The Ant Book

[TopCat]

This is one of my current main decks because it's pretty fun to play. The main premise is to flood the stages with Hive Workers who aid each other and use them as weapons to hold/take land.

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Chimera x3
Hive Queen x4
Hive Worker x4
Barbarian x3

Counter Amulet x2
Fire Shield x2

Upheaval x2
Intrude x2
Capture x2
Chariot x2
Telekinesis x2
Telegnosis x1
Teleport x2
Trespass x2
Drain Magic x2
Fat Body x2
Prophecy x3
Haste x2
Revival x1
Reflection x2
Revelation x3
Reincarnation x2
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Some of the key combos are:

Using Fat Body to beef up the Hive Queens, who you also cast Reflection on and have them hold your first high level lands.

Using Revelation to get two Hive Workers from your Queens in play (I threw in one Telegnosis so you can keep gaining Hive Workers until your book refreshes).

I originally had Avenger in my book, but I think Barbarian's immediate ability will come in more useful. With it you can do something like push an enemy off of a high level land with Telekinesis, Intrude with the Barbarian, take the land and move Barb over to the high level land. This works really well if they were depending on land effects to hold the land or if it's a creature that can kill itself (ST > HP).


**I'm currently toying with a new build on this book. I've taken away one Barb and all three Chimeras and replaced them with two Conjurers and two Hell Pyrons. Ba-Al is a little more versatile than Chimera since he can appear anywhere and strong creature mobility is a hallmark of the book. Hell Pyron will aid all of the Hive Workers and can net magic with his TA.

On the spell side I've removed replaced Reincarnation with Gift, which doesn't compress the book as well but gives me 100G to pay for the slightly bigger creatures I now have. I've replaced Haste with Replace which will cheapen Hell Pyron to a straight 130G to play (10G for a Hive Worker, 120G to replace it with Hell Pyron).

[Lizardman]

Conjurer's ability works good with Telekinesis. I would add Gremlin Tooth? or scrolls if your opponent plays lots of nuetralize stuff. It looks like this would be a good book at invading territory. Most of my books are mostly creatures with lots of items and few spells. I invade a lot and take lots of territory and go for many different chains. Though it is probably easier to protect a few really good territories which looks like something your book would be good at. Especially with all the powering up of your creatures.

[TopCat]

gooba said:

Conjurer's ability works good with Telekinesis. I would add Gremlin Tooth? or scrolls if your opponent plays lots of nuetralize stuff. It looks like this would be a good book at invading territory. Most of my books are mostly creatures with lots of items and few spells. I invade a lot and take lots of territory and go for many different chains. Though it is probably easier to protect a few really good territories which looks like something your book would be good at. Especially with all the powering up of your creatures.

I've shied away from putting a couple of scrolls in the book since Hive Workers can't use them. Given they are the emphasis, I've tried to limit the book to cards that can boost them up. If they have a neutralizing creature, it should be enough in most cases to push them off a big land, take it, and defend. Gremlin's Tooth is good, but I make use of the spell Capture to steal any items instead.

I try and stay away from books with too many creatures. Rarely does anyone ever have more than 10 creatures in play (outisde of cheapies). Given costs of land defense, items, and creatures, it can really take a toll on the pocketbook and if you lose a big land, the real price of loss is higher. It's also easier to form combos with spells than with creatures, and spells can facilitate greasing your combo sooner (especially when "computer randomness" rears it's head).

[Lizardman]

Interesting, the only opponents that I have played against are the story characters from the other games and AI opponents. I usually play 1 on 1 versus Zeneth and he litters the map with his creatures. If I don't play enough creatures against him I end up having to pay lots of toll fees. Though it does makes sense to have few creatures in 4 player matches since territories will quickly get filled by other players creatures(especially on small maps). I think I will try a book with similar structure to this and play a team match versus AI opponents. I can't wait to play against real opponents with good strategies.

[Kuroi Kenshi]

Playing online with other people is a world of difference, Lizardman. One good thing is there seems to be a norm for the regulars online: A particular coliseum stage with the lands turned to random so it doesn't have any clumps of a particular color. It works very well.

I wonder if Fist Fight would have any place for the Hive Queens. I kind of like the Fat Bodies and/or Reflection instead.

[TopCat]

I think Fist Fight is counterproductive before you can beef the Queen up because you wouldn't be able to use items to protect her.