In honor of the 2nd episode of the Mage Wars Monday podcast by Let's Level Up (www.letslevelup.net/?p=668), which focused solely on the Necromancer, today we will look at what is probably his most intimidating card, the Altar of Skulls.
The first thing I notice when looking at this card is the artwork. Is is dark, evil, and AWESOME looking. It fits the Necromancer perfectly. But enough about the artwork. Let's take a closer look at the card stats itself
Stats
Type: Conjuration
Subtype(s): Skeleton, Altar
Mana Cost : 9
Casting Type : Quick Action
Range : 0-1
Target : Zone
Level : Dark 2
Defense : N/a
Channeling : N/a
Armor : 0
Health : 16
Traits : Zone Exclusive, Epic, Necromancer Only.
Special Text : Whenever an enemy Corporeal creature is destroyed, place a Skull token on Altar. Once per round, as a full action, a friendly cleric creature in Altar's zone may place a Skull token on Altar. When Altar has 8 or more Skull tokens, it gains Lifebond +2, all Living Creatures gain Finite Life, and during the Upkeep Phase each living creature receives 2 direct poison damage.
Oh man, what a card. Probably the best end-game card out there currently. But therein lies its greatest weakness. It's an end-game card. That's it. It is practically useless in the beginning and midgame portions of a match.
You need to get 8 skull tokens on it for it to activate. That's INSANELY hard to do in a timely manner. If you don't kill any creatures and are just praying to it with a cleric, that means it's going to take 8 turns to get it started. Let's say you kill an average of 1 creature a round. Even then, it's 4 rounds to get going. And I guarantee that once you bring it out, your opponent is going to come at it all-out.
I think the Altar shines best against a Beastmaster Swarm build. In those builds, the BM will be casting lots of Level 1 creatures, which are all pretty fragile and somewhat easy to kill. This could allow you to get the Altar started even sooner. While the Altar can only be prayed to once per round, there is no limit to how many tokens can be placed on it due to killing enemy creatures. If you kill 6 creatures in one round, you get to place 6 tokens on the Altar.
*Note* - There is no limit on how many Skull tokens can be on the Altar. This makes me believe that there will either be other uses for Skull Tokens in the future, or a way enemy Mages can remove them.
That mean's you'll need to protect it. The best way to do this is probably to cast it in a corner and use Walls of Bones to stop the enemy from getting at it.
Now the enemy has two choices. They can either try to take down one of the Walls, or they can go up and around them, which takes a couple turns. If they try to take down the Walls, the Acolytes and Mort can repair them. If it's getting close to being destroyed, the Necromancer can always use a Reassemble to repair it. And you can always prepare another Wall of Bones as one of your 2 spells in case they do manage to destroy it.
The other option is to go up and around. As you can see from the picture, one of the Dark Pact Slayers is trying that. In the top zone, there is a Poison Gas Cloud. This card inflicts 2 points of poison damage to any living creature in its zone. It also hinders enemy creatures. As you can see, there is also a Skeletal Knight in that zone, ready to attack anything that comes into it, in this case, the Slayer.
In the zone above the Altar, I also have an Archer's Watchtower. This is because I have a Skeletal Archer in that zone. The Watchtower lets him shoot over the wall even though it blocks Line of Sight, and it also gives him the Ranged +1 trait. The idea here is that he can either kill the creatures attacking the wall, or help the Skeletal knight take down whatever is in the zone with the poison gas cloud. The choice really just depends on the situation.
In the Near Center zone, the Warlock and Dark Pact Slayer are busy trying to take down the Wall. More than likely, this would actually happen one zone below that, but in this scenario it makes no difference. They haven't gotten through the Wall and that's what matters. As you can see, the Necromancer has summoned two Grey Wraiths. This is because they have the ability to teleport if you pay 1 mana, letting them get through the walls to the other side.
Because of this, Grey Wraiths are very important to this scenario. Another reason they are so great for this is because their attacks have the chance to inflict Weak conditions. In case you aren't aware, for every Weak token a creature has on it, they roll 1 less attack die. And they stack! So while the Warlock and Slayer and attacking your Wall, you are healing it and inflicting Weak tokens on them. Eventually, they'll have so many Weak tokens on them, it'll be pointless even attacking.
This means that they will probably take their focus away from the wall for a few rounds and try to kill the Wraith. But this works in your benefit too, because it gives you more time to get the Altar going and heal up your walls back to full health. And if they do manage to kill it, you can just summon another one and do it again. The Weak condition is very hard to get rid of, unless the Mage you are facing is a Priestess. They would essentially need a Wand of Healing or a Purify to get rid of them, and if they don't have those in their spellbook, they're just out of luck.
Instead of using Grey Wraiths, you could use Ichthellid. It has the climbing trait, so you could simply climb over the Walls and start attacking. And his ability says that when it damages a creature, it can place an Ichthellid Larva token on it. Then, when that creature is destroyed, you can summon annother Ichthellid from your spellbook or discard pile for free.
