Well April is nearly upon us which means I’m going to be neck deep in work and wholly disinterested in emerging to post to this illustrious site. So, I have two options. Either I follow my co-contributors and politely ignore the Internet’s existence for four weeks or I prepare some entries ahead of time. Course, I normally don’t know what I’m going to write until the day that it’s due so I need some topic I can cover for four weeks that can be of some interest to someone out there.

As it so happens, Plaid Hat Games has started to preview eight new summoners for their card meets board game Summoner Wars. Hey, I remember doing this last year so let’s try this again!

We’re going to do something slightly different this time. Or, really, it’s something familiar. I’m going to be reviewing stuff that came out aeons ago and everyone has seen, experienced and forgotten. But I’m incessantly behind, like a cultural anthropologist dusting off ancient relics from a forgotten dig site. As I have mentioned, whenever I get some new Summoner Wars goodies, my sister and I immediately sit down for a tournament to gauge its usefulness. Well, this series is going to take a peek at some of the results of these tournaments.

Much like my review of the Alliances set, I’m going to be looking at eight factions and how they stacked against each other over two tournaments. First was the Master Set Throw-down wherein the six factions from the first big box of Summoner Wars battled against each other and two independent summoners for top billing. As with the Alliance Tournament, my sister and I rotated playing each faction against the other until a winner emerged.

Supplementing this result is the Mucho Grando Tournament where we had everything and the kitchen sink thrown into brackets to compete. Unlike the other tournaments, factions were seeded into rankings and a regular competitive format was followed, obeying double elimination rules. This tournament is notable in that factions didn’t fight everyone. Decks that hard counter others had the potential to entirely miss their strongest match-ups and created a very fortune driven competition.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that some factions did wildly different across the two matches. However, I’m glad to start off my review with one that was not. This faction was inspiringly consistent: they always came last.

Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to the worst faction (across these two tournaments) in Summoner Wars: the Cloaks!

Having won a total of two matches across both tournaments, this placement is free of any controversy. The Cloaks have earned their dead last spot and participation award through blood, sweat and many, many tears.

But who are these noble losers? Why do they struggle so much? What is up with their summoner’s gagging collar? Let us dive into these pressing questions and get to the root of what makes a summoner bad in the unending war for Itharia.

The Cloaks come from the old guard – that first wave of releases which everyone likes to criticise. They have the hallmarks of the first forays into the game’s design. Is there catch-up events that trigger when you have fewer units that your opponent? You betcha. Is there built in common hate cards? Why, of course. Are there cards which no sane person would ever play and exist solely to be tossed into the magic pile? Well, the Pope poops in the woods, does he not.

I think the Cloaks were an attempt at a combo faction that was meant to rely on esoteric set-ups and trickery to snatch victory. In fact, they were probably meant to encapsulate the “assassination” style of play – wherein the opponent uses superior movement and abilities in order to isolate and deal a game winning number of wounds to his enemy before she is able to utilize a more traditional and board domineering strategy to regain control and strangle out a win. I mean, with events called Assassinate, Cloak of Shadows, Raid and Spy, how is the faction not suppose to represent this underhanded and roguish style? And is there truly any style more frightening than the omnipresent threat of losing the game from a single turn chicanery?

Well, yes. Turtling is more frightful and more successful. Assassination focused decks encourage turtling and generally lack any means to defeat it. A defensive player can generally keep themselves locked away behind impenetrable corridors stuffed with tough defenders or unshakeable walls. Perhaps more egregious, so worried were the designers of the effectiveness of assassination (since, you know, victory is actually only determined by the summoner’s death and no other metric) that Plaid Hat took every opportunity to make the Cloak’s natural playstyle as much an uphill battle as possible. And if there’s one problem that persists across the faction is a surprising dearth of high attack options in a faction that’s meant to strike hard, fast and fleeting.

And for the Cloaks, there isn’t any other avenue left to them. If they can’t get a shocking win in a one turn pile-up on the enemy’s summoner then they’re not ever going to win. Their results demonstrate this problem. They only ever managed a single win in either tournament, the sort of results you’d expect through sheer dice hate alone. The path to victory for the erstwhile rebels is mostly through devote prayer to a higher power and hoping your enemy is cursed with many 1s while you get nothing but 6s.

