Playing With Fire (Mages, Pt. II)

Last time, I talked about the arcane abilities that mage's have available to them. While those abilities are impressive, they aren't really a problem as far as damage dealing goes. When it comes to doing damage, the mage's fire abilities are the way to go.

While Litori Frostburn can still use most of the fire abilities, Ta'zo is designed to dish out fire damage. His flip ability and his access to Pyroblast mean that he can dish out significantly more damage in a game than Litori Frostburn. So let's take a look at what Ta'zo would have in his arsenal.

Mages are the only class that can deal damage with an ability during the first turn. In fact, aside from Kagra of the Crossroads Fire Blast is the only way to deal damage on the first turn. While being the first to play may be considered a handicap, mages can use it to their advantage to get in a quick hit that is guaranteed to land. The mage's power also translates into the late game, when your opponent three or four allies on the field. Flamestrike is the perfect response to a field full of opposing allies. Granted, it costs seven resources, so you have to devote a high number of resources to the assault, but when a large number of enemy allies have three health or less, it's a guaranteed sweep. Unless you're playing against another mage with Counterspell or a warrior with Shield Bash, Flamestrike will force your opponent to discard a few allies, tilting the field advantage in your favor.

Fireball and Pyroblast are very similar cards. Both deal a decent amount of damage and add a long-term effect which can quickly accumulate to wipe out even the most heavily armored opponent. The only problem with these cards is their high cost. However, so long as you hold a few Counterspells to keep your opponent from interrupting or destroying them later on, the investment is definitely worthwhile. Especially when you add in the next and final card that every hot-headed mage should count on.

This card needs no explanation. As with Pyroblast, the cost is a little prohibitive, but the long-term results are very effective. More importantly, you can have up to four World in Flames in play at a time. This means that your hero's abilities that deal fire damage will do two, four, eight, or even sixteen times their regular amount of damage. Of course, that top-end result requires an investment of 32 resources, but after you've played it, a single Fire Blast deals the same amount of damage. Fireballs would initially deal 64 damage, and if that weren't enough to knock out a hero in a single blow, stop and congratulate your opponent on doing the impossible, then remind them that you'll be adding another sixteen damage to them at the start of each of your turns.

If the offensive capabilities of mages and their arcane manipulations aren't enough to worry you, keep an eye open for the next post, where I'll cover the icy disposition of mages and some of their field-freezing tricks.

Understanding the Arcane (Mages, Pt. I)

When it comes to mages, the World of Warcraft website says it all.

"Mages wield the elements of fire, frost, and the arcane to destroy or neutralize their enemies. They are a robed class that excels at dealing massive damage from afar, casting elemental bolts at a single target, or raining destruction down upon their enemies in a wide area of effect. Mages can also augment their allies' spell-casting powers, summon food or drink to restore their friends, and even travel across the world in an instant by opening arcane portals to distant lands.

When seeking someone to introduce monsters to a world of pain, the mage is a good choice. With their elemental and arcane attacks, it's a safe bet something they can do won't be resisted by your chosen enemy. Damage is the name of the mage game, and they do it well. Their arsenal includes some powerful crowd control spells, also, giving them the ability to keep hordes at bay -- in fact, these abilities can be used on the most common creatures in the game, thus making them extremely valuable for this purpose."

-- Mage information page

A quick glance at the mage's abilities shows a huge amount of versatility. Everything from increasing your hand size to stopping the opposition from attacking to blasting the whole field with huge amounts of damage. Moreover, mages have one of the only two interrupts currently in the game, meaning they are able to stop things that most other classes simply have to swallow. That said, let's take a look at the arcane side of the mage's playbook and what you should expect when you see a mage across the table from you.

Arcane Intellect is a perfect example of the power behind a mage. While most heroes are limited to seven cards in their hand mages easily reach ten, thirteen, or even as many as nineteen cards in their hand. Needless to say, having more than twice as many cards as your opponent obviously allows you an similar expansion of options. Mana Agate isn't necessarily the best card drawing tool in the game, as some quests can give you a similar result for a lower cost. However, since you can only have four copies of the card-drawing quests in your deck, the ability to add another four cards to the card drawing engine is significant, and for a mage that uses Arcane Intellect, card drawing is vastly important.

While mages are obviously good at increasing their options, they're also notoriously low on health, making them very vulnerable to attack. While their card represenations only have one less health than the priests in the game, mages are actually very good at eluding combat.

Blink gives you an additional card boost and instantly prevents a combat from happening. While it won't save them from a large mass of attacking allies, it can prevent the final blow and give the mage a chance to recuperate and lash out with his (or her) own powers. Polymorph is also extremely useful in preventing combat as the ongoing ability turns even the fiercest ally into a harmless sheep. While it can be dispelled or burnt away, Polymorph is good for negating protectors or stopping a game-winning ally from performing.

Finally the mage's game changing card. While most players have to wait for an ability to enter play with its ongoing text, mages have the advantage of being able to stop any ability, ongoing or otherwise. This is a significant advantage when facing abilities that aren't ongoing, such as Vanquish or Face Smash. Even better, the only way a Counterspell will fail is if your opponent plays a Counterspell of their own or plays the warrior's Shield Bash, meaning that you can stop most opponents whenever you want.

That's it for the arcane mage abilities. Check back next time for a look at the mage's fiery temper.

