Pretty much per the subject line. I can't see how this can be right, but certainly seems like it is. What am I missing?

You still have two different areas to attack, yes? And cards that destroy attachments, yes?

The Dragonmage isn't a hero, nor unique. So you could have all three. So you'd better hope you have some way to remove an attachment

Two ways off the top of my head are Bloodthirster and Mob Up.

Most likely ways of getting around the SOB:

Any corruption effect (Seduced by Darkness, Festering Nurglings, etc)

Bloodthirster

Pilgrimage

Forced March

Demolish

A zillion damage (in packets of 1) from the Repeater Bolt Thrower

And so on.

And of course that's before getting onto esoteric stuff like Vaul's Unmaking which you are probably not playing unless you want to lose.

Edit: yeah, apparently I was feeling dumb, damage won't do anything to the DM if he has the Armour whether it's indirect or not. Sorry about that.

A zillion damage, in increments of 1, will do nothing to a unit with toughness. which I've given the Dragonmage in this scenario...

While 2 effects are simultaneous it is the active that decide wich is applied before the other.
And if you attack a zone that is defended by dragonmage + gromril armor you decide first that tougness is applied and after the effect of the dragon mage.
So there is no indestructible unit.
Or am i mistaken?

Renju said:

If the spoiler is correct, the DM first reduces all assigned damage to 1, then Toughness kicks in when damage is applied. So DM drops assigned damage to 1, Toughness 1 cancels even that one. End damage = 0.

As for the other ways beyond this combo, Forced March is available to the HElfs as well (and if you have 3x DM, FM is useless). He can also respond to Pilgrimage, etc with Iron Discipline (or even multiple), once more nerfing them. Corruption = Blessing of Isha.

Unless you've meta'd your deck against the Dragonmage + Gromril Armour, DM + GA will make for some really annoying games.

i do not understand:

Toughness:

Whenever a unit with the Toughness keyword is assigned
damage, the Toughness keyword cancels its numeric
value of that damage before the damage is applied.
Cancelled damage is not applied to the unit.

Dragonmage - 5R/3L - 2P, 3HP - Mage. Elite. "Whenever this unit is assigned damage, cancel all but 1 of that damage."

For my there are simultaneus effects.

Renju said:

Added the bolds. With the FAQ, Toughness has to be taken into account when assigning damage, but it still won't kick in until damage is getting applied. Dragonmage's ability is a different kind of canceller to Toughness, one that kicks in when damage is assigned.

Yes but the trigger is the same so "Whenever this unit is assigned damage" .

But i understand your point of view.

It´s difficult to answer, but from my point of view:

the last damage after applying dragon mage´s ability is NOT an assign damage, and so that pass through Toughness.

But we really need a clarification on that question...

"As for the other ways beyond this combo, Forced March is available to the HElfs as well (and if you have 3x DM, FM is useless). He can also respond to Pilgrimage, etc with Iron Discipline (or even multiple), once more nerfing them. Corruption = Blessing of Isha.

Unless you've meta'd your deck against the Dragonmage + Gromril Armour, DM + GA will make for some really annoying games."

Except your deck requires multiple card combos to be "invincible" First, you need to have a Dragonmage and Gromril Armor, ok, only a 2 card combo - not a big deal. You are playing a Chaos deck. He can have seduced by the darkness, or Lorde Bule, or Festering Nurglings, of which he can have 3 of each in his deck, any one of which can corrupt your unit - unless you have Blessing of Isha - except now you have to have a 3 card combo - which is not that easy to do.

And even if you have those 3 cards, that still leaves your other two zones open. Unless you happen to have another Dragonmage, and another Gromil Armor, and another Blessing of Isha as well. And 6 card combos do not work that often.

You have also forgotten Valkyia, who if you can corrupt the DragonMage, can move her damage from her to the Dragonmage - and somewhere on this forum is the ruling that moving damage is not the same as assigning damage, and therefore bypasses toughness, and arguably (although this one I'd have to check on) would bypass the DM's abillity as well.

This also doesnt' count the Bloodthirster, which will simply ignore both the DM's ability and the GA.

Ok, now you are playing the Orcs. You have your DM & GA out, and the Orcs Troll Vomit. Dead DM.

Against an Orc rush deck, getting the DM combo out isn't going to be easy until a HE board comes out due to the loyalty cost, so I don't know how effective he is, but even if you get him out, the Orcs get a bunch of attackers, and then play Mob Up - which also ignores both the DM's ability and the GA.

Or, again, if you are playing Orcs, and you have all the cheap Orc units in it, there is that Goblin unit that destroys target attachment when they come into play in the corresponding zone. - bye bye GA, and now the DM is vulnerable again.

The DE don't even have a deck, and they already have cards that will kill the DM - Sorceress & We Need the Blood (Or Call the Blood - whichever is the tactic that reduces the hitpoints by -1). This is, I admit, the weakest combo, since it requires 3 cards (Sorceress or the Tactic in any combination) but it will reduce the DM's hit points to 0, and the DM's ability and GA do nothing to prevent it - and I'm sure that when the DE actually get a deck, there will be more cards that they can use to reduce HP.

This assumes you are playing any and all of those decks in isolation, and none in conjunction. A Chaos/DE deck could add in Horrific Mutation (the attachment that makes all defenders -1 HP - which would also combo with the above two DE cards.

I don't play Order that much, so I'm not as familiar with their cards. But Empire, for instance has FM - which you argue that your deck can have too - ok, but he only needs to get 1 card to mess with your combo - you need to get the DM and GA first, and then the FM - much more difficult. Also, FM is on your turn only, which means gets ready to attack a zone, moves the DM, and then burns it - and your FM doesn't do anything.

