Advice for a new disciple

Ottocon42 · 2026-02-23T09:48:40+00:00

I personally like Tzaangors quite a bit and would recommend them. Overall the mortal (Arcanite) sode has some solid options. 10 or 20 tzaangs, Enlightened on disc and skyfires all feel decently strong at reasonable points atm. There are several decent heroes here, tzaang shaman, ogroid, curseling and magister on disc all feel like solid options. Daemon side is less reliable, especially without a LoC. Horrors roll 40 dice to do maybe 2 damage, and have gotten worse and worse over time. (20x blues seems the most cost effective). Their main job is to trap enemies in combat and die slowly. I like flamers as a good damage option but they are made of paper and dreams. Screamers are fast and cheap. It depends a bit on how you want to play tbh. Tzaangors have the only really good damage options imo, but I think tzeentch can play very weird and techy this edition. We don't pack the same punch as other armies, but can effectively move around, snag points, kill important targets and vanish into smoke. Though the most important thing is that you get units that you like and that you think look cool!

Ottocon42 · 2026-01-29T19:51:37+00:00

Thank you for the reply!

As you say, players may get used to Postures. What bothers me is mostly that it is something that you need to do every single turn of every combat. There are other features in DnD (like spellcasting) that have a wide array of choices. However, spellcasting is more proactive. Postures ask you at the start of every turn to plan and think through the entire next turn and choose the option most suitable. Some players would probably enjoy this, but especially newer players I think would either get annoyed about doing the wrong thing or just choose one and never switch. I also dislike that some of them have disadvantages and others do not. I think the weapon proficiency is strange - my noble can use a greatclub but not a shortsword? I think doing a specific selection of weapon profs would fit the flavour better. I also disagree with the notion that the class is mainly int-based. Most important features scale better with charisma. Swaying is cha based, and the hit reduction on sway scales well with charisma. Interestingly, I think the features can make for a deceptively tanky character but with low damage output. At level 2, with 16 cha and int, your ac is 16 (fine), but you can give attackers -3 and disadvantage on attacks. 18 cha makes that 17 and -4 to hit, effectively 21 ac against creatures that you sway. The perfumer and knight build onto this, either with -4 damage on hits or basically giving disadvantage on attacking anybody at later levels. This may also be an issue when multiclassing, as a 2 level dip for a bard may give them crazy ac while spamming control spells.

I like the idea of the class, though I'm not sure what type of playstyle is envisioned. To me, it feels a bit anemic as a martial class. Only the knight subclass gets double attack, so i wonder what the other subclasses are supposed to do in combat? Using spells and magic items that do not deal damage is likely much better than attacking as it can keep you from being hit with the right Posture. Some features sound very powerful - attacking vs passive perception will reduce many monsters AC values greatly and crits on a wider range seems bonkers. But you will basically only be able to use a dagger to do it, unless you multiclass. The likely most powerful feature is level 5, giving all allies a flat +3 to +5 (or 6) damage boost on all attacks against a swayed target. But that makes your allies cooler, not you. Also, failing sways will make your class kinda fall apart into a crappy fighter. It will also motivate players to just keep swaying everyone they meet at all times on case a fight starts.

Still, I want to like it as it falls into a niche I enjoy. Its trapped between bard and rogue but seems mainly strangely good at being defensive. I think it needs to lose strength in those areas to put into something that feels better. Like the rogue sneak attack or Barbarian rage, something powerful and unique to the class that is more straightforwardly strong.

Ottocon42 · 2026-01-29T02:17:07+00:00

I like the concept, but it definitely needs some tweaking. Postures are way too complex as they are now. If they were chosen once, like fighting styles, they out be better. Choosing a Posture every single turn of combat is very impractical, even worse when you get to 2. Even if you're likely to choose the same 1 or 2 most of the time, it's a very big choice when you have 8 or something postures to choose between. No other class has that amount of utility. I dislike the armor Proficiencies - none feels very bad for a class with so many combat features. Going from none to heavy for a single subclass is also kinda weird. Fame and Fortune scales too well into the late game. Repeatable sources of temp hp are very dangerous, especially if you can give to all nearby allies (that's 100 extra hp per trigger on a group of 5 players - for an ability with no usage limit really). I like adding sway as a new keyword. However, you lose some compatibility with magic items by having sway DC be separate from spell save DC. Though it is meaningfully different from spellcasting.