Holier Than Thou

Previously, I looked at the face-melting benefits of Shadowform. However it would seem from many player comments that face-melting is all a priest is good for. Today I'm going to talk about how they fit into their more stereotypical role... healing. Natural healers, the priests who focus on their more holy attributes have a longevity that's hard to beat. Boris Brightbeard exemplifies this aspect of priestdom very well.


While Boris isn't the natural born damage dealer that Omedus is, his ability to heal himself and his allies on the field is second to none. Using his flip ability, he can efficiently heal any amount of damage from any hero or ally, provided you have a number of resources available equal to the amount you wish to heal. And that's just the beginning of Boris' healing spree.

While Omedus tended to avoid using holy abilities, in order to keep Shadowform in play, Boris can thrive on them. With Spiritual Healing in play, Boris can heal multiple allies or heroes with every holy ability he plays. Playing all four Spiritual Healings in your deck would allow you to heal eight damage from your party every time you used one of your holy abilities... some of which may have been healing effects themselves. With Flash Heal and Spiritual Healing combined, Boris can heal one ally or hero for six damage or heal four from one and two from another, all for a cost of one resource played instantly whenever it's most convenient for you... or inconvenient for your opponent, as the case may be.

However, our dwarven priest doesn't have to spend all of his time and effort on healing abilities. With Chastise, you can stop to deal some damage (unpreventable damage, I might add) to your opponent, or you could choose to play Resurrection and revive a much needed ally. The former allows you to sneak past armors or other abilities that might stop your party from doing damage. The latter, though, is very interesting. With Resurrection you can revive an ally "... if its cost is less than or equal to the number of resources you have." This means that you can revive an ally with any cost, even if all of your resources are exhausted after playing Resurrection. It also works well with allies like Acolyte Demia, who would cost more to revive than she does to play from your hand, preserving your resources for other expenses such as her damage-dealing ability.

I haven't focused on them here, but other abilities that trigger Spiritual Healing are Heal, Prayer of Healing, and Smite. All of those cards can be worthwhile in certain situations, but they tend to be less useful than the Holy abilities touched on earlier.

It's also important to remember that Boris still has access to the Shadow abilities that Omedus abuses with the exception of Shadowform. Therefore, while he lacks the full effect of the undead priest's increased damage, his ability to heal makes him just as worthy an adversary, if you take full advantage of it. It's just plain hard for your opponent to win when they can't even kill your allies... much less your healing hero.

Let Loose the Cards of War

While this game has a large amount of strategy involved in how you choose your cards build your deck, the one thing that can make or break every game is how you play the game. For instance, if you haphazardly drop allies every turn and forget to build up your resources, you're going to run out of gas before you ever cause any real damage to your opponent. Inversely, if you were to drop a resource every turn, even when you don't have a quest in hand, you could end up wasting a very useful card simply to play a sub par card ally. So how do you strike a balance and make the most of your resources every turn of the game? Not without a lot of careful thought.

It's a Secret to Everybody is probably the best first-turn stand-alone quest. It doesn't require any other action and it gives you the advantage of controlling your next draw when you would be doing nothing otherwise. While you may have to make a tough choice between the three cards you get to see, the ability to plan one turn ahead of your opponent can be a huge advantage. A Donation of Wool, on the other hand, can capitalize on a poor opening hand or on effects that use cards in the graveyard (Eviscerate and Ophelia Barrows are a couple cards that could take advantage of an early discard). The card also gives you an added option in your first turn which means that you cycle one more card in your first turn than your opponent expected. It's a seemingly small tradeoff for a negligible advantage, but during the early game, every little bit can help.

However, rather than playing and using a quest immediately, there are a few allies, abilities, and equipments that could also be very useful in starting the game in your favor.

While the Alliance lacks some of the overly offensive allies that the Horde has access to, it does feature the elusive ability. Apprentice Teep and Warden Tonarin are both good choices for a first-turn ally. The apprentice doesn't have enough health to survive much combat, however she's ideal for putting a little damage on the opposing hero in the early game before your opponent gets a protector on the field. Of course, Warden Tonarin is a perfect answer to the gnome (provided your opponent is playing Alliance as well). With just enough attack power to stop the apprentice, Warden also shares her ability to sit on the field and stare down the enemy without fear of being attacked. Granted, both of these allies are vulnerable to abilities, but any allies your opponent can put on the table will have no choice but to wait for you to make a move.

Agent Elrond has already summarized the best first turn allies that the Horde can use in his piece titled Happy With The Horde pt. 1. I'd suggest looking that over for a few ideas on how to open with Horde allies.

While there is a decent number of abilities that can be played on the first turn, the two that most stand out are the Warlock's Fear and the Warrior's Rend. Both are good opening abilities. Fear can send your opponent's allies back into their hand, ideally played when your opponent opens with an ally that costs one resource to play. If you find yourself facing Apprentice Teep or some other cheap ally before you're ready to deal with them, Fear can buy you a little more time. Rend, on the other hand, is perfect as an opening play as it starts the damage flowing on your opponent before they can mount an offensive. By the fifth turn, with only a single Rend in play, you can knock even the strongest hero down by a sixth of their health... and that isn't taking allies or other abilities that you may play into account.

While there are a few pieces of equipment that could also be mentioned, none of them are particularly spectacular for the first turn and may not even be useful for the early game at all, though I'm sure some decks could take advantage of them, given the right circumstances.