Loved the original as a kid, so I picked this up as soon as I heard about it... which was only yesterday.
Not really the person for pro stats though (yet, at least) - so far I'm 3 wins to 6 losses :p
I'm 3/8 :3
My first game was a loss because of a derelict joystick driver that broke my camera and forced me to forfeit. Then I won three games in a row and I haven't won a game since.
5/0/2 100% win rate, get on my level scrubs.
It seems Julian is considering removing the attack component of Gooey Blob, although from skimming the thread he started on the official site's forum it seems the players generally dislike the idea.
Isn't it always that way with broken things? Players hate the idea of their removal, but balance (silently) cries out for it.
That said I would totally be fine with it if it allowed the player to attack the blob that they were currently in (similar to webs) instead of just stopping all attacks.
Given how weak said attack is, I'm curious how much this would really change things. I'd agree about being able to attack the blob you're in, but in my experience spider web is
tough. Letting you free yourself from the squishy blob would weaken it significantly, not that I've played against it enough to comment on whether that's good or bad.
That said, not being able to attack OR summon is more of a problem, I think. Unless you have something not-goo'd already on the field, and are willing to risk it getting into the tar pit as well, having your wizard blobbed can mean you're effectively stunned for a few turns, which is generally unfun even when it's not completely ruinous.
I'm quickly becoming a master Trick Wizard, coming up with devious shenanigans that Julian Gollop himself perfected way back in ZX Spectrum Chaos.
It turns out illusions don't dispel on any attack. An illusion is identical to a real creature except its cast chance is 100%, it can be disbelieved, and it will die instead of being subverted. In an RNG-based game where you must learn to take as few risks as possible, a guaranteed summon for no mana is a godsend. By watching and noting where players do and don't disbelieve you can learn where it's safe to illusion certain creatures, thus minimizing the number of times you face the RNG.
This is a pretty bad idea, revealing tricks that only work if no one knows them, but you guys are cool so I'll let you in on some of my Trick Wizard knowledge.
People very rarely disbelieve turn 1 summons unless they're outrageous. Dorfs, Burds, and Goblins can be illusioned with almost no risk and I recommend you do so if you summon these on turn 1. Skeletons are a little riskier but only a little. They're a very common and reasonably safe first summon and most people won't risk disbelieving them. Elves and spiders are possible but now you're pushing your luck. Unicorns and anything lower than that I wouldn't risk.
Staves double the mana boost for the spells in their domain. People who are aware of this and pay attention to it (hard to say how many that is) probably won't disbelieve a domain spell, again as long as it's not something outrageous.
People almost never disbelieve mana node summons. This is best with the mid-level summons. Unicorns, manticores, elephants, etc. People tend to disbelieve Giant+ on principle though and I would only risk illusioning them if I can't get a safe percentage and the game is on the line.
This is all very sensible, but oddly enough it hasn't been my experience.
From what I've seen, timing, current possibilities, and hope are better predictors of disbelief frequency than cast chance or the like. When people have better things to do, including if they just can't risk not doing anything this turn if it's real, they don't
tend to waste time disbelieving even fairly large things. When they're on the other side of the map just chilling out or if they've got no other options (skeletons, for instance), they tend to give it a shot even on dwarves and other easy to do things. Conversely, I've totally had people call me on node summons and other things it's plausible that I'd be able to do.
These have also mostly lined up with my own experiences as the disbeliever. Often I'll
wonder if a bird's real or not, but be too busy summoning useful things to bother disbelieving it when it's far away and too busy dealing with the wretch for certain when it's close up.
Overall, my experience has basically been to illusion aggressively and close up, and use real stuff defensively and far off. Which makes a certain amount of sense fluff-wise- if you give an enemy time to realize it's not real, illusions aren't harmful. It's the urgency of the thing that makes it dangerous.