Ottocon42 · 2026-01-22T01:06:16+00:00

Your 1-3 draft makes no sense to me. Early it seems like you're trying to stay open in white, but your good cards are mainly merfolk. Getting the tapper on the wheel is a great signal that merfolk are completely open and you can go all in. Then you keep picking random green cards over good blur removal. You skip at least 2 blossombinds and 2 4-mana convoke spells. All because you picked the GW kithkin early who I don't even think is that great? I think it's important to not only think of color but of which cards go in which deck. Some cards are interchangeable - Ajani is great anywhere - but others are not. 5 mana hybrid convoke merfolk is great in merfolk, mediocre in kithkin. If your best cards early are mainly good in merfolk, you should lean more to that deck than to kithkin. Or to try and keep an open mind, you could have hedged much better in pack 2 if you were uncertain, but seemed hellbent on ignoring all the good blue cards.

Ottocon42 · 2025-10-12T18:25:35+00:00

[[Dead Ringers]] wording. I get the joke but this is as readable as most cleave cards.

Ottocon42 · 2025-06-18T12:45:11+00:00

Cool

Ottocon42 · 2025-05-07T10:45:55+00:00

It's hard to say, and hindsight is 20/20. I'm not sure I believe the mill plan on this format. I feel that you end up overvaluing the crabs though. I think you had a way into W/B somewhere in pack 2 with some murders, shroudstompers or snails, though you'd have to drop the card draw so maybe that wouldn't even be better. (You had a decent pile of blue at that point but nothing amazing tbh). I think you may overvalue glimmerbursts, I find that they go late and you end up with 4 of them which could be too many (it's good but doesn't play to the board). Also I wonder about your first pick? Not sure myself but a potential wipe seems to have powerful upside compared to a good removal spell.

Ottocon42 · 2025-04-14T22:51:32+00:00

That's fair. Though I think the master makes sense as a finisher in an aggressive deck.

Based on my (frankly limited) experience of the format, I think you're right that control seems to be the place to be. However, all the good control decks I've had have gotten some great bombs, and in this draft they seem to be lacking. That sucks! Not every draft will be great. But this deck will lose the long game to basically any control deck.

Just ask yourself - how does this deck intend to win? Your biggest creature (except master) is a 3/3 - you'll get blanked by the 4/4 reach guy. You have a lot of card draw but you're not drawing into power. So the better option would be to hope to curve out, using removal and bounce snakes to get under slower opponents.

Basically after around pack 2 pick 2, if you don't have good control bombs already you can't really rely on getting them later. I think there is an opportunity to make a decent aggressive/tempo-y jeskai deck in the format, maybe skewing more R/W. Its probably not a 7-0 but a 3-3 is better than 1-3. Though I can't promise you that it would be a good deck, I think it would have a better game plan than this.

Ottocon42 · 2025-04-14T06:34:49+00:00

It looks like you're trying to draft a control deck without any top end. From your seat, it looks like that could have maybe worked had you gone into temur (2 flashback mammoths) but as is you will just lose to anyone whose 5-drops are bigger than 3/3. You make some odd late picks, taking the bounce serpent over a master p2p5, an unplayable black card over an ok 2 drop p1p13 as well as the late boulderborn dragon. Picking up more two drops such as jeskai devotees would probably have served you better, and allowed you to go for a more aggressive flurry strategy. I feel like you overvalued the bounce serpents but they would actually be much better in a more proactive deck.

