found myself hesitant attacking warriors with three Unreliable Blocks, or even two; similarly to other unreliable defenses like Dodge or Duck.

    Prowl: Definitely very powerful. I don't think it upsets game balance, though it's obviously much better than most moves of its league; it gives rise to some interesting game choices, and I find that interesting. Do I use Prowl to get closer and then use a step attack, which means I miss out on the frenzy? Or should I step first and Prowl later, losing some damage now, but possibly get a twofold return in two rounds? Decisions, decisions. And this time it's hard to say I haven't been playing it enough, I've used Crazy Sal's Creepers on almost all warriors I played.
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2016
    Frostguard, Oct 2, 2016
    #10
    Flaxative likes this.
  11. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    If you can confirm that it's not working consistently, can you share battle logs/screen shots please? Thanks!

    30 games.
     
    Flaxative, Oct 2, 2016
    #11
  12. Frostguard

    Frostguard Thaumaturge

    I changed Final Sword to a second Talissa's Trident to get more step attacks and Superb Impaling to Focused Dervish to test Wind Dancer (I should have ample Vicious Thrusts and Penetrating Lunges to test now), and plunged into ranked matches again.

    I played against VermillionOcean's three human priests. They didn't seem to use Mitternacht items, one was a vampire, another also had a few Spears of Darkness and I saw an Evensong in there. The weaknesses of the step-based Vanguard humans surfaced; they don't seem to have enough damage output to cope with multiple vampires and Greater Heals. It was an embarrassing defeat and made me think that a priest could be a good deal instead of a third warrior; I'll try that later. VermillionOcean also made good use of Unnerving Strikes from Chalchu's Hammer, an unfortunate circumstance for me as it tore through my Unreliable Blocks.

    I played against tmzerozero and his two dwarf warriors and dwarf priest. My Vanguards and step attacks managed to overcome two Telekineses and a Winds of War on the wizard, killing him quickly. The two dwarves posed a challenge, considering that other than the few Penetrating Lunges I had no way to deal with armour and they had Reliable Mail. In the end I managed to win, Vanguard allowed me to juggle my warriors around, not to mention Vengeance. It's remarkable that I managed to amass Unreliable Blocks at an alarming rate, and this time they actually served me well, stopping multiple dangerous attacks, including

    A rematch against VermillionOcean's priests. This time I managed to gang up on one of the vampires and killed her really quickly; I lost a warrior in turn. We also seriously injured one of each other's characters. In the end I managed to wear down one of his priests enough that he started to flee, but it's really hard to flee from a human warrior who has Prowls and an ally with Vanguard. I managed to catch up and kill him, too, winning the game together with the two victory stars I earned from sitting on the squares.

    Regarding the bug with Wind Dancer and Penetrating Lunge: I managed to reproduce it pretty soon. It appears to me (I'll test some more to confirm) that Wind Dancer only generates an Unreliable Block (for Penetrating Lunge, at least) when it's actually used as an attack as well. When I actually stabbed someone with it, I got my Unreliable Block; I didn't get one when I cancelled it. Now to think of it, the game says that the card is cancelled, so what I thought to be a bug might not be one after all; I find it odd, however, since I still played a move card and used it up. I suppose at least I'm going to get the answer.

    Here's the screenshot when it was not working:
    [​IMG]

    A screenshot of it working:
    [​IMG]

    And a bonus screenshot I made at the start of the round when I managed to kill the dwarf wizard in the thirty-second battle. Note the Vanguards on two warriors out of three.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Overall thoughts about the build: I misjudged Wind Dancer. In a deck like this, with six Vicious Thrusts and five Penetrating Lunges, not to mention the Prowls, it can create overwhelming amounts of Unreliable Block. Your opponents will think twice about attacking you; two Unreliable Blocks have a good 30% chance to stop an attack, three of them have around 42%. Like I said above, with a focused build I managed to stop quite a few dangerous attacks. What might be important about it, though I'm pretty sure it's intended, that like I said before - it's of little use in decks that aren't entirely focused on it. It's just not for everyone.
    This quantity of step attacks and Vanguard provides these humans mobility that puts even the fleetest elves to shame. And I mean it. I often left my vanguarded humans in place simply because they didn't even need the boost anymore. In many situations you end up one square away from a victory tile, needless to say that attacking an opponent with a Vicious Thrust and putting one of your own allies on a victory square at the same time is incredible. There's no escape. If a warrior's chasing an enemy who's good at running away and runs out of moves, I can just play Run with my warrior who sits on the victory square, move nowhere and still push the pursuing warrior forward. Moreover, the longer the chase continues the more Unreliable Blocks the pursuer will have in hand, and overall the more chance to stop a last-resort attack from the cornered enemy. They're fairly frail, though in the twenty-second and twenty-third matches I drew my Monstrous Hides, which in the end saved my own hide; I could try to invest a minor token in a shield or armour but I'm not sure yet.
     
