Mage Soldiers are sorta meh

[Haku-Chan]

Well i would say it is quite op and strong and a good deck.However it is being out shined by some decks this set.
I use it i don't use antilla or ascarat and Funny thing is deck is 22-7.
I admit it does have some gimmicks to it.
Also chamail action skill not that bad.It actually help me survive some times.The action skill especially helped me vs refess when i run out of returns.Exlap lanlit skill is annoying.

However they do need some file rework.
So more balanced and not so dependent

[Haku-Chan]

Well 1 of the loses was a dc. yes i actually do consider it strong with all my cards being set11 beside returns and faytis and sorc monk.i do consider deck quite strong.

[Callonia]

Can someone please keep DG off the forums. after all he's banned. He using aznapple to bypass the ban.

[sunbunman]

Lovin it keep it up!

[Callonia]

Coming from a person that wants bringer to have 3 rng and fire arrows to do x20 damage per sphere level.

[AznApple2]

Coming from a person that wants bringer to have 3 rng and fire arrows to do x20 damage per sphere level.

Know what, Mr. Thread Derailer? I know you're trolling, but I'll entertain you. There's a reason that Urgrant is murdering everything right now:

Because the game is...repeat after me...

no longer about mindlessly bashing things with big damage.

The reason Urgrant is so freaking amazing is that it embodies exactly what makes a top tier file: relentless resource denial. Return the little things, remove the big things, engage anything else with Annarose before brutally beating it down, and you can throw in SSs like Afeemina and Vonderam if you'd like. Same deal with EN. Bane their grims, succubus action their SP, Nue and Fierte their sphere levels, sin any problematic units, and that's before we get into the fact that you still have things like Fenrir+rats to be dangerous on the field.

It's also the reason that Refess has been the weakest sphere for a while, despite having some of the most amazing units if it came to just bashing things on the field.

So yes, fire arrow could be x20, and Bringer could have 5 range for all I care and do 40 damage on open. Fire Tornado could be 4 SP and only hit units with HP > 0, ball of flame could be a level lower, dragon breath could do 30 damage instead of 20, TR could fetch himself from the cemetery, etc. etc. etc.

It would still be meaningless in the face of things such as Emana/Mystere, Urgrant ramping up the SP to annarose, and other control mechanisms. Why allow your opponents to play what they want when you can simply pick them off with removal all day and beat the crap out of their SP with Lawtia tricks?

Is there any coincidence that imortal got 2234 RP with pegasus WK, before I got 2217 RP predominantly with Gowen Fierte, maybe switching to something Falkow offhand? What about when Primclone was a monster? Mirelia? And why Urgrant and EN are as strong as ever? Notice something? Or why anytime there was some sort of gamebreaker in MtG, the color blue had something to do with it (Force of Win, Morphling/Urza combo winter madness/affinity/JACE)? They all focus on control.

Heck, even the best version of big refess I'd ever seen--Marduk Control, that Pluu made back in the day, with Rasam, TR, Marduk, Advent, puffball, owl sage, Dio, Aano, and Vet Paladin was about whoring so much SP for the purpose of getting a Rasam/Diondora lock going backed up by True Retear.

So yes, I firmly believe that if you're just going to be a straightforward sphere of "please let me bash you", you should at least be fan-freaking-tastic at bashing things on the field, and not have grims that come up short when it comes to not cutting the mustard against shooting down a star dragon, or having your unit whose only purpose is to take out one unit per turn for 1 SP to not be encumbered by range, and to this point, for 11 sets, there has yet to be a solid card when it comes to increasing range.

In fact, that's the exact problem with mage soldiers:

That Ryu, Balmoa, and Chamail do nothing when it comes to control, permission, or resource removal. Yet they're all Falkow.

Buff plzkthx.

[Godric]

so let me get this straight...
You're complaining that Control is overpowering the folrart arena, and that Falkow is one of the prime perpetrators. But then you're complaining that because the mage soldiers don't have control type mechanics and they're primarily falkow, you think they deserve a buff to compensate?

I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to get across here. On the one hand you're saying how control is too powerful compared to other strategies, then on the other hand you’re saying it should be the norm.

I think the Mage Soldier archetype at the moment is pretty good as it is. My own MS file has consistently had higher wins than losses after I found a good build. It’s only 8/4 at the moment, but that’s after lots of tweaking so the counter’s been reset, and two of those were disconnects. In your analysis of the three new units, you seem to have forgotten or ignored a few points.

Balmoa:
Okay, I agree his stats are a little strange, but combined with his action skills; a double strike, and a buff action he has a potential to rack up the damage. Combined with his trait to return 1SP whenever his Atk is raised by a grim, and the fact he should be protected by an attack proof front line, he should be able to sit there long enough for his damage to improve. Personally I pack an Invisibility Edge grim in my MS file because on him it’s actually pretty effective, and you get the SP refunded.

If his Auto was a start skill and his stats were changed to 30 Atk 3 Agi, he’d probably be way too powerful too soon with his double strike. Plus a start skill makes it harder to counter. There are some files already whose primary damage is based almost entirely on attacks. Making it an Auto skill gives more room to work around it for the files that have no other option.

Chamail:
I’ll admit, I don’t actually use Chamail in my MS file, but that’s just a personal preference. But first of all, why are you comparing her to Toromea in particular? They are two completely different units with completely different skill sets. Sure, Toromea has better stats and is probably good at what she does, but that’s a completely different filetype and structure. You’re trying to do completely different things in the two files.

