Like before with my 'All minions review', I'm gonna give my opinion along with my group of friend's thoughts on the spells you can use in the vile DM mode. This review will be using the difficulty level of normal as the base line and trying to judge the spell cards as is with out considering traits. Keep in mind though, some traits turn some cards from bad to useful or even great.
The Tricks selection is all about timing.
Ace Up The Sleeve: This card is highly useful if you are using a deck with tons of 1 casting cost cards with some 2s. With those types of decks you are generally throwing down all of your cards in one big burst then kinda... Doing nothing afterwards. Most decks I tend to use though, this card isn't as useful with a a mix of 1, 2, and 3 casting cost cards.
Confusion: The ability to CC a hero in this game is extremely powerful and this card is highly useful in that aspect alone. If you time this card right, you can make a warrior or mage burn all of their revives or just get a hero killed by going in the wrong direction. 2 mana is a good cost for this but you have to time it correctly to get the best effects. One thing to note, bot heroes are NEVER affected by this card.
Discord Curse: Need to split the party up? Wanna make them feel the pain of working together? This is the card for you. At normal difficulty the damage this card does is pretty noticeable should they try to stick together. It lasts about 12 seconds, firing once each second. If casted on a hero that is about to go down, it will still stay on them and thus will make manual reviving attempts a punishment.
False Drop: A 1 mana ability that is hard to pull the wool over heroes eyes at times. It can be used in a long drawn out fight, in a narrow hallway, or be bloody obvious and you sometimes still get someone. It is safe to assume it won't work so you aren't surprised when it doesn't fool anyone. When it does, feel free to use the evil laugh button and mock your heroes over it.
Mana Mimic: Much like the False Drop this on is even harder to pull off. You have to put these chests on the sides or it'll be too obvious. Using this though, players won't go after any chest unless it is the 1up chest and will deny them some heavy bankroll post game.
Swap Positions: Sprung your devilish trap on the wrong hero? The warrior tanking your horde? Well with this spell you can make people cry tears of pain for the low bargain price of 1 mana. I find this spell to be more effective if you click on the hero you DON'T want there. As it will randomly select one of the other two heroes to swap with.
The Structures are great for stalling or for zone control.
Beer Tower: I think this tower gets a bad rap for its bad aim and 2 cost. By itself it is decent in how it makes a spot heroes shun, with the damage and the slow. It is however better to use with some hard immobilizing, meat bodies, or walling for the damage to really shine.
Blocking Wall: At first I though this was bugged as it never seemed to wall the direction I put it down. Oh it works by making walls in the directions you aren't pointing or rather the left and right of the pointer? Ah ok! This 1 point wall is great. Unlike the trapping wall, heroes can NOT break this down until it ends, which is around 8-10 seconds. This is great for zoning out the group if they are spread out on a hallway as it'll keep them from each other.
Resurrection Tower: This 3 casting cost tower can be either super powerful or super lame depending on the monsters you pick. This will revive the CLOSEST minion corpse, so clever players can kill a weaker monster over and over until the stronger minion's corpse disappears. It also appears that it can't 'see' monsters behind the impassable fences. Plus it revives downed monsters at one second intervals.
Trapping Walls: While the blocking wall may be cheaper, it doesn't fully keep the those pesky heroes locked down from 360 degrees, just 180. This is where the 2 point trapping wall comes into play. It is breakable however but takes time. You can use this offensively or defensively. Got a spawner with a res tower? Protect them a little longer with this! A word of warning though, your minions will go for the wall instead of a hero at times if the wall is closer. So depending on the spells you use, like say Monster Circle your minions will spawn IN the walls and be forced to attack them.
I'm Your Biggest Fan: Everyone knows that Dire Ducks are OP yes? Its so obvious. I stated in my minion review that my friends and I though bees where OP as well, just not as obvious. The 2 point fan though? This will WIN for the DM every time and there is NOTHING heroes can do about it. I'm not kidding. 1 fan will slow people down, not effect jump speed. 2 stacked fans will slow down jumps and make normal moving impossible. Stack 3 fans and the heroes can NOT move forward at all. Period. Nor can they get close enough to damage them. If you stack 2 fans, then put a spawner with them or are lucky enough to get one free in a hallway, it will bog down heroes with enough monsters so they can't move forward with out getting butchered. Toss in some freeze traps, walls or anything else to your evil heart's content and its an easy win for the DM.