    Frostguard, Oct 2, 2016
    #12
  13. Frostguard

    Frostguard Thaumaturge

    I changed decks; I wanted to look deeper into using Spark of Undeath offensively, so I made a deck. It's listed below.

    Darur
    Level 2 Dwarf Wizard

    Baruk
    Level 1 Dwarf Wizard

    Baran
    Level 1 Dwarf Priest

    The deck concept is self-explanatory, I believe. Accelerate Times to get more damage from Blind Rage, Telekineses to keep aspiring zombies away, Punishing Bolts to further punish them for the cards I drew for them.

    I fought against Fanturluche and two vampiric priests and a wizard, all dwarves. I drew one Spark of Undeath altogether and no Accelerate Times, though Unholy Wellspring on a wizard with two Punishing Bolts still nearly killed a vampire, something that was finished much later with Swarm of Bats given to my priest, Strong Bludgeon and Curse of Fragility. Otherwise I just held the victory squares with Telekineses.

    Here I switched back, at least temporarily, to the Vanguards for a test game.

    I played against Maniafig's non-Mitternacht deck. Vengeance worked well against Lunging Bash and Vanguards allowed me to avoid a Laser Whip altogether and I managed to kill the elf warrior wielding them. I had enough mobility to scare the priest and make him run behind the walls and got to work on his dwarf warrior, who had Mimetic Crown and Reliable Mail, however, so it took long. In the critical moment his priest came back and Delegated his near-dead dwarf warrior, who got a Disorienting Block, which promptly stopped the Vicious Thrust that would've killed him, and an attack to finish my warrior off. He got a victory point as well, which later proved crucial (mostly because I made a mistake and forgot about it). After that the dwarf was mainly fleeing and the priest tried to hold the victory squares. It'd have played out well for me, I feel, except when the priest attacked my warrior who had Vengeance in hand I was too eager to kill the dwarf, which I did, but then failed to return to the victory squares and lost. I need to learn to check more often just how many victory stars my opponent has.

    Same opponent, same decks, rematch. Once again the elf went down quickly, despite the Toughened Hide Strips and Mimetic Crown; I managed to chase down the priest who used Wild Run to get away, and while one of my warriors was on six hit points, the other two were relatively unharmed. At this point my opponent resigned.

    We rematched once again; the elf managed to unleash a Laser Whip and kill one of my warriors, but his Meltdown in addition to my attacks killed both his warriors. His priest finished off another of mine with a flanking move followed by a frenzy-boosted draining attack, so once again it was priest against warrior; and once again I lost to my overeagerness. The priest had a Disorienting Block and at first I drew good step attacks to get around it, later on I didn't draw a single step for rounds on end, and got so tired of doing nothing but sitting on a square that I eventually attacked into it, getting a Laser Whip to the face in return. Overall I won one match and lost two I could've won, if not easily, with more careful play.

    I switched to acid wizards against Maniafig's non-Mitternacht party again. Two Hexes of Dissolution managed to kill the elf who rushed in, and a third combined with some melee attacks from Absolution killed the priest as well, but not before he used a timely Fiery Stab to murder one of my own battered wizards. Since he had two victory points from the victory square things were starting to look tough, but I managed to Dangerous Maneuver my priest onto the victory square when the dwarf warrior came to attack. I had to leave it when her Cushioning Armour was sundered, but not before using up her Vengeance and leaving the killing of the dwarf to the remaining wizard.

    Once more acid wizards against non-Mitternacht. I cane somewhat close to victory, but generally only by having luck; I lost one of my wizards early on due to sheer recklessness. I managed to kill the elf warrior and eventually the dwarf as well (due to Vengeance), but in the end my damaged priest couldn't withstand a Laser Whip and a Spear of Darkness. Hex of Dissolution still dealt much damage, but there were fewer tiles I could safely turn into acid, and my wizards themselves were easily cornered as well.

