Hi Everyone, thank you for reading my post.
Below is my commentary on all the cards in the base set, as
well as a commentary on the game as a whole.
As a reward for those who make it all the way through, I have
put a couple deck ideas at the bottom.
I have been playing Magic the Gathering for a number of years
(7), and for the last year I have been to busy with schoolwork (I’m a Computer
Science major) and have not been playing any CCG’s.
But then one day a friend of mine showed me the new Harry
Potter game, and we played from the starter decks, and I thought I would get
back into CCG’s again.
Anyone who has played magic before will note the similarities
between it and Harry Potter. I Think HP(Harry Potter) has a couple
advantages over magic, namely in the ability to use actions to draw cards
during your turn. This limits the possibility of being able to do
nothing because you have no lessons (mana in Magic), and therefore getting
completely killed. Now, in HP, you can just draw some cards and then get
some lessons and play 2 of them a turn after that until you catch up.
Also, the limitation of playing only two cards a turn maximum prevents the
use of combo decks or decks which kill extremely fast (5 turns or less),
which are frequent in magic.
Obviously, the complexity of magic is much greater, however,
HP has only 116 cards out so far, and should grow to be more complex in the
future. When magic began, there
were limited possible deck strategies and types as well.
Those who have played magic (or other ccg’s) will quickly
learn that one of the keys to the came is to gain some sort of “card
advantage”, or in the case of Harry Potter, “actions advantage”.
That is, you must be able to do more things than your opponent, or make the
things that you do more effective and efficient than theirs, in order to gain an
advantage which will allow you a win. For example, if an opponent uses two
actions to draw two card, and two actions to play those cards, say they are
creatures, that’s 4 actions. If you then use one action to draw
Transmogrification Exam, and one action to play it, eliminating their creatures,
you have gained two actions. Thus, cards like Harry Potter or Hermione,
which allow you do use your actions more efficiently (drawing 2 cards at once,
or playing 2 lessons at once), you will gain an advantage that way. The
other way to win is to make your cards more effective. For example, if you
play a Vicious Wolf, and your Opponent uses those same 2 actions (draw and
play), to play a Curious Raven, and neither creature is destroyed, then you will
have an advantage because your card is more powerful.
The final variable to consider is the cost of the card.
Because each lesson you get requires two actions (one to draw, one to play), if
you need less lessons to play the cards in your deck than your opponent does,
then you will gain an advantage there.
So now we look through the list of cards to determine which
cards allow us to best achieve these objectives. We’ll look at
characters first. I hope this is helpful! I think the parts on
adventures and characters are the most valuable. For a lot of the other
cards, is should be fairly clear which cards are good and which aren’t.
Generally, you want cards that will be useful most of the time, against most
decks. Only play a card that only helps against some decks if it absolutely
incredible against those decks (like Unusual Pets for example). If you do
use cards like this however, it makes abilities than force you to discard you
own cards to use them better, since you can discard the worthless cards.
You start out with one character. Playing any other
character requires 3 actions, one to draw, and two to play. That is
equivalent to a full turn. Therefore,
any character we play beyond our original one must help us significantly to
warrant the use of three full actions.
The characters that stand out to me as the best are the
following:
Flitwick: Flitwick provides one CH lesson, and in
addition, one time a game he lets you discard two cards to retrieve a CH spell
from your discard. He is truly an amazing character, especially as a
starter. (One could say he is broken evenmeaning that he is too good, he
is ‘broken’ and needs to be fixed because he is unfair) The first
reason is that he provides a free lesson. This means that you save two
actions, one to draw a lesson card, and one to play it. In addition,
starting with an extra lesson will speed up the play of all your other cards,
giving you a significant advantage. Its like 2 extra actions on the first
turn! His ability to retrieve a charm spell can provide the spell needed
for a finishing blow, an extra 5 damage to your opponent from a damage spell, to
finish him or her off, for example. In addition, because he provides a CH
lesson, you do not even need to include ANY CH lessons in your deck, and you can
still play all the CH spells you want! This is because none of the CH
spells require sacrificing lessons to play them. (Though a couple of them
require more than one CH to play, those you couldn’t use). This
allows us to more consistently draw the types of lessons we need, so we wont
have the problem of having one kind of lesson and need to play a different type
of spell. It makes it much easier to play 3 types of spells, since
we only need 2 types of lessons!
I think that Flitwick is one of the two best characters.
Hermione: In my opinion, the other of the two best
characters. Hermione allows you to
play 2 lessons for one action, provided you already have 2 lessons in play.
This allows us to play our big, effective spells and creatures much sooner than
we otherwise would, giving us an advantage over our opponent. If during a
game, a person plays a total of 6 lessons, then they will have gained 2 free
actions from Hermione, assuming they played the last four in chunks of 2.