Then there is of course Judgement of Verena - which will kill the DM - yes, you can stop it with developments, but he can FM or Will of the Electors to help make the Judgement go off. (Weaker, because it relies on you not putting down enough developments - but it will still kill the DM if it goes off.

And of course, against the Empire, you run a risk whenever you attack with the DM, since they have counterstrike, and the card that allows them to change the zone you are attacking, so they can steer your DM right into enough counterstrike damage to kill him, (since counterstrike is uncancellable).

The Dwarves I will admit, are sort of screwed - unless you attack with the DM, since they don't have anything that I can think of off the top of my head that can kill the DM if he doesn't attack. If he attacks, then they can use Grudgethrower (the tactic that destroys target unit after damage is dealt) or their Quest (which allows them to destroy any two attacking units)

On the other hand, all of these combos are only necessary if you happen to draw not one, but 2 DMs and not one but 2 GA's in a single game. And it doesn't always happen.

That's what I came up with in 5 minutes, without having to really try and customize any deck to fight against the combo.

So, to be honest, I'm not that worried about it - but that's me.

Jake Strangeway said:

Why pack 1x each, when you can have 3x each? None of those are Unique, so you can have DM + GA + BoI in each zone.

Jake Strangeway said:

Corruption prevention and cancelling are/will be high on the HElf meta I think.

Jake Strangeway said:

Except nobody seems to have BT in their Chaos decks, too costly is the word. And barring Animosity, DM doesn't have to defend.

Jake Strangeway said:

If you have an über-defensive Unit, why on earth would you attack with him against counterattack??? Or attack with DM period, since Empire has the redirection card?

I'm not worried about it myself TBH, at least not in my games, since I'm skipping BP#3. Main issue for me with DM + GA (and Gustav) is that none of these issues were present before the FAQ. You just had to assign = HP to the Unit and rest would go to capital. Couldn't care less if the defending Units didn't actually die as long as the zone burned.

I agree there are plenty of ways to defeat it.
But we have to auto-include meta card in all deck build, i personnaly don't like it and in a second time you have to draw your meta or u have very few chance to win.

"Why pack 1x each, when you can have 3x each? None of those are Unique, so you can have DM + GA + BoI in each zone."

You can have 3 of each. My point is, what are the odds of you drawing 1 DM, 1 GA, and 1 BOI, when you only have 3 copies of each in a 50 card deck? Now, what are the odds of you drawing 2 copies of each card? Do me a favor. Proxy the cards you want in the deck. Play against someone, and tell me, in lets say, 10 games, how many times you manage to get 3 copies of DM, each with GA and BOI on them.

"Corruption prevention and cancelling are/will be high on the HElf meta I think."

This could be true. The cancelling, however, doesn't help the DM w/ GA, since it effectively is as good at cancelling as you can possibly be. Extra corruption prevention would be useful - but I'm not sure (since I haven't seen the cards) how much corruption prevention is going to be available as opposed to restoring ability. The ability to restore multiple units a turn is useful, but doesn't help you stop an attack. This, however, is speculation on both our parts.

"Except nobody seems to have BT in their Chaos decks, too costly is the word. And barring Animosity, DM doesn't have to defend."

If I may ask, how large of a meta do you play in? How many Chaos decks have you actually seen? I certainly believe that no one in your meta uses the BT, that doesn't mean no one uses them - and it still will kill the DM if the DM blocks. And if the DM doesn't block - that's fine too - the BT just does 5 damage to your capital, and once the zone the DM is in is burning, I can ignore him.

And again, this still leaves, Mob Up, Troll Vomit, Judgement of Verena, moving damage, using cards that subtract hit points rather than deal damage, etc to deal with him.

Dam said:

And I strongly suspect this is precisely why the ruling was made. Games were moving too fast according to a lot of players, Dwarfs were having the worst records across a lot of metas, with the Orcs damage potential coming in and effectively neutralizing Toughness. This one change makes the game more strategic, nerfs Orc Blitz just a touch, and increases the playability and survivability of Dwarfs.

Jake Strangeway said:

Can't recall the last time I read a thread in the Deck Building section where Chaos had a BT.

I include it about 30% of the time. The sniping deck works best after a turn or two of uncancellable damage against Dwarfs and the occasional non-blitz Orc deck.

Bloodthirster/Rip is one of the best combos in the game and people should be playing it regardless of the presence of Dragonmage in the meta. For two cards and a barrel (two for Chaos), you get:

Opponent's attack does seven less damage. Assign five uncancelable damage to opponent's attackers.

OR

Your attack does five more damage. Damage may not be canceled.

So, you have one use that is extremely strong against rush and another that is extremely useful against stall. Take into account that virtually all Destruction decks are running 3x Warpstone Excavation and thus have a hard time defending at least one of their support zones, and it's too good to pass up for most decks. (Warpstone doesn't affect Ripped units for the same reason Grimgore doesn't trigger when Ripped). I play BT/Rip in one of my two Orc builds (Mob Up in the Skaven version), and in most of my Chaos variants. In Chaos, the eight hammers to play BT normally is not all that hard to come by against Order opponents, if you decide you want to do it.

is realy Dragonmage + Gromril Armour = basically invincible?

Invincible, no. But he doesn't take damage anymore unless it's uncancellable.

There are plenty of ways to kill this guy. Remeber, if you have a deck that is destruction, you can put 3 Mob Ups in and you should be all set. If you have an order deck against another order deck, guess what, both of you can have DM.

There have been many ways outlined on this thread on how to kill or nulify DM. I must disagree with those who say this card somehow disrupts the balance between the races.

I don't understand why this unit is not unique

Is there a way, for a dwarf deck to pass trough this unit ?