This card NEEDS to be changed, it doesn't matter the difficulty either, 2 fans is normally enough to stop most heroes from winning and 3 just ensures it. The devs have to change it so that the fans don't stack or a lot of people will start quitting as they can't move forward ever.
The Combat spells, just feel the need to reach out and smack a hero? These are for you!
Real Missiles: For 1 mana, this spell almost a sure hit for at least one or more heroes. The amount of damage it does to the rogue and mage is pretty huge. This also has the bonus of knockdown down the heroes. Couldn't ask for a better offensive spell. I will note though, on easier settings I wouldn't take this as the damage it does is pretty slim.
Bully Push: This, hands down is the best tool you can use to set up death traps with. It not only pushes them FAR away, but also stuns them as well, even if you give a little shove to a corner or minion. I can't see any DM not taking it, for any reason.
Fire Circle: For 2 mana, this spell is alright IF you have a way to keep players in one spot. Its not as no-brainer as the previous two spells. On its own, I wouldn't use it unless you had nothing else to do. This spell is great to pull off with the trapping walls spell, as the heroes don't have anywhere to go and have to beat through the walls to escape while they burn alive.
Darkness: I really would want to gush over this card, I really do. It lasts a VERY long time and covers a huge area. So much mayhem could be wrought with this card. Until you see the mana cost. 3 is a very steep price to pay for it. The power comes at a price but for me, I can't justify half of my mana to set up a single kill zone when I could do two 1 mana cost cards to set up something similar.
Polymorph to Sheep: This spell is perhaps the card you want to used if you want someone DEAD and you wanted them DEAD yesterday. Got a warrior with the tower ability? This card cares not! The sheep spell itself lasts at least a good 8 seconds which is more than enough to butcher any poor fool. Its a bit steep at 3 mana but then again, if you want someone dead look no more.
The Traps, with a little foresight you too can have that shark tank trap! (freaking lasers not included)
Curse Trap: I'll state it on the first trap, my god are they awesome for only costing 1 mana. Lot of these spells you'd think are place and forget. They are, but if you put some thought down and place them strategically, you are more likely to get a hero or two in any of the traps. This trap in particular is vicious with real missiles spells in combat.
Ice Trap: This spell is a good one to place if you wanna set up a death trap. This, with the bully push work so lovely together. It lasts about 5-6 seconds but that is usually more than enough for a DM to get his trap off. It should be noted however, using the ice trap or the freeze spell to lock a player then use fire circle, the ice will protect the hero from the flames.
Mines: Mines are a bit tricky to use. You get four of them but they take a couple of seconds to go off. Heroes can normally rush by them if you don't have a way to lock them down but there is a certain trait that helps this trap out a lot
. They do good damage and knock the heroes down, but be warned, they can butcher you own minions and keep them away from your spawner and other structures.
Monster Trap: This, with the ice trap and curse trap is an evil set up to killing a person off you don't like. This trap however can be used against you if they avoid it. I've seen clever players use it to warp your employees off a person you are killing. More often than not though, you'll see this trap work in your favor.
The Support lets your employees know you care about their wellbeing...Sorta.
Freeze: The work anywhere version of the ice trap. For 2 mana, its still a good bargain for what it does.
Monster Circle: Like the Resurrection Tower, this spell heavily depends on what monsters you are using for it to be effective. A group of 8 dire ducks spinning is effectively a GG, a group of 8 wizards... The players should die of laughter and you should be ashamed of yourself. This spell is however the MOST expensive in the game, topping at 4 mana. It does at least have the ability to be placed anywhere though.
Healing Area: A useful 2 cost spell that can help keep your park employees alive. It obviously works better if you are using tougher minions like the troll or dire duck. It can be very useful in keeping the orcs alive so they can finish their rage animation and go to town with the choppa choppa!
Ninja Monsters: This is a down right sneaky 2 mana evil spell. The area it covers is pretty big and can be used to ambush players big time. Stealth troll with the aoe stun slam? BAM! Stealth imp charge? STAB! Even the weaker minions can get in some good damage from a surprised hero with this.
Teleport Monsters: The mobile 2 mana anywhere version of monster trap, like freeze to ice trap. Take away its only draw back and done!
Unlike the monster review, there really aren't any spells that are clearly superior to others like there are in monsters. Barring the Fan stacking which can win the DM games easy, every spell can be combo'ed nicely with others or used by itself and not have the feeling you are wasting mana. Some spells will appeal to others as some won't. There are dozens and dozens of ways a DM can play with these spells and I find the spell costs to be about right with each spell, even Darkness.