If they play 8 lessons, they will have gained 3 actions. The gain is not
as immediate as Flitwick’s, however it is still going to be of use very early
on. Hermione is especially powerful
in a deck which sacrifices its lessons, such as a deck with lots of creatures
and/or potions. Hermione, like
Flitwick, is especially powerful as a starting character, as opposed to a backup
character we would play later in the game, because her ability is of great
advantage to us in the beginning of the game.
Other good characters (in my opinion) include:
Harry Potter.
Harry is useful in a control-type deck. It is helpful
only if we can make the game last a long time so that we can spend our actions
drawing cards and then use them, being careful not to draw ourselves to death
(as you lose by running out of cards). He is good in a deck with lots of
healing cards, to allow us to keep drawing cards, throughout a long game.
In this kind of deck your goal would not be to quickly defeat your opponent, but
rather to gain control of the game, defeat their creatures, and protect yourself
from their damaging spells with healing. And then to slowly defeat them
over time with a few powerful creatures or spells.
Snape.
Snape, like Flitwick, provides an extra lesson, and is
therefore a great character. However, many of the potions spells require
the sacrificing of potions lessons, and having Snape alone does not allow you to
play these cards. Therefore, he is not on the level of Flitwick since you must
still include potions lessons in your deck. However, his ability of
healing yourself for 7 is quite good. In a deck which used potions but not
charms, Snape would be a great character to consider. He is also a good
backup character, since he provides the dual purposes of healing and an
additional lesson.
Hannah.
Hannah’s ability to trade 2 cards in your hand for cards in
your discard pile is excellent. It can get you the cards you need for a
finishing blow, or to save you from certain defeat. Because her ability is
useful later in the game, she is an excellent backup character, who you will
draw and play, but not the best character to use at the start.
Dean Thomas.
Deans ability to draw three cards once per game is excellent,
however, when you think about it, unless you used him as your starter, you
needed three actions to play him in the first place! One to draw him, two
to play him. Therefore, you haven’t gained anything. Therefore we
would only use him as a starter, (or if we were playing Ron). As a
starter, he gives us three free draws, that’s 3 free actions! However,
it will take us time to use all those actions, since he does nothing to help us
start out faster, like Flitwick and Hermione do. So I don’t think he’s
as good.
Other decent character’s, or ones that you might use in a
certain type of deck, are:
Draco.
Draco’s ability to force your opponent to discard cards of
your choice is excellent, however, it is quite costly. You lose a card and
an action (that’s like 2 actions), in order to get rid of one card (one
action) of your opponent. Therefore, if you use it in the beginning of the
game, it will slow you down considerably, and your opponent can just use one
action to draw a card back. His ability LOSES card advantage.
However, the purpose of the ability is to eliminate your opponents best cards,
while discarding the ones you don’t need. I think that Draco is not the
best starting character because he does not give you free actions as some of the
others do, however, his ability to eliminate your opponents best cards makes him
worthy of consideration. I would say that any deck using Draco should be
based around him, but that if you are using him as a starter, you will be at a
disadvantage in the beginning of the game due to your slower start.
Nearly Headless Nick.
Since he is not a wizard/witch, he cannot be your starter.
He is useful in a deck in which you desperately need to draw a certain
item or items. I think that as the number of cards (and good items) in the
set grows, he will become better and better. Right now however, he’s not
the best. You would use him only in a deck that specifically needed
certain powerful items. Otherwise, he’s worthless.
Now for the 2 characters I don’t think are worthy of being
in a deck.
Hagrid.
I know that lots of you are screaming at me for saying he’s
not good. But hear me out, I have a
logical reason for this. First of all, he cant be your starter, so we’ll
have to spend 3 actions (1 draw and 2 actions) to play him. His ability is
to make your creatures which deal 3 or more damage deal an additional 2.
Now, if you had only one creature which dealt 3 or more, it would be better to
put out a second than to play Hagrid, since it would be more damage that way.
So Hagrid is only good if you have 2 or more creatures which deal 3 or more
damage. Otherwise, having another big creature is better (and takes 1 less
action to play). If you have 2 or
more big creatures, you are probably winning, if you can keep them out.
And if not, a third big creature would probably do the job as well as Hagrid
would to get you farther ahead. Hagrid is a card which makes it so that if
you are winning, then he makes you be winning even more, but if you are losing,
he doesn’t do much to help. And if there was one thing we learned in
playing magic for all those years, its that cards which make you be ‘winning
more’ are not good. Overkill doesn’t help. You want to have enough to win, and then be able to maintain
your advantage, by interfering with your opponent, or having another creature to
replace your current ones if they kill them. You don’t need to go for
overkill with Hagrid.
Now if you are playing for fun, go ahead and play him, he’s
fun :) But if you are going for the best deck you can have, I’d play something
else.
