Dwarven Control Wizards

Dwarven Control Wizards


Introduction
I wanted to build a deck that was all about controlling your opponent. I also wanted a deck that was less prone to bad draws and had less weak cards.

To achieve this I knew I needed to have tons of traits. When you draw a trait, you draw a replacement card as well which basically makes your deck smaller. And the smaller the deck, the less bad draws there will be.

When picking items, I tried to find ones that had either tons of traits or great cards combined with drawback traits. And when I chose drawback traits, they had to be drawbacks that did not completely cripple me.

After tons of trial and error I finally managed to get the build just right.

The Build

This build has two identical wizards with mostly encumber and control cards and one wizard with volcanoes instead of encumber.

Dwarven Wizard 1 + Dwarven Wizard 2
Level 20 Dwarf Wizard

Staff Of Winter​

Trembling Staff​

Bewlin's Baffling Bauble​

Runestone​

Runestone​

Blood Locket​

Robe Of Lightness​

Greenguard Boots​

Perfect Toughness​

Electroporter Novice​

​

1 x Cloth Armor​

1 x Spark Generator​

1 x Chilling Rime​

1 x Combustible​

2 x Vulnerable​

4 x Frost Jolt​

2 x Wall Of Fire​

1 x Dimensional Traveller​

1 x Cold Snap​

2 x Hover​

3 x Short Perplexing Ray​

1 x Mighty Spark​

1 x Teleport Self​

4 x Squeamish​

2 x Flame Jet​

2 x Toughness​

1 x Hard To Pin Down​

1 x Spark Inductor​

1 x Path Of Knives​

3 x Winds Of War​

1 x Rusty Armor​

​

Dwarven Wizard 3
Level 20 Dwarf Wizard

Mordecai's Staff Of Magma​

Trembling Staff​

Axander's Twisted Circlet​

Runestone​

Runestone​

Blood Locket​

Robe Of Lightness​

Greenguard Boots​

Perfect Toughness​

Electroporter Novice​

​

1 x Cloth Armor​

1 x Spark Generator​

4 x Volcano​

2 x Vulnerable​

3 x Winds Of War​

2 x Flash Of Pain​

2 x Wall Of Fire​

1 x Dimensional Traveller​

1 x Combustible​

2 x Hover​

2 x Short Perplexing Ray​

1 x Teleport Self​

1 x Mighty Spark​

2 x Flame Jet​

2 x Toughness​

1 x Hard To Pin Down​

1 x Spark Inductor​

1 x Path Of Knives​

4 x Squeamish​

1 x Big Zap​

1 x Rusty Armor​

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Items
Staff Of Winter is the best encumber staff in the game. It's crucial in keeping those warriors at a distance. Frost Jolt also does some nice damage that adds up. If you like Cone Of Cold, you could use Frosty Staff instead.

Trembling Staff is one of the most important items in this build. It might look pretty bad at first, but it's actually an awesome item because it's tokenless and has 3 traits. Remember, this build is based on having as many traits as possible to ensure good draws. There are no good alternatives for this item. If you don't have this, you probably need to make some big changes to the build.

Bewlin's Baffling Bauble is an amazing item but unfortunately pretty rare. You could use Farzil's Perplexing Horn instead if you have it. If you don't have any good replacements, take a second Blood Locket. If you don't have that, you could try a third Runestone.

Runestone and Blood Locket are very similar items whose main job is to give you Winds Of War and Squeamish. If you want, you could switch them around and have 1 stone and 2 lockets.

Robe Of Lightness is great because of two things. Firstly it has two traits, secondly it has Hover that helps you with volcanoes. If are unable or don't want to use volcanoes, there might be better options.

Greenguard Boots is another item that has Squeamish. It has two other useful cards as well, but is one of the least crucial items in this build. If you want to make changes, this item is probably where you want to start.

Perfect Toughness will help you stay alive in many difficult situations. Downside is that it also has the worst card of the build: Rusty Armor. A good alternative would be Solid Rock which is better in many situations but also worse in others.

Electroporter Novice is a very good item because it is tokenless and has 3 useful traits. There's really no point in using anything else.