The Tricks selection is all about timing.
Ace Up The Sleeve: This card is highly useful if you are using a deck with tons of 1 casting cost cards with some 2s. With those types of decks you are generally throwing down all of your cards in one big burst then kinda... Doing nothing afterwards. Most decks I tend to use though, this card isn't as useful with a a mix of 1, 2, and 3 casting cost cards.
Confusion: The ability to CC a hero in this game is extremely powerful and this card is highly useful in that aspect alone. If you time this card right, you can make a warrior or mage burn all of their revives or just get a hero killed by going in the wrong direction. 2 mana is a good cost for this but you have to time it correctly to get the best effects. One thing to note, bot heroes are NEVER affected by this card.
Discord Curse: Need to split the party up? Wanna make them feel the pain of working together? This is the card for you. At normal difficulty the damage this card does is pretty noticeable should they try to stick together. It lasts about 12 seconds, firing once each second. If casted on a hero that is about to go down, it will still stay on them and thus will make manual reviving attempts a punishment.
False Drop: A 1 mana ability that is hard to pull the wool over heroes eyes at times. It can be used in a long drawn out fight, in a narrow hallway, or be bloody obvious and you sometimes still get someone. It is safe to assume it won't work so you aren't surprised when it doesn't fool anyone. When it does, feel free to use the evil laugh button and mock your heroes over it.
Mana Mimic: Much like the False Drop this on is even harder to pull off. You have to put these chests on the sides or it'll be too obvious. Using this though, players won't go after any chest unless it is the 1up chest and will deny them some heavy bankroll post game.
Swap Positions: Sprung your devilish trap on the wrong hero? The warrior tanking your horde? Well with this spell you can make people cry tears of pain for the low bargain price of 1 mana. I find this spell to be more effective if you click on the hero you DON'T want there. As it will randomly select one of the other two heroes to swap with.
The Structures are great for stalling or for zone control.
Beer Tower: I think this tower gets a bad rap for its bad aim and 2 cost. By itself it is decent in how it makes a spot heroes shun, with the damage and the slow. It is however better to use with some hard immobilizing, meat bodies, or walling for the damage to really shine.
Blocking Wall: At first I though this was bugged as it never seemed to wall the direction I put it down. Oh it works by making walls in the directions you aren't pointing or rather the left and right of the pointer? Ah ok! This 1 point wall is great. Unlike the trapping wall, heroes can NOT break this down until it ends, which is around 8-10 seconds. This is great for zoning out the group if they are spread out on a hallway as it'll keep them from each other.
Resurrection Tower: This 3 casting cost tower can be either super powerful or super lame depending on the monsters you pick. This will revive the CLOSEST minion corpse, so clever players can kill a weaker monster over and over until the stronger minion's corpse disappears. It also appears that it can't 'see' monsters behind the impassable fences. Plus it revives downed monsters at one second intervals.
Trapping Walls: While the blocking wall may be cheaper, it doesn't fully keep the those pesky heroes locked down from 360 degrees, just 180. This is where the 2 point trapping wall comes into play. It is breakable however but takes time. You can use this offensively or defensively. Got a spawner with a res tower? Protect them a little longer with this! A word of warning though, your minions will go for the wall instead of a hero at times if the wall is closer. So depending on the spells you use, like say Monster Circle your minions will spawn IN the walls and be forced to attack them.
I'm Your Biggest Fan: Everyone knows that Dire Ducks are OP yes? Its so obvious. I stated in my minion review that my friends and I though bees where OP as well, just not as obvious. The 2 point fan though? This will WIN for the DM every time and there is NOTHING heroes can do about it. I'm not kidding. 1 fan will slow people down, not effect jump speed. 2 stacked fans will slow down jumps and make normal moving impossible. Stack 3 fans and the heroes can NOT move forward at all. Period. Nor can they get close enough to damage them. If you stack 2 fans, then put a spawner with them or are lucky enough to get one free in a hallway, it will bog down heroes with enough monsters so they can't move forward with out getting butchered. Toss in some freeze traps, walls or anything else to your evil heart's content and its an easy win for the DM.
This card NEEDS to be changed, it doesn't matter the difficulty either, 2 fans is normally enough to stop most heroes from winning and 3 just ensures it. The devs have to change it so that the fans don't stack or a lot of people will start quitting as they can't move forward ever.