Ron.
The problem with Ron is that he isn’t as good as many of
the other characters. His ability lets you gain actions, but in order to
use it, you have to have lots of character cards. With Hermione or
Flitwick, (or Snape) you will gain actions right off the bat, as explained
above. In order to make Ron more useful than them, you have to use his
ability 3 times, saving 3 actions. And that means getting 4 characters
out! (Including Ron). Now, if
a lot of your deck is full of characters, so that you have enough to use Ron
effectively, then after putting in lessons too, you wont have enough space for
the cards that really do something to your opponent or his/her creatures!
And that is trouble. Now of course,
if you want to make a deck starting with Ron and having lots of characters, go
ahead, but I think you’ll be in trouble against a strong deck.
Next, the Adventures.
When looking at the adventures, two of them immediately stand
out. Those two are 4 Privet Drive and Unusual Pets. These two
(especially 4 Privet) are both incredible cards, and I would consider them (and
most likely include them) for any deck I was going to make.
4 Privet Drive:
This adventure makes it so your opponent cant play any
spells!!! They can only play
creatures, adventures, items and characters. Against some decks, that is
crippling, against others, its only an annoyance. But because they cant
play spells, they cant play any spells which would get rid of 4Privet Drive!
Which means the only way to get rid of it is to solve it by discarding 6 cards!!
Lets assume that against a deck that doesn’t have a lot of spells, they will
probably just leave it there. In that case, you will have prevented them
from using a number of their cards! That’s good. And against a
deck that needs its spells, you will gain card advantage (action advantage).
It costs you 1 action to draw and 2 actions to play 4 Privet Drive.
That’s 3 actions. It takes your opponent 6 cards (actions) to destroy
it, and they get 1 card for doing so, that’s a loss of 5 actions.
Therefore, if they destroy it, you have gained a net of 2 actions!
That’s a great advantage. I would
play several of this card in almost every deck.
(And if you play 4 4 Privet Drives, you could write it in your decklist
as 16 Privet Drive :)
Unusual Pets:
Another amazing adventure. Now one problem with
adventures is that you can only play one at a time. So its good if your
adventures are so good that your opponent MUST deal with them or pay a huge
consequence. Then you can play another one and put them at even more of a
disadvantage! Unusual Pets is only
useful against decks with creatures, since they have to have one for you to play
it. However, it is AMAZING when it is played.
It deals 4 damage a turn, and to destroy it, they must sacrifice two
creatures. If they don’t kill it, your 4 damage a turn will probably (at
least almost) offset the damage from their creatures, dealing the same back to
them! And if they destroy it, then you will have 2 less creatures to worry
about. So it will have had a good effect, and you can just go and play
another one later!
I would have several of these in almost every deck, unless
you think that the majority of your opponents will not have creatures in their
decks (which is possible)
Now, since we can have only one adventure at a time, in
looking at any other adventures we have to ask: would I really want to play
this, or would I rather just play a 4 Privet Drive or Unusual Pets (since they
are so good).
Here is a quick rundown of my opinions of the other
adventures:
Dragon’s Escape: (1 damage a turn)
Not so good, they will probably just take the 1 damage, and
not care much. A creature can do 1
damage a turn without using up your valuable 1 adventure in play. I
wouldnt play it.
Gringotts Cart Ride: (1 discard a turn)
Not as good as Pets or Privet, but it has possibilities.
They must skip 5 actions to discard it, but then they get 5 cards, so its
like forcing them to spend actions drawing (that or they play out all their
cards and just stay at zero, using the cards they draw in the turn). It
took you 3 actions to get it out, so if it takes them 3 turns to destroy, you
will be even in terms of gaining an advantage in number of actions. (Just
think about it) It is good because it might force them to waste turns killing
it, instead of doing anything. However, if they really need to do
something, they will, and just lose a couple cards.
I think its good but not as good as 4 Privet or Unusual Pets.
If you want to use it in combination with Draco’s trick, that would be
pretty good, as you can make them waste several actions starting to get rid of
it, and then you just cast Draco’s trick on ti and draw 5 cards!
Human Chess Game:
I think this one is okay. If you make it so they cant
play cards, they will just draw 3 cards during their turn, and then kill it in a
couple turns. Now, if you have an advantage of having a couple creatures
in play, then it could be quite good to stall them a couple turns and do extra
damage. Remember, they can still play cards the turn right after you play
this. Its good, but is it better than Pets or 4 Privet? I don’t think so.
Usually, I’d rather just play one of those.
Troll in Bathroom:
This one is good, its like a mini Unusual Pets you can play
against anyone. And if they solve it, then you just gained a huge
advantage. Probably, they will just
take the 2 every turn. And you could do that with a creature, without
using up your 1 adventure in play Though this is much harder to avoid or
get rid of. They will probably just say: okay you can have it, and I’ll
play my 4 Privet or Unusual Pets, and some good creatures or spells and beat you
before it kills me.
