On the effective early use of Pretenders in combat

[AhhhFresh]

Again, I don't really disagree with you - most any tactic runs a risk of failure - I just find 5 astral on the pretender god to be too damn little.

Well, the thing to remember is that Mind Duel is evocation 3... which isn't exactly hard to get or anything... but I don't think many players are racing for that initially. I mean evocation just doesn't seem like a spell line that people are plowing the points into early... but I may be wrong about that.

So you should have time to use your Wrym to smash things good, and then either retire him, or start boosting him up hard.

The only thing I would *really* worry about, would be starting right next to one of the Big 3(Pythium, Arco, R'lyeh) with an Atral 5 Wyrm... especially R'lyeh... since they have astral assasins, they are the most likely to think it's worth it to go for Mind Duel early.

Otherwise, Astral 5 has some risk associated with it, but I wouldn't call it *crippling*... as you will likely have time to protect yourself.