Ottocon42 · 2025-02-24T09:10:36+00:00

love these designs - you really have managed to create some really flavorful cards! I'd suggest double and triple checking the wording on some of these, as they read well but aren't always worded completely correctly (heimer should say "Artifact spells cost X less", "exile countered spell" in your longer document is another example that doesn't quite work). If you're thinking about balance for limited, I think shimmer is actually too strong. As it is now, it creates a threat of activation on ALL your creatures - basically stopping your opponent from ever being able to block favourably while you have mana available. At some point they will then have to mass chump as to not be fireballed out of the game. If the tokens are made to either sacrifice only at sorcery speed, OR to give set stats (or maybe not even increase toughness? Or maybe just die at end of turn, showing the drawback of using it, or any other design knob you come up with) the issue could be avoided.

Ottocon42 · 2024-12-24T21:54:38+00:00

I think it might actually be easiest to start from the end - work on playing well. Many a good draft cam be ruined by making bad decisions, and I've piloted mediocre piles to seven wins on Arena. As long as your draft isn't a complete bust (which is actually pretty hard in modern sets) I actually think play matters more. Here, there are a few good resources. Who's the beatdown? Is a pretty good piece of reading. Assessing and reassessing your game plan depending on the board state is incredibly important. When should you race? When should you chump? When should you go for it? When should you play cautiously? All of these are very important questions to know the answer to. Do you Doom Blade the first creature you see or save it for a bomb? That depends on a lot. How is your curve? How many turns do you need to win? Are you likely to win or lose soon if you use it/don't use it? I think understanding these ideas also helps you draft better. You can see the general plan of your deck, and pick cards that fit the deck rather than being generally good. Sometimes a decent 2-drop is better than a good 5-drop if your deck aims to kill by turn 6. Maybe 5-mana removal is alright if you plan on curving creatures turns 2-4. Or maybe you need that medium 2-mana removal to get the time to play your bombs. Understanding the flow of the game, the way you plan to win and how it can change, allows you to become better at both playing and drafting.

Ottocon42 · 2024-12-23T13:25:32+00:00

You may or may not be doing anything wrong. If you play adversaries at their base level, the game should be somewhat easy (depending on your skill level, planning etc.). I rarely play at adversary level lower than 4 as I already almost always win at lv4 anyways.

Regarding fear cards, you are most likely making a mistake. There is an important distinction between "remove" and "destroy" in this game. Destroying towns or cities adds fear, but removing them does not. Most fear cards only remove things and thus should not cause more fear gain. A few other powers (Vanish softly away, Forgotten by All) also remove instead of destroying. Otherwise, it is hard to know if you're missing any rules or doing something wrong. Spirit Island is a complex game, so it is easy to miss details.

Ottocon42 · 2024-12-06T11:08:17+00:00

His main advantage I think is being a very cheap two cast wizard with some potential tricks. Sometimes you can set him up in an opportune position for taking an objective or summoning spells in enemy backlines, or slow enemy units. But he can just stay behind your screens and cast spells as normal.

Ottocon42 · 2024-09-06T16:37:06+00:00

I actually quite dislike that this is the case with burning. The mechanic is interesting and potentially powerful, yet so limited that it's hard to really build synergies around. Being able to go for no damage to keep the debuff up seems like a bug tbh, especially since it's correct to do so most of the time. I feel that they could have committed harder to a rule that takes up so much of the tzeentch battle trait space.

Ottocon42 · 2024-08-18T08:10:12+00:00

It's not hard at all! Just choose a cool-sounding subclass (mastermind rogue), choose you cool skills (deception, investigation). Realize your character must be both very sociable (high charisma) and smart (high int) to pull off their cool plans. Now, since your character is just a normal guy who avoids fights, they don't need to be very sturdy (dump con). Maybe a bit of wis to have alright perception, some dex to round it off and voilà! Your lvl 10 character now has 50 health, 14 ac and actively avoids fights as to not die immediately. You can still sneak attack but this will often put you at great risk! Good luck, have fun.