    I tried my Boo!-Vampire's Kiss-Inquisition Bolt deck against Maniafig's non-Mitternacht deck. I couldn't actually use my combination because I only drew three Vampire's Kisses right at the beginning, which I used to kill his priest who ventured close for a Laser Whip and whom I moved next to my priest with Winds of War afterwards. After that the game was essentially denial; I managed to lock down both his warriors constantly with continuous usage with Boo!, going through the dwarf's Disorienting Block everytime due to Spark Generator. I sat on the victory squares with three characters and he only with two, and in the end I won the game with victory stars. I didn't even use my draining attacks or Inquisition Bolts.

    Important additional information: eventually I switched out all my dwarf wizards' dwarf skills from Raging Battler to Subterranean Ferocity. I overlooked that skill at first because I didn't search through the items meticulously enough, but it's an incredible tokenless dwarf skill that practically has two cycling cards (one of which draws cards for your allies as well if they're dwarves) and some semi-decent armour. Beats Raging Battler by miles if we're talking about wizards.
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2016
    Frostguard, Oct 2, 2016
    #13
  14. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    Thanks, got you at 40.
     
    Flaxative, Oct 3, 2016
    #14
  15. Frostguard

    Frostguard Thaumaturge

    I used a deck with one priest with mostly Walpurgis Night (and some draining on the side) and two identical wizards with Inquisition Bolts, a few Obliterating Sparks and many Telekineses for keeping melee attackers away. My opponent quickly took initiative and occupied the central victory square, but his attempts at attacking my wizards were mostly thwarted by Telekineses. He kept occupying the victory square until much later, however a combination of Obliterating Sparks and well-timed Inquisition Bolts killed his elf warrior. Eventually the match was decided by my priest managing to accumulate some good attack cards (Extra Hack and two Enervating Touches while she had Blind Rage and Talented Healer on) which succeeded in killing my opponent's priest, and with numerous Telekineses I managed to have my priest occupy the victory squares as well.

    Same decks but different battle. At first I was thinking that the Telekinesis - Inquisition Bolt ratio in my deck was obviously off, but apparently I had eight of each, so I just had bad luck in both battles; anyhow, I drew many more Telekineses than Inquisition Bolts, which allowed me to stall efficiently but I didn't achieve any progress. Destructive Purges were useful for the most part, except I managed to undo one of them with Walpurgis Night. That turned out to be a huge mistake; I couldn't safely assert control over the victory squares, either, and Telekinesis fails against Vibrant Pain, to which I lost one of my wizards early; eventually my priest fell to the combined efforts of a werewolf and an elf, in the end. It also shows how I really need to get used to Walpurgis Night; similar Inquisition Bolt shenanigans included Vampire's Kiss, which doesn't remove attachments, so when a Destructive Purge gave my opponent's dwarf warrior Fright and Trip, I gladly planned to carry out some Inquisition Bolt goodness, except I got a frenzied werewolf in my face. Not good, that.

    At request I tried to put together three acid wizards against Maniafig's team. I suspected I was going to need something to keep enemy warriors at bay, so I thought of Boo! as a solution. My starting placement was unfortunate, as on Hyperthalamus Havok I got two wizards to fend off the dwarf warrior and one against the elf and the priest; they drew enough movement to be in my face first round and the elf even shot off a Laser Whip. After that it was pretty much doomed, I lacked the bulk of my acid cards for my Hexes of Dissolution, though Boo! helped stall a bit and the elf and the priest got damaged in the end I lost badly.

    We arranged a rematch on a more wizard-friendly map; a lucky Acid Jet and Acid Spray accompanied by three Hexes of Dissolution allowed me to take out the elf first round, even with an Inspiring Presence thrown in. However, in doing so I made advancing much harder, but Boo! prevented the dwarf warrior from attacking, while Deadly Spark and Hexes of Dissolution took care of his priest. The dwarf warrior couldn't do much for the rest of the match due to being under constant Boo! from then on, and after spraying and jetting acid everywhere I managed to launch a Hex of Dissolution for 17 damage, which ultimately decided the game.

    One more rematch on Maztec Melee. I used acid to hamper my opponent's progress and Acid Leak made it really easy to deny victory squares as well. He pressed forward to attack, but a Boo! combined with Blind Rage and a hefty 17-damage Hex of Dissolution didn't do well for his dwarf warrior, and next round another Hex finished him off. Next I scared his elf, who then dashed back to a victory square, while his priest pinned one of my wizards against a wall. It didn't look too good for me, except after using up all my acid cards I managed to unleash a Hex of Dissolution on him with 20 damage, and the acid terrain under him finished him off. After that the elf wasn't too hard to defeat, especially that he rushed to attack my wizards. He managed to kill one of them, even, but a few Deadly Sparks finished what Hex of Dissolution started.

