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  1. #1
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    All (hopefully) about a Mage deck ?

    Disclaimer I didn't play 1.23 so I don't hate mages. I went mage because I found it to be the best Hero when I started playing. And after reading about Eladwen. I concluded she was not the problem. It's just that Human Allies rock, Other Heroes sucked and Nishaven was against that but needed for portal. Anyhow that's another thread.

    Disclaimer 2: I like building decks and strategies more than "being at the top" and looking for their weakness to then take that on.

    The cards

    Nishaven (because it's the best ability for a no Ally deck, discussion on this at the bottom)

    Direct Damage
    4x firewall
    4x lighting strike
    2x supernova

    Continued Damage
    3x poison
    3x Engulfing fire

    Items/delays
    4x Rain delay
    3x Research
    3x bazaar
    2x voice of winter
    1x retreat (to have 30 cards)

    Suggestions welcome. Specially in the numbers. I'm thinking of running 4 retread and cut down on poison/fire. Thoughts?

    Why each card?
    Fireball and lighting strike are obvious. Sweet damage for few resources
    Why only 2x supernova because more will most likely kill you
    3x poison and engulfing, to put them early on and discard as resources the extras.
    rain delay to save yourself at the start of the game.
    voice of winter to do the same later on
    research and bazzar to drag resources and damage cards

    Why not these?
    Freeze and Clinging webs are too weak, they target just one Ally
    Arcane Burst is too much spread damage, maybe only good against fast low health Ally decks.
    Special Delivery almost always ends up as resources as you always have something better to do with 4 resources.

    As you can probably tell this can be played with Human or Shadow so why not other heroes?

    In a no ally deck Eladwen is clearly inferior, if she could damage the Hero then maybe it will be a good choice.
    Gravebone makes no sense.

    Majiya on the other hand is a pretty good alternative but I don't have the shadow cards to try her yet. Her ability gives us 3 free slots from research as well as the Shadow Abilities which solve some of the problems posted below.

    Playing style
    Get to 4-5 resources as fast as possible.
    Discard duplicates of Poison/engulfing/research/bazaar (if you must rain delay/voice of winter)
    Play the even and odds. For example

    1 resource - pass
    2 resource - bazzar
    3 resource - fireball
    4 resource - research - use research
    5 resource - supernova
    6 resource - poison - rain delay
    7 resource - voice of winter - research
    8 resource - lighting strike - lighting strike
    9 resource - fireball - lighting strike - card

    If you think it right you can play up all your resources on each turn.

    Pitfalls
    Too slow to start.
    Let me explain that with a typical game

    Turn 1 Resource - Nothing
    Turn 2 Resource + bazaar, research, retreat,rain delay,
    Turn 3 Same as Turn 2 or Fireball or draw card
    Turn 4 Poison/Fire or lighting strike
    Turn 5 ability+weapon or supernova or Turn 4 or Turn 3 (we can start playing!)
    Turn 6+ Play either one of Damage (Nishaven/Supernova/Lighting strike) or slowdown (Voice of Winter/Rain Delay/Retreat) or stall (Poison/fire + card)

    So you are basically screwed and can lose up to half your (very little HP) in the first 5 turns. It's even worst if you play a bazaar as the opponent also has card advantage on you, but it's a must in order to survive.

    Dies against resource destruction

    This is directly related to the above and you could stall them a little but 3x Sandra is probably a total lost for you. However it ain't that bad with human.

    Can't heal/block damage

    I think this is a balance problem.

    First of all there is nothing but to pass with human, on the first turn.
    Second playing an ally with this deck makes no sense as he will certainly be death by turn 5 (attacked,Nishaven or Supernova)

    I seriously think there is a need for either a blocking card. I suggest a "Wall" Ally. For example costs 2 resources and it's a 0/4 Protector

    or some way for a Mage to heal, not something that will replace a Priest, but at least a hard to heal spell. For example an item that will gain a counter for each spell you cast and when destroyed you gain that many lives (note you can't destroy it yourself with human but there is a loophole with shadow) the point is having something that will heal Mage Because being the weakest and not having any healing at all is just lame. Or just give us Enrage and I'll be happy

    Moving on ...

    Can't stop hero's attacking

    This is bad, too bad. The old cards where not balanced to Weapons (no human mage card can kill an item/freeze or slowdown a hero), coupled with the Insane human female double damage ability there is just no way to win against that deck.

    The main problem here is that there is no item destruction for a human mage, please read that again. A mage can't destroy an item. That's just wrong.

    Other decks

    Surprisingly enough extra heal decks are not that bad, I tested it against the wolven and cleric AI and they barely win. A human player will deck me a lot, but with Wolven it happened just one time, and it was because I discarded a firewall instead of casting it DoH! and noone plays those

    Also interesting enough DeathBone+Gravebone won't kill you fast enough. Mainly because having allies in his deck decreases the total damage they can inflict on you.

    Same thing happens for other mages with Allies decks.

    My guess is that this deck vs this deck is just a matter of luck to see who drags the most damage first.

    Ally heavy decks are awesome as he can *almost attack you* but you will run them over with Nishave/Supernova/Lighting strike or slow them with Voice of Winter/Rain Delay/Retreat. It is almost guaranteed that after turn 5-6 you will be able to not let him/her attack.