The Combat spells, just feel the need to reach out and smack a hero? These are for you!
Real Missiles: For 1 mana, this spell almost a sure hit for at least one or more heroes. The amount of damage it does to the rogue and mage is pretty huge. This also has the bonus of knockdown down the heroes. Couldn't ask for a better offensive spell. I will note though, on easier settings I wouldn't take this as the damage it does is pretty slim.
Bully Push: This, hands down is the best tool you can use to set up death traps with. It not only pushes them FAR away, but also stuns them as well, even if you give a little shove to a corner or minion. I can't see any DM not taking it, for any reason.
Fire Circle: For 2 mana, this spell is alright IF you have a way to keep players in one spot. Its not as no-brainer as the previous two spells. On its own, I wouldn't use it unless you had nothing else to do. This spell is great to pull off with the trapping walls spell, as the heroes don't have anywhere to go and have to beat through the walls to escape while they burn alive.
Darkness: I really would want to gush over this card, I really do. It lasts a VERY long time and covers a huge area. So much mayhem could be wrought with this card. Until you see the mana cost. 3 is a very steep price to pay for it. The power comes at a price but for me, I can't justify half of my mana to set up a single kill zone when I could do two 1 mana cost cards to set up something similar.
Polymorph to Sheep: This spell is perhaps the card you want to used if you want someone DEAD and you wanted them DEAD yesterday. Got a warrior with the tower ability? This card cares not! The sheep spell itself lasts at least a good 8 seconds which is more than enough to butcher any poor fool. Its a bit steep at 3 mana but then again, if you want someone dead look no more.
The Traps, with a little foresight you too can have that shark tank trap! (freaking lasers not included)
Curse Trap: I'll state it on the first trap, my god are they awesome for only costing 1 mana. Lot of these spells you'd think are place and forget. They are, but if you put some thought down and place them strategically, you are more likely to get a hero or two in any of the traps. This trap in particular is vicious with real missiles spells in combat.
Ice Trap: This spell is a good one to place if you wanna set up a death trap. This, with the bully push work so lovely together. It lasts about 5-6 seconds but that is usually more than enough for a DM to get his trap off. It should be noted however, using the ice trap or the freeze spell to lock a player then use fire circle, the ice will protect the hero from the flames.
Mines: Mines are a bit tricky to use. You get four of them but they take a couple of seconds to go off. Heroes can normally rush by them if you don't have a way to lock them down but there is a certain trait that helps this trap out a lot
. They do good damage and knock the heroes down, but be warned, they can butcher you own minions and keep them away from your spawner and other structures. Monster Trap: This, with the ice trap and curse trap is an evil set up to killing a person off you don't like. This trap however can be used against you if they avoid it. I've seen clever players use it to warp your employees off a person you are killing. More often than not though, you'll see this trap work in your favor.
The Support lets your employees know you care about their wellbeing...Sorta.
Freeze: The work anywhere version of the ice trap. For 2 mana, its still a good bargain for what it does.
Monster Circle: Like the Resurrection Tower, this spell heavily depends on what monsters you are using for it to be effective. A group of 8 dire ducks spinning is effectively a GG, a group of 8 wizards... The players should die of laughter and you should be ashamed of yourself. This spell is however the MOST expensive in the game, topping at 4 mana. It does at least have the ability to be placed anywhere though.
Healing Area: A useful 2 cost spell that can help keep your park employees alive. It obviously works better if you are using tougher minions like the troll or dire duck. It can be very useful in keeping the orcs alive so they can finish their rage animation and go to town with the choppa choppa!
Ninja Monsters: This is a down right sneaky 2 mana evil spell. The area it covers is pretty big and can be used to ambush players big time. Stealth troll with the aoe stun slam? BAM! Stealth imp charge? STAB! Even the weaker minions can get in some good damage from a surprised hero with this.
Teleport Monsters: The mobile 2 mana anywhere version of monster trap, like freeze to ice trap. Take away its only draw back and done!
Unlike the monster review, there really aren't any spells that are clearly superior to others like there are in monsters. Barring the Fan stacking which can win the DM games easy, every spell can be combo'ed nicely with others or used by itself and not have the feeling you are wasting mana. Some spells will appeal to others as some won't. There are dozens and dozens of ways a DM can play with these spells and I find the spell costs to be about right with each spell, even Darkness.