Harry Hunting:
Good for slowing them down,
But after they play 2 extra lessons, they wont have to worry
about it. And then you cant play
Pets or 4 Privet, and they can. It takes you 3 actions to draw and get
this out, and 4 for them to draw and get out 2 lessons, so you get only 1 action
of advantage. That’s not as good as being able to play a Privet or Pets.
Meet the centaurs:
Horrible. Now you see their hand! YAY! And
they played a Privet and you cant PLAY your hand. Or a Pets and you are getting
killed Which is better?
Diagon Alley:
This one could be good in a long game, when they start
needing to use actions to draw, however, when they do hit that point they will
just be able to spend their actions killing it, and then draw all those cards.
The best use of this is with Draco’s Trick, to let yourself draw lots
of cards. However, remember its 3 actions to play and draw this one, and 2
for Draco’s Trick, so you must draw at least 6 cards to gain anything, and
thats a lot of damage to yourself!!
Hiding from Snape:
Not very good, but it could become good if an amazing item
came into existence in the future.
Peeves Causes Trouble:
Not good for the reason Dragon’s Escape isn’tthey can
just accept its effect. It doesn’t do enough to make them need to get
rid of it.
Reptile House:
Bad. Only good if you play it right at the beginning,
when they would want to play lots of lessons, and then it only slows them down,
but it slows you a turn to to play it!!
Then after that you will be stuck with it in play, and you
cant play a
Basically with adventures, think: would I rather have a 4
Privet Drive or a Pets out?
If the answer is yes, don’t play it.
Now for the Creatures (actually, cards that use CMC lessons)
Unicorn: Cost 6/Sac 1 CMC +1 action a turn. 0/6
(damage/hp)
A great card, especially in any deck that like to win over a
long period of time. This card makes having Harry Potter amazing, since
you can use one action to draw 2 cards and then your other two to play them.
This is one to consider for any deck that doesn’t just want quick kill
(when spending the time to play this will make all your big creatures or
whatever come out slower. Any card which gains you card advantage (action
advantage) every turn is great if you can get it out and protect it.
Another great card, but easy to kill.
You’ll never run out of cards if you have him, but you’ll
kill yourself faster. You cant NOT draw the cardA good one to consider
over Unicorn if you find yourself using the extra action to draw a lot.
If they just go and kill it, you are down a CMC lesson! And at 1 hp,
he’s easy to kill.
Okay, but a bit expensive. If you are having to play
out 8 lessons, that’s a lot of time and actions before you can get this guy
out. However, there are only a few
big creatures so far, so you might consider him.
Bad. Seeing your opponent’s hand is not a huge
advantage, though it is an advantage, but losing 2 actions to do it is not so
good. If in the future cards come out which make seeing your opponents
hand REALLY good, then this could become good.
A great card, comes out quick and does big damage.
Since he’s unique, you might not want to put 4 into your deck, but then again,
maybe you do because he is so good. You just play the second one you drew
if they kill him. Its a bit risky however, since there are many ways to
deal three damage and kill him, and then you are out 2 lessons, and that hurts a
lot.
Another great creature. I would put 4 in any heavy
creature deck. You can play him on the second turn and start doing 3
damage right away. However, you
lose a lesson if you do that, and if they kill him its a big disadvantage.
He is very vulnerable to a Toebiter spell, which costs only 3. Then you
lose him, and the lesson you discarded to play him, (that’s a total of 4
actions), and your opponent only lost 2 actions for the Toebiter, and you took 2
damage to boot!
This is a great card, it provides 1 CMC lesson, and you can
discard it to return a creature to someone’s hand! So early on its just
like a CMC lesson (as long as you already have at least one CMC lesson and 2
total lessons, and you don’t need to discard all your CMC lessons to play your
creatures), and then later on if you are racing your opponent for the kill with
creature damage, you can put one of theirs back in their hand and save a few
damage.
A decent large creature, a little expensive though. But
since their aren’t many big creatures to choose from yet, he’s a decent
choice.
A good creature, with a great defensive purpose.
Against any direct damage spells, this is like a 5 point heal for a creature
deck, and it can get a couple damage in too. The great thing is, if they
use something that does less than 5 to you, you can have Kelpie take it, and
then take a big one later. Or if they use a big potion that does like 10
or 12 damage to you, Kelpie can take all of it! A great defense against
those potions decks.
This lets you get whatever creature you want, however, unless
their is a creature that is so amazing that you want to spend extra actions to
get it, I wouldn’t use this. It has possibilities however in the ability
to get a big creature for attack, a Kelpie for defense, or a Unicorn or Delivery
Owl for card(action) advantage. I think this will get much better in the
future as more creatures come out. Right now, its pretty good, but if you
use it you should put in a couple versatile creatures like Unicorn and Kelpie to
make use of its possibilities, not just always use it to get your biggest guy.