    Other than that this deck as been pretty cool. It's a bit unpredictable but it's great mid-end game. You can do a lot of damage and turn the game around.

    Sorry for the long post I'm just really exited about this game and it's potential.

  2. #2
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    So Majiya what she brings ?

    Free's up 3 cards as you don't need Research
    Deathbone
    Plasma Behemoth
    Belladona
    Firesnake
    Here be monsters
    Shadowspawn
    Shriek of Vengeance

    What she takes out?
    The 4 damage to all allies which is critical to clear the board
    the restriction on creatures
    Retreat

    So it looks pretty good. Looking at each card alone.

    The losers
    Deathbone (isn't that great as he costs 4 which is your critical mass. I'll prefer doing damage)
    Belladona (same as above)
    Shadowspawn (good card but right now of little use as most good heroes don't use Shadow energy)

    The winners
    Plasma Behemoth (It takes 8 resources to cast "a fireball", free fireball per turn, expensive but could work)
    Firesnake (will solve the first turn issue, but at what cost?)
    Here be monsters (will help countering resource destruction)
    Shriek of Vengeance (get rid of those weapons!)

    If we want to keep the no ally mojo.

    Then adding 4 here be monsters and 3 Shriek, replacing the retreat+Research leaving you with 33 cards. Personally I think I'm going to try the following.

    The cards

    Nishaven (because it's the best ability for a no Ally deck, discussion on this at the bottom)

    Direct Damage
    4x firewall
    4x lighting strike
    2x supernova

    Continued Damage
    2x poison
    2x Engulfing fire

    Items/delays
    4x Rain delay
    3x bazaar
    2x voice of winter
    4x here be monsters
    3 x Shriek

    total = 32 cards

    Thoughts?
    Last edited by elpargo; 03-31-2011 at 07:01 AM.

  3. #3
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    There was a thread on Nishaven burn, you may want to take a look:

    http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....aven-Burn-Deck

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by irvine83 View Post
    There was a thread on Nishaven burn, you may want to take a look:

    http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....aven-Burn-Deck
    I have seen that thread and it was one of the inspirations for me to finally try this, the one linked from there about an irritation deck. Is also pretty good. That said I think they both are using some bad cards that don't really make the cut, which is why I believe this one is better.

  5. #5
    Senior Member CHLBRK's Avatar
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    Post

    This is my Deck:
    Nishaven
    2 Blake windrunner
    4 fireball
    3 poison Gas
    4 Lightning Strike
    3 engulfing Fire
    2 Research
    2 Supernova
    4 arcane burst
    3 sPecial delivery
    4 Rain Delay
    2 bazaar
    1 wrath of Summer
    2 Voice of Winter


    I don't Know what to do with Blake and Special delivery...

  6. #6
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    The problem I have ran into using that set up is the random program for the cards. Lost quite a few matches because my bazaar cards (4) and/or rain delay (4) didn't show up till the last half of my deck (30-32).
    And I agree, no way to heal my hero.
    Girls play volleyball, boys play basketball, men wrestle!

  7. #7
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    Wow, I appreciate your effort and making these kind of explanations.

    This setup is pretty, arnd 50/50 chance of winning. Unfortunately, I find Allyless Nisshaven is heavily reliant on having big resources. Small resources is no good for this setup.

    I have problems dealing with HBMs and Sandras. It gets worse when dealing with Jericho. He keeps healing from status effects and worse, I have played against Jericho playing Sandra+Plaque combo, making me stuck with virtually no resources to even play fireball while that guy has piled 1 or 2 allies to pawn me.

    Please, add a 'heal' card or 'item destruction' or 'resource destruction' for mages, and he will be invincible :P

    Again, nice work and setup
    Last edited by Kichigo; 04-06-2011 at 02:01 PM.

  8. #8
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    Firewall.... For protection from viruses?

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by CHLBRK View Post
    This is my Deck:
    Nishaven
    2 Blake windrunner
    4 fireball
    3 poison Gas
    4 Lightning Strike
    3 engulfing Fire
    2 Research
    2 Supernova
    4 arcane burst
    3 sPecial delivery
    4 Rain Delay
    2 bazaar
    1 wrath of Summer
    2 Voice of Winter


    I don't Know what to do with Blake and Special delivery...
    Blake is probably a good idea for early game, however you need to have 4 of them to actually show up soon enough. I used to have them on but it dies against gargoyle or another blake (if you go second).

    Personally I think that pushing out a fireball at turn 3 is better. As the best the enemy can do is hit you for 3 damage up to that point (Snake/Spark turn1, Brutalist turn2, then attack again) or 4 if he gets two sparks. so a fireball will even you out in damage taken. If you can get a rain delay in then you can survive to turn 5 for the Supernova or Ability. Taking damage for just one turn (third or fourth). At least that's how I see it. Which is why we need some damage control or a cheap defender ally or some healing.

    As for special delivery it's just too expensive, may be worth the extra damage endgame but I haven't had a need for it. Either they are too high and I just can't get them to die or I always have a better card to play. Your deck is 36 cards right now. Dropping all 3 of them will actually raise your chances of getting better cards. I suggest doing so

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by KennyPowders View Post
    Firewall.... For protection from viruses?
    Firewall is not that good. You almost always end up losing 1 or 2 damage points when applied to Allies. And sometimes you need two two exact points at the endgame.

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