lamentation for a queen

[WraithLord]

sector24 said:
There are a lot of large high HP pretenders that don't have the kind of stats or abilities that you'd want for early expansion, nor high starting paths for a bless. Just a few examples:

Lord of War
Father of Serpents
Jade Emperor
Lord of Plenty
Lady of Fortune
Celestial General
Mother of Monsters
Lord of Rebirth
etc.

I do agree with you that the VQ is currently a far worse choice than any of these. I didn't mean to argue against your point, just provide a different perspective. If you think of the VQ as the Celestial General's smaller sneakier sister, then she just becomes another pretender that you never really use but the AI seems to choose all the time.

I agree with your point about less than ideal pretenders. I'm glad (or rather sad) we both agree that the VQ is the worst in the list.

As for the titan pretenders, they cost less than VQ, have higher starting dominion, are not undead (immune to undead spells, banish), are size 6 (immune to trample) so they are much better cost-effective wise than VQ. Also, some of the pretenders in your list also have magic cost path lower than that of VQ (IIRC mother of monsters is one example)

The father of serpents has a valid role as a rainbow mage, a category there's just no way the VQ can fit.