When to WPFD

[taliesin]

This is an attempt at a "less intense" discussion topic.

We're all familiar with the situation. We've got a WP on one hand, but for whatever reason we don't need a counter. How do you decide what to continue? Do you always head into the WPFD? Do you always switch into WPSx? What governs your decision to do one or the other? What are the factors you take into consideration?

How do things change if your spellflow has a PWP instead of a plain old WP?

[freesoul]

Typically I try to stay away from WPFD early in a game. I will use it when more at the end game, or when i'm in a spot where i'm going to lose iniative anyways.
I suppose there is a place for the WWPFD, to take out an ogre or troll.

I think that the PWPF is one of the funnest things to throw at an openent, since they will most likely abandon a strong play to defend the FOD. This can be a good time to finish the D to gve some damage and move on. Or, of course, push on with the FOD.

[awall]

To tell the truth, I really don't use WPFD that much. It's a fine spell, but my play style tends to involve lots of jockeying for position with disruptions while I try to go invisible or summon an ogre or something else to put my opponent on the defensive. To this end, WPFD doesn't seem that great; it kills the spellflow on the hand that did it (nothing comes out of FD) and you open yourself up to a counterattack and loss of initiative. Every time I've done it, I've seemed to fall behind. If I'm going for damage, my preferred MO is to try to push PSDF through to DFFDD.

Logic tells me that the best time to use WPFD is when your opponent is at 8 or less life. In my opinion, getting down to 5 life is usually death (unless your opponent is also that low) because you have to start playing way too defensive. Even a simple counterspell can become an offensive threat against you if it continues to WSSc, so you have to abort what you're doing to defend it.

To answer the question then, I guess I really only continue to WPFD when I'm already on the attack, and the wounds would drop my opponent to low enough life that he wouldn't really be able to counterattack effectively. Alternatively, it can probably be used as an effective two-way option when defending an ogre. Your opponent starts PS and you start counterspell on the turn of the S; if he aborts the charm for something defensive, you can continue the WP into WPFD. But since I find it much more effective to follow through with the Charm and just hit your opponent with it if he defends his Ogre, I don't see when that happening too often.

Also, as Freesoul said, WPFD is a fun thing to pull out of a dummied FoD run. If your opponent drops what they're doing to defend FoD, they probably didn't defend WPFD, and the hit you take to your spellflow will likely be offset by the initiative you gain when they try to defend the nonexistent FoD.

Of course, this all changes when you play silly variants where WPFDF is a major threat.

[Rycchus]

I'd go WPS unless
- I was going to be antispelled one turn short of the charm
- I was going to be charmed similarly
- They have a monster which they can disrupt but not counter
- They're under 3 health and have no W. (Any other endgame situation would depend on their spellflow and my other hand; damage is more important now, but situation-dependent whether it takes over from initiative.)

I'd also be more likely to go WPF if
- It was FDF
- I had PWP not WP
But if you're on PWP W's also worth thinking about, not just F and S (and P).

[Rycchus]

awall said:

Of course, this all changes when you play silly variants where WPFDF is a major threat.

Silly's the word for it

[awall]

rycchus said:

I'd go WPS unless
- I was going to be antispelled one turn short of the charm

Right, I realized this right after my last post. This situation actually did come up in one of my games, and I foolishly went into WPS and got punished for it. At least the Magic Missile landed.