If you manage to get this set up before your opponent makes his way over to your side, you should be able to get the Altar activated. Once it is, all Living creatures gain Finite Life, meaning they can't heal. That includes the Necromancer and his Acolytes. Then, every upkeep phase, all living creatures take 2 poison damage. But guess what? That means your Necromancer doesn't take damage, because he's immune to all poison. Your Acolytes will though. In a way, this is actually very thematic. The Acolytes are essentially sacrificing their lives for their master in order to get his ultimate weapon going. Once they die out, it will be a little harder to keep the enemy Mage from getting through the walls, but if you're using the Grey Wraiths, they should have some Weak tokens on them by now, which will make it more difficult.
At this point you really just want to keep the Altar alive and start pounding on the enemy Mage. The Altar has Lifebond +2 when activated, so if your Necro gets close to dying, you can transfer that damage to the Altar and then heal it away with Mort or Reassemble. Likewise, if your Altar is too close to dying, you can transfer the damage TO your Necromancer. This is certainly more dangerous, so be careful if you start doing this. You don't want to build too much damage on your Mage. As long as you manage to keep it alive, you should win the match in no time!
As per request of Arlemus, a user from the Arcane Wonders forum, I have actually played out the scenario from the beginning.
Turn 1 Necromancer initiative (20 mana) Warlock (19)
Necromancer casts Wall of Bones with QC for 6 mana. Warlock QC facedown cheetah speed for 2. The Necromancer moves up one and casts an Archer's Watchtower for 4. The Warlock moves 2 zones to the Necromancer's far center. As you can see, the Warlock is being highly aggressive and moving at a high rate of speed, trying to take the fight to the Necromancer before he can get set up.
Warlock skips his QC, so does Necromancer. Warlock FC Adramelech and QC facedown Bear Strength on him. Necro QC another wall of bones for 6 and FC a skeletal Archer for 11.
Necro QC facedown Block on himself. Warlock QC rhino hide faceup on LoF for 4. Necro FC Skeletal sentry for 8. Warlock QC facedown vampirism on LoF for 2. Archer shoots LoF. 2 damage. LoF moves 2 zones to right, over wall and into Necro zone.
Warlock skips QC. Necro QC Maim Wings on LoF for 5 mana. Warlock reveals Bear Strength and Vampirism. LoF attacks Necro with full sweeping attack. Block is revealed. Then attacks Sentry. 6 damage, 1 burn. Necro moves down a zone and casts Surging Wave on LoF. 2 damage. Roll a 9. Push LoF into wall of arena. 1 more damage, but he’s slammed and that’s what matters. Sentry attacks, 4 damage, wow. Warlock moves up a zone, out of range of archer. Archer attacks LoF. 2 damage, getting luck with rolls.
Sentry takes 1 damage from burn. Necro QC Death Ring for 5. Warlock skips QC. Skeletal sentry attacks LoF. 3 damage, he’s dead. Warlock FC Dark pact slayer. Necro FC Acolyte. Archer does nothing.
Warlock QC Nullify facedown on himself for 2. Necro QC Altar of Skulls for 9. WL passes. Acolyte prays (1). Passes again. Necro moves up 1 and casts facedown Fortified Position. Warlock moves 1 to right and QC Dragonscale H for 6. Archer attacks Warlock. 3 damage. Slayer moves 2 to right. Sentry goes up and attacks. 3 damage.
Sentry takes another damage from the burn. Necromancer QC Reassemble for 3 mana on Sentry. Roll 6 dice, get 6 health back. Warlock QC Lash of Hellfire. Archer hits Dark Pact Slayer. 4 damage. Slayer moves in and hits Necro. 5 damage, ouch. Necro FC Deathfang, makes it Eternal Servant. Warlock passes. Acolyte prays (2). Warlock moves and hits Sentry. 3 damage, no burn. Sentry moves back and hits Slayer. 4 more damage.
Sentry rolls a blank for the burn, so it goes away. Warlock skips QC. Necro does too. Slayer attacks Necro, Fortified Position is flipped up. 5 more damage. Necro QC Rhino Hide on self, should have done that in first QC phase. Archer guards. Warlock QC Flameblast for 5 mana. Throws it at Necro. 2 damage + burn on Necro. Sentry attacks Slayer. 3 damage, kills it. Token added to AoS (3). Acolyte prays (4). Deathfang moves up and attacks WL, 3 damage.
Most of the time when using a Necromancer book, I don't use the Altar of Skulls at all. It's too much of a slow build for my style and makes the Necromancer sit back and be defensive, which is the total opposite of how I want to use him. An interesting comment was made by ringkichard, a playtester for Arcane Wonders. He said that "The Altar isn't useful except in multiplayer." His reasoning was the same as mine; it simply takes too long to get going. But that quote made me think. The Altar could be EXTREMELY powerful in 2v2 matches, especially if your partner is another Necromancer. Just imagine, you could sit back and get your Altar up and running while your partner summoned creatures like crazy and went all out against the other mages. This would certainly increase the speed at which the Altar got going, and with the help from your partner, it would probably be a bit easier to protect as well. Of course, you then have to deal with two enemy mages instead of just one, but I think the benefits outweigh the negatives in this case.
What do you think of the Altar? What is your strategy when using it? Let us know in the comments below! Check back in a few days when we continue our focus on the Necromancer and talk about his book of the dead, Libro Mortuos!