Horrible! Usually, your opponent wont kill your
creatures a little at a time. They’ll do it all at once, or not at all.
So healing 2 damage counters isn’t very good. Wouldn’t you rather just
put out another creature?
Basically, he’s a cheap version of Kelpie.
I would play him only if you are really worried about those
potions decks.
Boa Constrictor: Cost 4 2/2
Your basic 2 power creature. A staple in creature
decks. Since there arent many creatures out, I’d use him in some decks,
but later I expect we will get better creatures than this.
I don’t like these very much, because they don’t do much.
In one more turn you could put out a Boa, and start doing 2 instead. The
extra 1 damage you’ll get for being a turn earlier is too little compensation.
I don’t think the games will be so short that this guy will be any good.
Not so good.
It returns a creature to their hand, saving you some damage.
Basically, you use 2 actions to play this card ( to draw, 1 to play),
while they lose only 1 to play the creature again, so its just a bit of a stall
tactic. Unless of course, you use it on a creature that requires
sacrificing lessons to play.then its VERY good. And since most good
creatures require sacrificing lessons, this is very good against creature decks.
Of course, its completely wasted against a non-creature deck. And it would
be better to just kill the creature in the first place, which you could do with
some charm, potions, or transmogrification spells. (It’ll cost a little
more, but not too much). And most of those can be used on your opponent if
you need to, so they are never a complete waste! So I would only
play this if you are only using CMC lessons in your deck.
A pretty good quick creature. Has the problem of
slowing you down though, and if he is killed it really hurts. Usually,
I’d rather play a couple more lessons and then start saccing them to play a
couple really big guys, like Baby Dragon and Norbert. Your not going to
kill them with just a Forest Troll, so its a bit of a disadvantage to play him
early. And once you get to 4 lessons, Boa Constrictor does 2 damage too,
but doesn’t cost you the lesson.
This is like forest troll. The question is: can you
play some lessons and then a bunch of these quick guys fast enough to kill your
opponent? Or will he just kill them with some cheap spells and leave you
without any lessons in play?
The troll and tarantula are good for quick kills.the question
is will you be able to kill them or not.
You have the choice of playing a lot of lessons and then
playing big guys, or going for only a couple lessons and playing Tarantulas,
Trolls, and Baby Dragons. Its quick, but if your attack fails, you will
lose.
It gets back a creature from the dead. Why wouldn’t
you just play another good creature instead? That way you don’t waste an
extra action playing this.
Bad. Unlike Tarantula and Troll, you aren’t
getting extra damage out of your discarded lesson. If you play out more
lessons, you can play bigger guys. If you don’t, then you are
sacrificing your first lesson for a guy that will only do 1 damage a turn!
You wont kill them with 1 damage a turn Tarantula’s are much better.
I would rather have a Boa Constrictor. Its easier to
kill, but it does a lot more.
With the stag, they will probably say: okay, you can have the
1 damage a turn, I’ll play my big guy now.
Surly Hound: Cost 3 1/3
Bad for the same reason as the Stagit doesn’t do enough.
Vicious Wolf: Cost 6 3/3
A great creature. In the future, we will probably
get better attacking creatures, but for now, with only a few to choose from,
this guy is a must pick in any creature deck that plays up to 6 lessons.
Now for the Charms Spells.
Charms has the great advantage that you can choose Flitwick
as your starting character and then add them into any deck.
You kill their whole handbut it costs 12 lessons to play!
So by the time you can play it, they will have played all their good
spells, and not have many cards left (probably). And they can just spend a
turn drawing new ones!
Its too expensive to play.
They discard their adventures, and you can see their hand.
This is good, especially played in the first couple turns. Then you
can get rid of their annoying Privet’s or Unusual Pets! But you might
get nothing And its 2 actions to draw and play.unless you get two of their
adventures, you are losing card advantage.
Deals damage to a creature equal to how many CH lessons you
have.
Not a good spell, because it only works on creatures.
The ones where you can choose to hit your opponent or their creatures are
much better, since they can always be useful.
Deals 3 damage to a creature, opponent discards 3 cards.
Like Obliviate, it costs a lot, and is hard to play. It can get you
some card advantage, but for that high of a cost, I think its not good enough.
When you have that many lessons, you want your big spells to kill them,
not kill a creature and make them discard a couple spells (or even lessons, or
adventures they cant use), of THEIR CHOICE.
Your opponent chooses 2 cards and discards them.
Not a good spell. If you could choose the cards, or they were
random, it could be good.
But as it is, they just spend 2 actions getting another 2
cards, and you spent two actions on this spell. They can choose to discard
extra lessons or cards that arent very helpful!