Secondly, her action skill is not just -10 atk to a column +damage to one unit, it can also return a unit’s attack to their base. I know the situation would be rare, but it can do wonders against Atk buffed front liners. It also sounds like your ignoring her auto skill, which once again I will admit is a little circumstantial but if you combine her with say Simulacrum of Annarose who lowers an enemy unit to 0 Atk on her auto, plus she’s a mage soldier too, so she works in the filetype.

One thing I’ve found is that you generally don’t want to put Chamail behind Ryu, because then you have a 50/50 chance to see if Ryu goes before Balmoa, so he might miss out on the atk buff.

Ryu:
I really don’t see why people compare him to Marduk and Urgrant so much. He’s got an off-sphere generation auto skill, but it’s very exact, and I’m not sure of many files that could benefit from Falkow/big Gowen. Most of the time people say he’s OP’d, but I think I agree with you that he’s not OP. He is powerful in the right file, but because of the file type he’s essentially your front line tank, and for a lvl 4 with 60 HP, he really does rely on the Atk protection from Balmoa to do his job.

His double attack has a second feature to it however, which I rarely see people mention. The fact that his first attack reduces Agi, and the second reduces Atk. It’s impossible to target which is which, unless your opponent has only 1 unit in range, but if there is only one unit, they’re likely to die anyway.

Then his grim bane action. I actually really like this one. It’s free in SP cost, but you have to play grims to be able to remove your opponents. It lowers your grim count by 3, but you only need 1 to use it. It also becomes a bit of a choice, because you could either use his (potential) 60 Atk weakening double strike, or a single Atk +Gow lvl grimbaning strike. Of course because the bonus damage is reliant on your Gowen lvl, if you’re using his skill to charge the Gow lvls it won’t be that high, and if it’s higher you can’t generate free sphere lvls, but the damage will be greater.

Overall, Ryu is not a Marduk/Urgrant clone, nor is he a new-but-worse Dilate. Dilate can be thrown into a Gowen file and be hard to take down. Ryu on the other hand is part of a set. The new Mage soldiers file isn't OP'd but it certainly is powerful, and some files just have difficulty, or can't take it down. It's a fun file that actually takes a bit more skill that it sounds like you give it credit.

[AznApple2]

To your first argument:
Yes, I am complaining. Because Ryu+Anttila+Balmoa is incredibly inefficient on card space, since you're using more set phases and SP to maximize the output of one card. If we were talking about 60 card files, this wouldn't be an issue. With 25, it's an incredible issue. Those card slots you devote to Anttila/IndianaJones/Mage sword merc girl and Balmoa could have instead been used for other cards to control your opponent like a good Falkow is supposed to.


To your arguments on Balmoa:
Dude...we've had 11 sets. If you can't deal with "cannot be hit by an attack action" unit on start, I'm sorry, but please delete your file. We've had 11 sets. To have no answer to "cannot attack" is inexcusable.

As for the double hit on Balmoa getting too much too soon, in theory ya, and in practice, with ryu and chamail and possibly maggie spitting out so much damage, by the time he does anything besides act as a booster for ryu, it's so much gravy. Is it wishful to want him to contribute besides being "this card is garbage unless you use Ryu"?

To Chamail:
I compare her to Toromea because they're both dual-sphere units with one sphere being gowen whose primary task is to hit like a battering ram and buff your units. Toromea is simply far better than Chamail at this. As for Anna's Simulacrum, no just no. Tricolor rush? That's ridiculous and you know it.

As for the rest of her bells and whistles: yeah, the situation is deliberately rare--because any good player knows that buffing a single unit vs. Falkow is just asking for a return to the face.

I mean yeah, I get that Chamail has range on Toromea, but that's the only thing she has. Toromea's buff is far better, and so are her stats.

And to Ryu:
I compare him to Marduk and Urgrant because like them, he's the centerpiece of his file, a level 4 "Mage Knight Something" (in this case fighter vs. lancer/fencer), and helps with Gowen SP. And once again, he has bells and whistles, but not effectiveness. On his agility lowering, how is he hitting something for which agility matters vs. your 4-5 agility file and not killing it? As for -10 attack...that's just hilarious. The percentage of times this will matter and turn a game by allowing one of your units to live with 10 HP or so instead of dying or some similar situation is probably in the single digits.

My main problem with Ryu is that unlike Urgrant and Marduk, he needs devoted cards just to use his abilities. Gowen generation? Maggie, Anttila, or Indiana Jones. Maggie is iffy considering similar agility, Anttila is solid but has her own issues, etc...

Whereas with Marduk and Urgrant, they may need one SS to get going, but after that, they're just meta-defining game-breaking monsters that rush out things like Annarose, TR, etc...whereas with Gowen, well, *shrug*...high rank gowen with returns ?=X...yeah, high-rank gowen leaves something to be desired =/...

[GOSCAR]

QQ

[asxlen64]

sad to say, most of the dualsphere was altered to be crapped, unlike most of the cards in set11, which retained their jp stuff, they got royally screwed i know chamail(who i have in jp) was 1000% better in jp, mostly cause her autoskill was her startskill and her rankup made her 40hp 50atk 5agi 2rng, but also she was lvl3. but like anything else, you get what you receive, if you dont like it you can always play a different game.