    Screenshots:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Some conclusions:

    Walpurgis Night doesn't seem to work as well with Inquisition Bolt as Vampire's Kiss, as it will discard everything you might have on your enemy to stop them from using the cards they got; it also only draws them one card. Inquisition Bolt, as I've mentioned before, punishes people for putting certain cards into their deck, mostly vampire priests and honestly, warrior cards as well that seem random (Sundering Strike), and to be honest, I don't think the latter makes any sense at all. I think that I'm not yet really suitable to test Walpurgis decks as I tend to forget about the purging effect among other things.

    Acid decks, on the other hand! My first match with three acid wizards with Boo! played out really badly for me due to a combination of bad luck and incompetence on my side. Ectoplasmic Vial is a very convenient package for this sort of deck, and even if a single wizard only has three Boo!s in deck, the three of them have nine. It doesn't beat the vampiric Boo! deck's sixteen Boo!s (on two wizards only, at that), but it still proved ample to avert trouble whenever needed. While it gives the poor target a Dash, which in theory could be used to escape Hex of Dissolution, half the battlefield being acid may severely hamper those attempts, so it's a synergy as well, in a way. And, as it clearly shows, even with some non-acid cards in deck it's really easy to accumulate damage for Hex of Dissolution. I was lucky in the way that my opponent drew no blocks, but to be entirely honest I was checking them mostly with the Boiling Armours or Deadly Sparks I got on the side anyway.

    Some additional thoughts about Boo!. To be entirely honest, while I think most balance issues with the cards can be solved through numerical tweaks, I don't see such a way for this one. I've seen people say it's balanced in the end because while it's obviously overpowered for silver, it's also useless if your opponent has the counter, but I don't think that's a good way to balance a game. There are counters for Flatten as well, even more than for Boo! (Cushioning Armour, Parry, Impenetrable Nimbus) yet I don't think anyone would say that items with Flatten on them would be balanced. Boo!, in its current form, means that any party that doesn't bring Purges is practically doomed to not being able to use attacks for a good portion of the game if they happen to chance upon an opponent who spams it (and it's very easy to spam it, trust me, and it's nigh-unblockable due to being Arcane). That forces players to include a priest (with a good amount of predetermined equipment to boot), or to equip Arrogant Armour or Wyrmhides if they don't. Not to mention that even if the priest in question has Purges, it'll need hell a lot of purges to be viable against that deck. Purges are generally useful and good to have, but I'm not sure I like the idea of turning them into a necessity, especially in the quantities needed to combat frightening wizards.

    I saw Vitreo84's control-punishing-grudge triple human wizard deck in action and immediately thought that it's something I'd want to test with my triple human Vanguard warriors. We went ahead to battle on Temple Tussle; it's notable that Vanguard effectively doubles the efficiency of steps, so that was a good thing. Not even the incredible number of Telekineses could keep my mobile humans off the victory squares, and Vengeance's ability to reposition before the slideback from Force Cannon kicked in meant that I could move to a wall, blocking the slide altogether, and still kill a wizard. Of course Wind Dancer was for the most part useless due to my opponent's Focused Electromancy but one of those Unreliable Blocks did stop a Punishing Bolt later on. Vitreo used Staff of Chask, and the Pushback Parries were a complication considering my step attacks, but even with those thrown in Vanguard easily handled the problem. I managed to win the battle.

    We both knew that Temple Tussle is in general rather unfriendly to wizards, so we had a rematch on Streams of Blood. By the second round my warriors were deep in my opponent's side of the map, Vengeance repositioning saved me from yet another Force Cannon, or at least dampened its effect. Vengeance-assisted moves yet again came into play, and it didn't take long until I managed to corner the two surviving wizards and kill them.

    Against Vitreo84, but this time he brought three dwarves who seemed to rely on Crazy Sal's Halberd and Troll's Ire, and also had Lycanthropic Form. Polearm Slashes counter this party fairly well, and Unreliable Blocks, while stop an attack every now and then, don't do much to turn the damage around. Things started out hopeful and I managed to wear down two dwarves, even, but with two battered warriors I was forced to flee, and a Mighty Charge made me attack with the last of my warriors, hoping to at least get a kill before the inevitable defeat. I didn't.