You cant use it if you are only using Flitwick to get CH
lessons. It provides 3 CH, but it
costs 5 to get out, so only use it if you really need to get up to 8 or more
lessons!
If you do, its great. But I think that Borrowed Wand is
better, its helpful much sooner.
It deals 2 damage to all creatures, even your own.
Well, most of the good creatures have more than 2 hp, but it will kill some of
the weaker ones. T makes it so your
creatures have to be big, or they will die. A decent spell, but I
think its a little expensive. I would rather use a cheaper spell to just
kill a creature, and kill their big one. However, against the right deck
this is very good.
It kills your opponents adventure and gives you the reward!
Wow! Now the problem is, it doesn’t work on 4 Privet Drive, since
you cant play spells!
And most of the good adventures have small rewards anyway
(like unusual pets), so Apparate might be a better choice if you are playing the
right lessons.
You get an item back from your discard.
I would rather just put another copy of the item in your deck
to begin with But if you had lost of different good items this would be pretty
good. I expect it to get better when more cards come out, since there will
be more good items.
Hits your opponent for 5. A great spell for killing
your opponent. If you use Flitwick, you can get it back and deal another 5
for the final kill! Great in a deck with lots of big damage potions, so
you can do lots of damage to your opponent.
It has limited uses in decks that discard a lot of lesson
cards, such as potion decks. Consider it in those cases.
Great against any deck with 1hp creatures. Imagine
killing an opponents Delivery Owl with it :)
Thats what card advantage is all about. However,
it has limited usefulness, as not many decks will have many 1hp creatures.
Toebiter is MUCH better. (Toebiter is amazing)
Provides 2 CH. This is like playing a lesson, but you
get two lessons for it! As long as you have enough lessons to play it, its
a great deal, and will speed you up. A wonderful card. Better than
the expensive wands because it is much easier to play and will help you out a
lot earlier.
Hits your opponent for 3. A good spell for decks trying
to kill without creatures. You can start the killing early.
You look at your opponents hand and they discard all their
creatures. A good spell against a
creature heavy deck. But against some decks it will be useless. You
have to play it fast, before they start playing all their creatures.
Overall, I probably wouldnt use it.
This is basically like using Draco’s ability. I would
rather play Draco and get to use this as much as you want. It loses carda
advantage since you use two actions to get rid of one cardthey can just use 2
actions and draw a couple cards and get something else good.
2dmg to opponent AND to a creature.
An amazing card that will hit your opponent and kill a
small/medium sized creature. All at once!
I would play 4 in most decks using Charms.
3 dmg. Another great card. It will kill your
opponent’s creature or hurt him/her, so its useful against any deck. Again,
I’d play several in most Charms decks.
A stall cardbut good if you are both killing each other with
creatures, since it will help you win the race.
However, healing spells are better since they are useful
against any deck.
This will only help against some decks.
This is intriguing, however, if the card you flip over is not
a lesson, then you lost an action, since it cost you 2 actions to get and play
this card, and unless the card you flip over is a lesson, you get only 1 action
worth out of it (1 draw). With the time you spent drawing and playing
this, you could have drawn a card and played a lesson.
Now for the Transfigure Spells:
Way to expensive!! By the time you get this out, your
opponent should have been able to kill you or get you low on life. Then
they can save up and use 2 damage spells against you in one turn to get the
final kill through. They play the littler damage spell first, if you
prevent it, they hit you with the big one. If you don’t prevent it, then
they wait and your cloak did nothing.
Dont play this one.
Well, you lose a lesson (2 actions worth) and 2 actions for
the card itself, that’s 4 actions, to get two back.
However, its the only way other than unicorn to get extra
actions in a turn. It could be good if you have a way to draw lots
of cards, and have lots of lessons in playuse this as a finisher.
A great spell against a creature deck.
You can cheaply kill a creature if they have 2 or more.
However, it is not always useful as your opponent can either play a
creatureless deck, or sit there and kill you with one creature.
Kills all creatures.
Of course, you would play this only in a creatureless deck.
Or a deck with only a couple creatures, but then you have to ask why you are
having those CMC lessons in your deck in the first place.
If it was cheaper, this would be VERY good. As it is, its decent,
but probably too slow to save you.
If you use it you’ll want to use wands to get lots of
lessons out quick to be able to use it. Its a great control card, and can
get you some big card advantage.
Not as good as Raven to Writing Desk, since it costs more and
they get to keep their best guy. If they have three creatures out, then
they still keep the best, but with Raven you get to kill the best one.
Like Raven, it is only sometimes useful.
I think that the spells which deal damage to creatures or
players are better than these, because they are useful against all decks.
A good card. Especially when drawn early. If you
draw it late, you wont really want it, but early on it can help you get out lots
of lessons without having to spend lots of actions drawing cards to get them.