Cards
THE GOOD
Winds Of War is probably the most important card of this deck and usually the last one you should discard. It's just an awesome and versatile card and perfect for control. Use it to move warriors out of reach, wizards behind blocking terrain, and everyone on top of lava. You can even use it to move your own characters to victory squares etc. (press Ctrl while clicking the card) . It also has great synergy with Path Of Knives.

Toughness is also very very good and has saved me numerous times. Nothing is better than blocking that 20+ damage with toughness and then doing something evil with the new card that you just drew. It happens surprisingly often and is pretty cool. I usually overextend a wizard with toughness on purpose, so that when opponents' warrior attacks that wizard, I spring my trap and all 3 wizards gang up on that warrior.

Short Perplexing Ray is one of the best cards in the game. You usually use it defensively to shut down those rushing warriors, but you can also use it offensively to remove movement cards and move the target to lava.

Hard To Pin Down is one of the best, if not the best, blocking skill in the game and especially useful in a build like this which doesn't have much movement.

Frost Jolt and other freezing cards are of course great both in offence and defence. Either use them to encumber rushing warriors, or freeze wizards and priests on top of lava.

Volcano is great because either you deal tons of damage, or you force your opponent to use his movement cards or step attacks. Hover and Dimensional Traveller protect your own characters from lava. Or if you don't have those, you can useToughness or Winds Of War as well. Wall Of Fire works with the same principle and you can use it effectively for example after your opponent has moved away from volcano.

Teleport Self is much better than I originally thought. This build is very slow-moving, so having a card that moves you 4, can be crucial. It's great for capping victory points at the end of the round.

Mighty Spark would generally be a good card to finish enemies off but with this build you have Squeamish trait on more than half the time. It's still a good card to soften your enemies or draw out their blocks.

THE BAD
Vulnerable is not as bad as you'd think. It's only 1 more damage per hit and it doesn't really matter if a warriors hits you for 9 or 10 damage. Of course everything adds up but I personally haven't seen a huge difference whether or not I have Vulnerable on.

Squeamish is also not that bad. Situations where you even noticeSqueamish are very rare because this build does very little direct damage. Sometimes you do have these 1 hp warriors running around but you can usually work around that somehow.

Flame Jet is not really a "bad" card but it is slightly weaker compared to some other cards.

Cards that are sometimes ok but which I usually discard first are: Cloth Armor,Flash Of Pain, Big Zap and Rusty Armor.

THE UGLY
When you lose, it will probably have something to do with Combustible. This trait can be really really bad if your opponent has tons of fire damage.

General Strategy
These dwarves are a team and should move as a team. Try to position dwarves so that each dwarf can see all other dwarves and their surrounding squares. This way they can protect each other if one gets jumped. If you split up, you are much more vulnerable.

There is no need to hide around obstacles. Just slowly walk in the center on the board like you own the place. Try to be in the open terrain at all times.

Use Wall of Fire to slow down enemy advancement, not just deal damage.

When a warrior gets next to you, use Short Perplexing Ray or Winds Of Warrather than just walk away. If you do the latter, you will usually get step attacked in the back by the same warrior.

When you cap a victory square, try to use a dwarf that has one or more Toughnessbecause it's a guaranteed life-saver against sudden warrior rush.Winds Of War might not be enough because it can be blocked and then you are dead.

Match Results
In case you are wondering what kind of results you will get this build, here's some idea.



Out of these 28 matches fought against (high rated) human opponents, I only lost twice. Both of the losses resulted from my stupid mistake and could have easily been avoided with a bit of luck. For example the last loss here came down to a 50/50 armor dice roll which I of course failed.

With this build I was able to increase my rating from 1400-1500 to 1700 is just a couple of days. Here's proof:



My rating is currently even higher, all because of this one build. It's a build that is both effective and fun to play, and I encourage everyone to try it out.

Closing words
Thanks for reading. If you have any comments or questions about the build or the meaning of life, please post it here. Thanks. See you on the battlefield!

