Fire vs. Death heavy bless

[Sombre]

Sure but I think there's agreement amonst the majority of the veteran players that F9 as a bless is considerably better in the round than D9. That's taking into account the fact a D9 caster is more valuable than an F9 caster.

[Agema]

I agree.

The advantage of a D9 bless seems to be almost nothing to do with having the bless, but being able to access a D9 mage. (This immediately makes you wonder why you don't take, say, D6-8, and get the rest of the way with boosters.) The turn 40 Utterdark strategy seems to me to be a massive gamble, putting all your eggs in one basket. It might win spectacularly, but it's far more likely something will go wrong, and the egg will be on your face.

[Sombre]

I also can't see how making yourself an instant enemy of every player in the game, not from the position of most powerful nation (extrapolated from the lack of awake SC or powerful expansive bless), while simultaneously spending all your hard won death gems to do so is a good idea. I guess it might work great if all the others players failed to counter or coordinate. Nice idea though.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Agema

As far as I can see it, both the pro- and anti- D9 bless arguments are hedged under a vast stream of "ifs". IF you've been able to collect a huge stock of blood slaves. IF you don't get jumped by 3-4 adversaries. IF you cast utterdark and no-one removes it, IF you can expand freely because geography has been kind. IF no-one has been able to turtle. IF it's a large/medium/small map, IF etc.

All this really tells us is that lots of strategies are viable. The games everyone is talking about have had particular circumstances in game setup, what the other players have done and will also have depended how good they were.

Well, and it also tells you the circumstances under which those strategies are viable. Frex, Baalz' point about blood nations bootstrapping into death via vampire lords is well-taken IMHO.

-Max