And then you will have a smaller chance of drawing lessons later! A
good card for Transfiguration decks.
It would be good if it could only kill 4 Privet Drive
Still, its worth considering, especially if you have
creatures and are worried about Unusual Pets.
A great spell if you have enough lessons to play it. If
you use wands, then this is a good card.
A good combo card, but a bit expensive. This will get
better as more adventures come out, with great rewards. Use it with the
Adventure that lets you draw any number of cards when you solve it.
But if you dont draw both it and your adventure, that wont help so much.
Kills a creature of their choice. Good if your opponent
only has big creatures. But not so good overall. Again, more
versatile general damage spells are better, as they can hit people too.
You sacrifice one creature and get another into play.
This is a great card, as you can get out any huge creature from your deck
on the second turn.
A good use for those little Curious Ravens. Or Surly
Hounds. But you have to play both little and big creatures to use it.
This will get even better if an even bigger creature is made. A wonderful
spell.
Very bad. Basically, it destroys one of your
opponent’s lessons, and lets you search for a creature. Mysterious Egg
lets you get any creature for only a cost of 4. By the time you can play
this, destroying an opponent’s lesson wont help very much.
A great defensive card if you can get it out fast by using
wands. Only useful against creature decks however. With these, and
healing ,you can effectively keep yourself alive for a long time, but the
problem is staying alive long enough to get it out. If you play this, make
sure you have lots of ways to get extra lessons, like a big wand.
Good if you know your opponent will play CMC. You can
slow them down and make them have to draw a lot to get enough lessons. But
not so good if you don’t know what deck you will go up against.
Cauldron to Seive: Same as Avifors for Potions.
Epoximize: Same as Avifors for Charms.
Homework: Cost 2
Puts 2 lessons into play. Great if drawn in your
starting handit lets you convert one of those starting cards to an extra lesson.
If you draw it later though, it will be a waste. Still a very good card.
Again, the spells that damage creatures or players are
better, since they are more versatile.
Kills an item or a lesson. Only some decks use items,
so this is sometimes no good.
This will be better later then more amazing items come out.
Killing lessons when you are far enough into the game to play this isn’t a big
deal, they can just play more that they draw.
Not so good. You can get lessons from your discard into
play. But if you have 8 lessons to play this, you don’t really need to!
Restricted Selection: Same as Avifors for
Transmogrification.
If you are worried about items, this is better than Lost
Notes. Good to use if they play a
wand out early. It can really hurt them to destroy it.
A good damage spell for a creature deck. If you get out
2 or more creatures, you can deal a lot of damage with this. You should
use 4 in any heave creature deck using T lessons.
And finally, the Potions:
Heals 16!!! If you can get enough lessons to play it,
this can buy you
several more turns to kill your opponent. Think what
would happen if you
could get out Harry Potter, a Unicorn, and have lots and lots
of big
potions like this. You could draw and play lots of
spells, and not only
keep yourself alive with the potions, but you could keep
playing the same
(non-healing) spells over and over again and putting them
back into your
deck! Makes for a good deck strategy, see if you can
get it to work
12 damage! This is the most damaging thing out there,
and it costs only 8! You can build up to a lot of potions lessons, playing
damaging spells as you do it (which dont require sacrificing lessons), then when
you reach 8, you play a Draught of Living Death, then a Dogbreath Potion, then a
Malevolent Mixture. Sure you are down to 3 lessons, but thats 30 damage!!!
Along with all the other big damage potions, you have a great
ability to kill your opponent.
Use big potions and some charm spells which can kill
creatures or hurt the other player, and its a lethal combination. Of
course, you can figure that out just by looking at these cards :)
It can prevent a big hit from a draught of living death, or
other souch spell, but I think a healing spell would be better. This will
do nothing to save you from a creature deck!
Stall cards are generally not so good. Unless you have
a bunch of creatures dealing damage, all this will do is buy you one more turn
before they unleash their big spells for the final kill. And for a cost of
8! I would rather use a big kill spell like Draught of Living Death and kill
them instead.
It can get you any potion, but at a big price, 2 cards, plus
this one, plus an action to play it, all for one card. So you are losing 3
actions!! Better to just put more of the potions you need in your deck.
In the future, when more different types of potions become available,
this will improve.
Heals 10. Better than Elixer of life, because you’ll
actually be able to afford it when you need it to save you. For the deck
described above under Elixer of Life, you’d want both of them.
Dogbreath Potion: Cost 6/Sac 1P
8 Damage. Pile these in there along with your Mixtures
and Draughts
Pomfrey’s Pickmeup: Cost 3
Heals 3, Draw. A great card for defense against decks
that kill with damage from spells.
Even though you draw, you are still losing 1 action since you
have to spend 2 actions to draw and play it, so it isn’t totally free.