    A few more things about the Vanguards: as things stand, Vengeance gets bonus move from Force Bolt, Force Blast and Force Cannon, as well as Winds of War and Gusts of War. The latter two are trickier, but there are circumstances under which it's possible to make it much harder for the opponent to push the warriors away. More importantly, if armour prevents the damage from those cards, which it can easily do, Vengeance becomes useless against control cards. In an odd way, the deficiency of armour on my warriors plays out as an advantage against control wizards, and of course it's possible to keep it that way by discarding armour at the end of the round. It's quite the hindrance against enemy warriors or vampire priests, however, though against them the myriad Unreliable Blocks work much better. As the tests show, however, they struggle with armour as their attacks aren't very powerful on their own and don't have ways to deal with it. I'm considering trying a variant with Troll's Ire instead of Darune's Dagger, which on the other hand would mean I'd need to take a token away from either boots, which woul mean no Prowl, or degrading Focused Positioning to Subtle Positioning, which could reduce mobility (degarding to Delicate Dervish is honestly not an option, I'm pretty sure everyone sees that). I may try this next.

    I'll post a screenshot below. While in this case it's against wizards against whom it's of little use, here's a little of what a focused Vanguard/Wind Dancer deck can do.
    [​IMG]

    I tried my modified Vanguards (Subtle Positioning, Troll's Ire) against Vitreo's dwarves. The map was Celestial Dojo; I managed to win, albeit narrowly, by retreating with my wounded warriors and dancing around dwarves to avoid blocks. On one hand Sundering Strike is a good counter to the Polearm Slashes and other armour my opponent might equip, and the combination of Blind Rage and Prowl is very powerful, and especially not to be overlooked for a party of warriors with relatively weak attacks as self-buffing, but Blind Rage punishes Vengeance, which you generally want to keep in your hand. A Howl (that I'm still using in the form of helmets, apparently) gave me Lycanthropic Form, which in turn gave me Mighty Charge; while possibly I could've won the match after this as I had all three my warriors alive, with ample attacks against a block that wasn't going to matter anyway, the charge was also useful for defeating the last dwarf standing.

    We played a rematch on the same map. The effect of having fewer Vanguards is definitely visible, though not crippling. Subtle Parry helped me out once, and while I had no successes from Unreliable Block whatsoever, Vanguard still allowed me to work my way around Parries, and I had a few lucky Battleaxe Blocks against Sundering Strikes. My own armour meant little against Sundering Strikes, but I had some of my own, which proved to be handy as one of the dwarves transformed into a werewolf and ended up with two Monstrous Hides that otherwise would've been a tough nut to crack. I lost one of my own warriors this time, and what's worse, by foolishly retreating using Vengeance, his only card, only to realise that Blind Rage was going to kill him anyway. In the end the two victory stars I managed to accumulate proved vital, as I only had enough in me to finish off the ex-werewolf dwarf who had been sundered and afterwards fleeing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2016
    Frostguard, Oct 3, 2016
    #15
    Flaxative and Maniafig like this.
  16. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    Thank you for all your feedback. I have you at 50 games. I think we've identified most of the big problems and I'm planning on making some changes soon, so if you want to you should take a break :)
     
    Flaxative, Oct 4, 2016
    #16
  17. Frostguard

    Frostguard Thaumaturge

    My thanks. I actually had a few more ideas to test, one in particular feels it has the potential to be broken, so I might give it a spin before the changes reach the test server.
     
    Frostguard, Oct 4, 2016
    #17
  18. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    What do you have in mind, out of curiosity?
     
    Flaxative, Oct 5, 2016
    #18
  19. Frostguard

    Frostguard Thaumaturge

    I planned making a party of three wizards, with four Frightening Wands, two Staves of Chask, Focused Electromancy and Lingering Robes each. Either three dwarves with Subterranean Ferocity or three humans with Leadership (which would probably mean using a tokenless robe instead, likely Poltergeist's). Seeing how even two Boo! wizards can shut down an enemy's deck, three could even be overkill, and the Dash the card creates actually increases the damage of Punishing Bolt as well. All attack cards in it would be Arcane, meaning that due to Focused Electromancy they'd be nearly unblockable; Arrogant Armour could possibly shut them down, but honestly I'm not sure what else could.
     
    Frostguard, Oct 5, 2016
    #19
    Flaxative likes this.
  20. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    Boo! is getting a big (and flavorfully appropriate) nerf in the update :)
     
    Flaxative, Oct 5, 2016
    #20
    timeracers, Zacharianthi, wereviper and 1 other person like this.
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