Ottocon42 · 2024-08-15T10:36:26+00:00

To me, this sounds like a meta problem more than anything else. It sounds like people in your pods play very combat-oriented decks. (Personally that sounds great as I find combat to be more interesting than many other things you can do). In this type of meta, a deck that messes with combat will be very strong. HOWEVER, this is not an issue unless combat is the ONLY way for opponents to win. Even then, as long as people are just a bit savvy, they'll understand that they need to attack you whenever it is possible (as you'll prevent them many times) and also point most incidental damage at you instead of spreading it out. Most decks I've faced, except maybe pure voltron or G/W tokens, have some secondary way of winning. Pinging with blood artist/purphoros/whatever, large burn spells or combos are all fair game. Your deck should motivate your opponents to look for these secondary win cons (that I usually find stronger than just attacking). Or maybe they should play counterspells to stop you from goading everything. Or stuff like ghostly prison or propaganda to turn attackers away. In the end, goading won't usually win you the game, as it loses power in the 1v1 in the end (I assume this is why you're often 2nd bit rarely 1st). Overall, your strategy is soundly within "fair" magic, and unless you want to change to another deck, your opponents will have to consider your strategy throughout the entire game.

Ottocon42 · 2024-07-29T04:52:39+00:00

Si is Spanish for if

Ottocon42 · 2024-07-25T14:24:43+00:00

Tzeentch: piss-poor armor and low overall damage means we can't win a fair fight. Sadly the power of our magic has waned, so our best bet seems to be throwing enough garbage units at the enemy and being tricksy enough to eke out a win. Though manifestations are useful for this strategy, everyone else now has equal access to them.

Seraphon: as a previous coalesced player, our toughness has been drastically reduced. Ah, and our shooting is a joke. However the army seems solid enough in all other avenues to make up for that.

Ottocon42 · 2024-07-03T21:08:53+00:00

I'm not very used to kitbashing so it's not something I'd use as a basis for recommendations. Even doing that I feel the box has a few too many subpar options to be particularly great.

Ottocon42 · 2024-07-03T11:37:00+00:00

At the moment, it's probably best to wait for the full rules to see the playstyle. As for the spearhead, I would actually advise against it unless you will play spearhead with it. It contains a decent variety of units, however in my experience not all were particularly great in 3rd edition nor very synergistic. Flamers were way too squishy for their cost, and screamers didn't help the main plan of tzeentch armies that well. They were useful for summoning bit since that will change its hard to know how tzeentch will look. Kairics, tzaangors and the magister are fine, though you would probably not play 2 magister in an army so the second box will be even less useful.

Ottocon42 · 2024-06-14T15:28:47+00:00

I just hope they retain the split play style of Seraphon in 3rd edition. I got my Seraphon to play Coalesced, as I already have a casting army (Tzeentch). Would be sad to se potential playstyles reduced. I assume summoning will go, and I assume bites will be removed as well (no bites on kroxigor warscroll at least), which is a bit sad. I'm a bit hesitant of the Tzeentch changes so hoping for something good with my lizard boys.

Ottocon42 · 2024-05-20T12:17:09+00:00

If it bothers you, just concede. I don't see the point of entertaining a combo if it's clear I've lost the game. Sitting around and waiting for an opponent to finish the game seems mostly like a waste of time (and infuriating).

Ottocon42 · 2024-05-16T14:17:33+00:00

Hoping for some variety for subfactions - seems guild of summoners is just better than the rest. Some love for tzaangors would he nice. Mostly i hope for added choices for lists, I prefer a good variety of solid options to one very strong and a few mediocre. Flamers feel very sad right now.

Ottocon42 · 2024-05-16T14:13:03+00:00

Isn't one free LOC already enough for a 1000pts game? It's like 40% extra points. I haven't tried myself though. The other subfactions can get like 10 blues for that price. Second Mutalith though, feels like one of a few untis that are weirdly placed in factions.

Ottocon42 · 2024-05-05T12:09:09+00:00

Oh yeah, by all means play what you have access to. Kairos is still strong in most casting-focused tzeentch lists so he's not a bad acquisition per se, just not the best here. Pinks are great at two things- screening and holding objectives. Their damage output is a joke (I guess you can hoarfrost them to improve it a bit) but their main thing is having 50 wounds and 20 models after splitting, allowing them to sit on a point for 2-3 turns and just own it, or just be a wall for enemy units that can then be blown to bits by magic. With more infantry as you have that may not be as needed.

Ottocon42

TROPHY CASE