Terrible. If they play potions, they get rid of only
one lesson, and it costs 10! If they don’t, it still only gets 3 cards
out of their hand. For that high of
a cost you need much more. This thing will be sitting in your hand all game
while they play good cards.
Provides 5P. This is okay since you can play it and
then have enough lessons to pay the cost of Draughts and stuff whle you
sacrifice your lessons. However, since you need to sacrifice 2 potions
already to play it, you can easily run out. Play a smaller cauldron, they
are better.
Bad. Unless they have no cards in their hand, this is
not a good card.
And most people will keep themselves from running out of
cards.
Heals 4. You can figure out when its good (I am near
the end, and getting tired of writing)
It prevents damage from adventures and creatures, but not
spells. Only good against some decks, and against those, all it does is
stall, not solve your problem, so its not very good. Better to play a
healing spell.
Doing only 1 damage is rarely useful. I would play
something bigger instead.
Another stall card.they still get to use their turn to draw,
and then they can play lots of cards the next several turns. Again, not so
good, especially for such a high price. For that price, you can do a bunch
of damage to them instead. As with all stall cards, there are times when
it would be good, but usually you want something else.
2 damage to any target. An okay card, but not nearly as
good as the Charm damage cards like Toebiter or Vermillious. And not as
good as the big potions for killing people.
Hospital Wing: Cost 4/ Sac 1P
Heals 8. Similar to Burning Bitterroot Balm
Noxious Potion: Cost 3P/ Sac 1P
5 damage.
Good to play after you just played a Draught of Living Death,
Dogbreath Potion, and Malevolent Mixture.
Now you are at 35 damage! That with a couple damage
spells while you were building up lessons, and your opponent drawing, will
surely kill them unless they can use some big heals.
Also good to kill a troublesome large creature early on.
A very good card, and usually better than Silver Cauldron
Helps you get those big potions out a lot faster. Play several of these in
a potions deck.
Terrible! You have to discard 3 whole potions lessons
just to kill one creature or item. Then how will you build up enough
potions to kill your opponent! Don’t play this, there are much better
ways to kill creatures or items. Even the fact that this can kill either
type doesn’t nearly make up for its huge cost.
Your opponent shows you a potions lesson from their hand or
they take 4 damage.
While this is good against non-potion decks, is basically
worthless against someone using potions. Assuming they aren’t stupid and
run themself out of lessons in their hand.
I would rather play a spell which will always be able to hurt
my opponent. You don’t want cards
which will often be useless, and potions are good so I expect many people to
play potions lessons.
Of course, if the people you play never use them, then its a
good spell!
Now for a couple possible decks, first, a deck which kills
mainly using big potions to do damage, and also uses charms to do more damage
and/or kill creatures.
Characters: (2)
Adventures: (6)
Spells: (26)
4 Toebiter
Items: (4)
Lessons: (23)
Basically, you build up lessons quickly, playing your wands
or cauldrons too if you draw them.
Use the damage spells that don’t require sacrificing
lessons as you build up, then you start playing the big potions, from most
expensive on down, sacrificing lessons as you go.
That’s just a start, I’m sure you can improve on it with
testing!
Here is a creature deck, based on getting out lots of
creatures fast and killing them quickly.
Starting Character: Professor Flitwick (he’s
just so completely amazing!!!)
Adventures: (8)
Spells: (8)
Creatures: (21)
2 Mountain Troll (to get with Transmogrify)
Lessons: (23)
This deck is going all out for a quick kill.
Try it and see if its worth sacrificing all your lessons to
get your creatures out a turn or two faster!
The plan is to first turn play 2 lessons (so we have 3 with
Flitwick)
Next turn play a couple creatures or a creature and
transmogrify.
After you get a couple creatures in play drop a 4 Privet or
Unusual Pets. (since you’ll have
almost no lessons left). Just keep playing creatures as much as you can,
and hope they die.
I am trying this as a variant to the regular big creatures
decks. I don’t know how well it
would work, its a starting point, its up to you to improve on it!
While I would try that deck as a possibility, its not my
first choice for creature decks. I would prefer something that isn’t so
self destructive and leaves me with lots of options for the middle and endgame.
Here is a large creature deck:
Starting Character: Flitwick of course! How else do you
start with a free lesson and get to use charm spells without ever putting any
charm lessons in your deck. He’s just too good.
Characters: (1)
1 Hannah (she’ll get you back your creatures
or kill spells)
Adventures: (6)
4 4 Privet Drive
Spells: (8)
Items: (5)
Lessons: (22)
Creatures: (18)
If you want, you can try and fit in Unicorn or Kelpie - They
are both good.
Anyways, those decks are just starting points, they need
testing and revision, but I think they are a good start. I hope that
helps!
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Name: Alex Rockwell