 

Just one really minor note, I noticed on the second dwarf you actually have the perplexing horn and not the baffling bauble.
Very interesting and very nice of you to share, do find it a bit funny that you chose to blackout all the guys that you won against as if you did something wrong and wanted to protect them - no shame in losing to a superior build-player combo which is clearly the case.
Now if you'll excuse me I'll be in the MP keep to see what changes I need to make if I ever go up against you which I would prefer to not happen. ever.

 

Like I wrote there somewhere, one of the wizards has perplexing horn because I have only one baffling bauble. They are pretty much the same item but baffling bauble would be my first choice.

I chose to blackout the names so that the stats would not look like me gloating over who I have beaten. I personally don't mind seeing my name in the losing side but some people might see it differently so I didn't take any chances.

 

Thanks for posting. I am curious why you use Novice Teleportation instead of Electroporter Novice on two wizards. Is Dimensional Traveller so much more important that it is worth including a weak force bolt into the deck?

 

Sometimes one push matters.

 

That is an excellent question.

Electroporter Novice is definitely better than Novice Teleportation. Only one of my wizards has Electroporter Novice simply because I only have one of those items If I had 3, I would use all 3. While Dimensional Traveller is useful sometimes it's not nearly as useful as that extra draw. Plus Electroporter Novice buffs Mighty Spark and helps kick out those bad traits or enemy card effects you might have on your wizard.

I guess I should have posted this deck in its best possible form, not just best possible that I personally can build I'll make some changes. Thanks.

 

That is true. Force Bolt has been great in many situations but also completely useless in others. This is why that extra trait + card draw is better imo. Less mediocre cards and more traits makes the deck much more consistent.

 

You do know you can buy them? The level 6 shop stocks them, I think. It's only an uncommon after all.

 

I haven't seen it in my shop but then again I don't check the inventory very regularly. Maybe I should

 

Haha, nice! I was in the process of grinding for more items with winds of war to have enough for 3 wizards My winds of war / path of knifes wiz was one of my favourite through out SP and MP. At least now I know it's worth it! Great job with the build and thanks for sharing.

 

Finally, a MP build that takes advantage of Hover and a three-wizard build that doesn't abuse Firestorm. Well done!

 

Another question: If you had more items with 2/3 times Short Perplexing Ray, would you use them instead of other blue token items. Or do you feel there is a point where you have enough rays?

 

Difficult to say. I haven't tested it because I lack the cards but my feeling is that adding more Short Perplexing Rays to this build would be too much. It's a pretty useless card during the first few rounds because you need to get so close to use it, while enemy wizards bombard you with fire damage. I feel that with 2-3 of them with each character lets you draw them often enough to make the build versatile.

And one major issue is that it would have to be a blue token item which means that the 3rd skill would be something crappy like Big Zap or Whirlwind instead of a trait.

But I'm just guessing, it could work.

 

Just play a match with Scared Little Girl today. And I really think Toughness is a bit OP.

 

Toughness combines the awesomeness of nimbus and martyr blessing all in one. It is also the ultimate bait card. O noes, I just ran my wiz into range of your big bad melee dude! What will I ever do!

 

really nice built, will try do something similar, but dont have much short perplex rays.. need grind and adapt. very good job

 

Electroporter Novice is a level 8 uncommon item. Every day Kyburz Market stocks 162 different level 6-11 common and uncommon items. There are currently 244 such items in the game. Thus there is a 66% daily chance of the shop having one. If you check the shop every day for a week, there's a 99.95 % chance you will find at least one.

 

You could replace it with an extra Blood Locket or Runestone. That's how I made the build originally and it worked very well. You lose the Rays but gain WoW. Also it has a trait so it makes your deck smaller, giving better draws.

I like those odds. Thanks for the explanation.

 

You're welcome!

Unfortunately, I just realized the market stocks relatively fewer uncommon than common items. The item rarity affects its chances of being in stock.

Only 46 of the 162 (28.4%) items in my market today are uncommon, whereas 51.2% (125 of 244) of level 6-11 common and uncommon items are uncommon. If only 46 stock items daily are uncommon (I don't know how much this varies), then the daily odds of getting Electroporter Novice are only 46/125 or 36.8%. Sorry about the error. Even with this considerably lower daily chance, if you check the shop every day for a week, there's a 96 % chance you will find at least one.