I love Wicked Waterways and the deck-building challenges and opportunities that map creates. As a player that was around when this league first rolled out, I brought elf warriors to the inaugural event and was crushing with them. I came back years later to find my elf warriors did well but had lost their edge. I needed to make elves great again! This time around I looked at wizards. What first got me thinking about elf wizards at Wicked Waterways was Teleport Self. For elves, that is a big teleport 4 move every turn with the racial move they draw each turn. Instead of moving into the middle and squabbling over the Victory Square, my wizards would flip the script by owning the periphery and making owning the Victory Square a losing proposition. When I looked at what else elf wizards had to offer, it was hard to ignore the obvious powerhouse Pathfinding/Ancient Grudge combo. Tempting as it was to go all in on this, I had to balance it with the survival of the squishy elves and the obvious fragility of the combo. One copy of Pathfinding is not a reliable draw, so I took a laid-back approach. Not so much relying on Pathfinding, but making it a possibility and relying on other things to do damage. Pathfinding would just be gravy, deadly, deadly gravy. The next key item that solidified this approach was Wym's Spiteful Bucket. I wasn't trying to play too many Ancient Grudges because you want to draw the card later. This item offered 2 copies in one item and had another card that was insane at Wicked Waterways: Lava Pool - a card that can fill any of the individual islands on the map with lava, punishing characters without flight and more importantly, making the victory square island a punishing choice to occupy. Still, a one of, not a strategy to build the deck around, but another powerful tool in the toolkit with Grudge. The rest of the wizard build came together around control (Telekinesis) and bursts to be buffed by the priest that exists to do that and accelerate card draw. I packed in as many handicap traits as I dared to make that one copy of Pathfinding come more frequently, including some very dangerous ones. Superstitious is difficult to play around! With six Demonic Revenges in the priest's deck, she is riding a very dangerous surfboard on the Wicked Waterways and could wipe out any turn! When I first decided to play this team, I had no hope that it would succeed. It was just a fun jank dream. Boy was I surprised! It started winning well over 75% of it's matches, and more importantly, was really fun to play. I decided it was too fun not to share: Sleep Level 24 Elf Wizard Blue Destruction Chask's Relief Rust Creature Gland Luke's Iron Hand Asmod's Telekinetic Chain Wym's Spiteful Bucket Poltergeist's Cape Boots Of Safety Novice Insight Electroporter Initiate 2 x Lucky Charm 6 x Arcane Burst 1 x Pathfinding 1 x Devastating Spark 1 x Telepod Jaunt 1 x Spark Generator 1 x Healing Dash 2 x Teleport Self 3 x Inquisition Bolt 1 x Officer's Harness 1 x Acid Blast 2 x Creature Of The Night 1 x Superstitious 1 x Scouting Run 1 x Lava Pool 6 x Telekinesis 3 x Ancient Grudge 1 x Stone Spikes 1 x Melt Armor Barda Level 20 Human Priest Cursed Radcannon Field Medic's Pike Mail Of Succor Unreliable Heirloom Shield Boots Of Safety The Deadonomicon The Deadonomicon The Deadonomicon Advanced Flexibility Advanced Corruption 2 x Lucky Charm 4 x Unholy Wellspring 1 x Telepod Jaunt 3 x Radiation Bomb 4 x Help The Weak 1 x Teleport Self 1 x Blind Rage 3 x Predictable Stab 1 x Dynamic Armor 1 x Healing Pulse 1 x Healing Dash 6 x Demonic Revenge 2 x Leadership 2 x Unholy Energy 1 x Slowed 1 x Unreliable Block 2 x Blight Argent Level 19 Elf Wizard Blue Destruction Chask's Relief Rust Creature Gland Luke's Iron Hand Asmod's Telekinetic Chain Wym's Spiteful Bucket Poltergeist's Cape Boots Of Safety Novice Insight Electroporter Initiate 2 x Lucky Charm 6 x Arcane Burst 1 x Pathfinding 1 x Devastating Spark 1 x Telepod Jaunt 1 x Spark Generator 1 x Healing Dash 2 x Teleport Self 3 x Inquisition Bolt 1 x Officer's Harness 1 x Acid Blast 2 x Creature Of The Night 1 x Superstitious 1 x Scouting Run 1 x Lava Pool 6 x Telekinesis 3 x Ancient Grudge 1 x Stone Spikes 1 x Melt Armor So you may be asking what the heck am I thinking playing so many move cards on those elves with Pathfinding? Generally the scheme with Pathfinding is to play no move cards in deck except 1, so Pathfinding draws whole deck and BOOM. Like I said, I took a more laid-back approach. Let the discard build on its own, and wait. You have to wait until you draw at least a single copy of Teleport Self naturally before you trigger Pathfinding. Really, you want to draw as many of your move cards in there as you can, and not just so you don't draw two of them really fast with Pathfinding. I know Pathfinding seems to be the goal of this build, and it kind of is, but you should really consider your goal to draw Teleport Self. You need it to survive. Once you have it, your elf wizard can use his racial move 4 card to hop away to another island and, if necessary, burn it to get away if they catch him there. This build relies on longer games, and that depends on your elves being crafty and elusive. Additionally, Superstitious can be hard to play around. Once again, wait it out. Remember, sometimes you will use your Grudges without any Pathfinding, if the opportunity is ripe and your discard pile has built up enough. And, sometimes you will have to use your Pathfinding to draw a Teleport Self to save your elf's buns when he has no grudge in hand. Just hang onto those grudges as long as you can. Nurse those grudges until they turn in to kill shots, and the Inquisition Bolts are in there to check for blocks before you blow your load, numbnuts! (Also, I think I did 13 damage to kill a werewolf with one yesterday!) Have fun, and I am happy to answer questions/hear suggestions.
As always, posting from phone. Would like to talk a lot, but ick, touch keyboard. In short, I love it! Awesome to see Electroporter Initiate find a good home, and yes, Pathfinding still looks great in this build, especially spread across multiple wizards. Likewise, loving seeing all the Lucky Charms! Only one Lava Pool .. each .. lasting 3 rounds .. mmhm, not too shabby, heheheh. Do you own Unholy Conduit? I know Blight ×2 + Unholy Wellspring has some benefit over NEB + vamp drain ×2, but NEB + Demonic Revenge is obvious, and then Blind Rage + all your Assist|Attack hybrids would totally flip + NEB. Only 1 NEB, but a couple rounds of extra staying power, eh? Loving all those Help the Weaks for your wandering elves, too! Ty for the share and Elf Wiz love, lol. Regards,
