Welcome one and all to the Gems of War Forum Fantasy contest, series 3! Everyone is welcome to vote in each match and your vote will determine who wins and advances on to the next round. Here are some guidelines to follow when deciding on who to vote.
Vote according to your own rules. Is it a best of whatever? Is it Player vs Player or AI vs AI? You can choose, but always assume it is a fair fight.
Each troop and their rarity will be listed below. For exact stats, a link will be provided using @Lyya’s fantastic database application so you can see exactly what each troop can do, how strong they are, and other bonuses they may receive.
All troops are fully traited as well, so keep this in mind as it may not be reflected in the list.
Mercy is Empowered so she’s used turn one to generate a bunch of Yellows and fill Dryad. Dryad is then used to generate Greens and give Paladin Barrier. I then have Mercy and Dryad to chain together and fill up one another. This makes it easy to ensure Paladin always has Barrier and is constantly being filled. Paladin, of course, is the big threat on my team since he does 33 damage per shot for only 11 Green/Yellow mana. That’s enough to one-shot his Scale Guard, and two-shot any other troop with plenty of room to spare. He’ll make short work of the opposition.
Archon basically sits in the front, mana filled, to soak up any skull attacks with his Stoneskin. He’s got 57 total HP, so he’ll last a while, even from spell damage. He also has 15 attack, so he’s a serious threat from the occasional skull match. If he gets low he can also do a solid 21 damage himself to a single target. I’ll mostly leave him filled and not make skull matches so I can fill the more important troops more quickly, but he’s a definite threat nonetheless.
Hi all,
Well to kick things off - I can already see the fear in Studs eyes clouding his judgement as he step by step improves his troops before the battle
My understanding is:
Archon can’t target (healthest enemy),
only has 14 attack (not 15),
only has 49 total HP (not 57),
not to mention he does 13 damage (21 damage only when damaged)
Paladin does 29 (targeted) damage - not 33
But letting that all slide and moving along quickly, since his team is actually pretty powerful with decent synergy regardless of a little extra help…
My team plays fairly straight forward
Celestasia up front for decent damage (15) and moderate HP with healing becoming available once filled
Barrier on 4 or 5 matches from Alchemist (or provided by Mercy) - assuming there are not just 4/5 matches just available from the board.
Faunessa and Scale Guard are both Empowered - so there is targeted damage available from the start.
With the Banner and Fire Link and Magic Link - Alchemist, Faunessa and Scale Guard can all fill up on two matches.
Blessed trait can be strong about half the time (Magic and Attack) but still decent the rest of the time
I see my teams best showing in this match being from Celestasia tanking at the front with the Scale Guard and Faunessa both using targeted attacks. Celestasia perhaps targeting Scale Guard sometimes - to guarantee Red Mana is created - filling Alchemist, possibly creating Barrier or if not, then the subsequent use of Alchemist should plus go a long way to re-filling Celestasia
Alchemist and Faunessa are going to be able to help minimize the mana generation of Mercy - which is also likely to be at least partly blocked by Dryad being used to fill her
The Mercy/Dryad combo only kicks off in full force once Archon is filled
Mercy is really the key - being both a healer and mana generator with cleanse removing poison
Paladin can be controlled mid-late game with targeted damage to reduce armour and hence his damage
I see the big challenge in this match being how often and how fast the snipers can reload. If paladin gets a shot off first from an empowered Mercy, it will take out the scale guard in one shot (say) reducing @GemsOfWar’s ability to counter. Then Faunessa can counter and reduce Paladin’s armor by 13, also reducing damage (though armor recovers 1 point per turn). Paladin can’t one-shot anything else, so healers may get a chance from then on. It might be a drawn-out battle with both sides healing, but there’s no way to increase Paladin’s armor (besides it repairing one point per turn).
This match certainly is heating up as the contestants are coming out of the gate swinging. Bobomb it seem you are playing the announcer/shoutcaster how does it feel?
Further analysis suggests that Mercy would not be likely to charge up Paladin on a first cast - Dryad will snap up the early Yellow gems, needing a second set of yellow to get Paladin ready to fire. That leaves a big opening for @GemsOfWar, as he rightly points out. His snipers are ready to go from turn 1, meaning Paladin will get his shot in with a handicap, and won’t be able to take anything out in one shot. Doing 9 damage his first turn and 13 his second to Paladin, @GemsOfWar will really cripple Pal’s damage potential.
On the other hand, in an AIvAI match, there’s no telling who that silly chip brain will target, possibly completely ignoring Paladin and leaving it time to rampage.
I dare say the heat from the dragon might light your fuse but that faunessa has been making my blood boil with her eyes. Not sure if alchemist can keep them both filled though with his magic. However try not to take your eyes off that statue that appeared out of nowhere, i think it moves. You might be right about @studs team. The team comp is not doing him any favours. Guess you could say he should have ordered them differently. Two mana makers are good however bit they are not a loop make. Ai vs ai might be interesting to watch but it is safe to say that having an unmoving statue as a troop is not a good idea. Wait where did it go? I took a look at mercy for a second and the statue is gone. Mercy as fans should know is a hit or miss card and ai does not care about saving it to net an extra turn.
Couldn’t agree more. Alchemist will fill Celestasia first, and if she targets Faunessa, there’s a chance she’ll get yellow and just refill herself partially, or worse, miss and give @Studs a free turn and refill.
Gotta agree on that good bud. Might be short work. Especially seeing as one empowered trait vs 2. That means that the opponent need not touch the board for 2 or their turns. Lets not forget the bigger the enemy the stronger they fall so faunessa will do a minimum of 7 damage on the first turn.
Well done @Studs and good luck with the rest of the competition
Cheers to everyone who voted for me
Thanks to @Shiratori for all his hard work running the league - Great job!
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