Vlox (2R-6W-Master of the Art)

Vlox is remarkable in almost how unremarkable he is. He sports the generic six health and two attack at range of the summoner line-up. Oddly enough, however, he’s rather expected to shoulder a lot of the assault despite lacking the additional health or attack that aggressive summoners generally sport. His strength lies directly in his ability. Master of the Art allows him to copy the ability of any Cloak unit on the board. This can create really strong combos. It can also mean that some turns he may be stuck with a Greater Sneak or Raid that can’t trigger because you were just curb stomped by a more effective opponent. At the very least, you choose during the event phase so you can summon whatever ability you want so long as you’re holding it in your hand or manage a lucky draw. It’s the sort of ability that has infinite scaling and is only limited by the releases Vlox can access.

It’s a good and necessary ability that would have been faction defining if it were in a deck that was more effective. Unfortunately, because there are so few decent tactics for the Cloaks, it makes their strategy a bit one note. Your enemy knows that you’re going to try and abuse the potential for Master of the Art and will do what they can to limit the effectiveness of Vlox while pinning him in and trying to force subpar mimicry. They don’t have all the information, however, so you can still pull some surprises against even the most attentive opponent. But the more wise your enemy is to your ways, the harder it gets to slip a scrapper by unnoticed.

His events aren’t awful, however. Though anyone sporting Magic Drain can hardly be considered to have terrible events. Yes, even in the Cloaks, Magic Drain is silly. There’s a bit of anti-synergy with the Cloaks as Vlox would like to have more units on the board in order to leave him as many options for Master of the Arts as possible but he also needs to have the threat of a double Magic Drain ruining an enemy’s planned counter attack. That said, Assassinate is great for taking out hardy commons – the biggest weakness that Vlox can face as he has little response for those. Assassinate is fantastic against the Filth since it not only eliminates a dangerous mutation but refunds the cost as well.

Just to give a comparison for Assassinate, however. Plaid Hat have just revealed a 2 magic cost event in the new Shadow Elf summoner repertoire. Not only does the Shadow Elf get to draw two cards when they play their paid for Event but they are also able to give every one of their units the ability to summon – for free – a unit from your hand if they manage to kill something that turn. Vlox, in comparison, can remove a single common. To make it even worthwhile, you’ll want to target a 2 magic or more card. Otherwise, you’re paying through the nose in order to open a firing lane.

Cloak of Shadows also costs 2 magic (essentially because why are you wasting this event on a common). It’s good since it means you can only be hit by dice rolls of 6 for a whole turn. And you’ll need to save it almost universally for Vlox after he’s managed to sneak his way into trouble.

Spy is fantastic if inconsistent. Being able to mess with the opponent’s draw is something we haven’t really seen at all in Summoner Wars which is unfortunate since it’s a powerful and interesting mechanic. But if you can’t get a pivotal champion in those five cards to pitch immediately into the discard, then there’s not a lot of advantage to be gained. Most events either have multiples in a deck or aren’t super important if one is discarded. Throwing walls to the bottom of the enemy’s draw is great but throwing garbage commons is rather disheartening.

Raid is fine and only held back by the criminally low number of thieves in Vlox’s deck. It can be used as a Greater Sneak substitute to get Vlox on a summoner or to get him to the back line in order to teleport out of the enemy’s territory if you’ve overextended, however.

Gunner (1R-1W-1M-Greater Sneak)

Gunners are pretty lame, I won’t lie. Rarely do you want to spend what precious magic you have on them. One attack is lackluster. One attack on a one health is pitiful. Greater Sneak can be great for assassinating but you’re not assassinating anything with a single dice. You’re pinging and praying. I generally try and keep one of my starting alive to give Vlox the option of a solo three extra spaces move. These gals just fold under pressure, however. And, sadly, there’s not a whole lot of anything in the deck to alleviate pressure on them. They’re your go to magic fodder.

Scrapper (1M-2W-1M-Blindside)

Scrappers are your surprise factor. They can help teleport a Cloak of Shadows Vlox right on to the enemy if you’re able to get one to the enemy’s back row. That is, of course, assuming you hit. With only one die (yet again), you have only a 66% chance of getting that wound that will let Vlox jump. If you whiff, then you have a weak, low health twit standing in the middle of enemy forces looking stupid. Sadly, this is your only option for a survivable Cloak common without dipping into second summoners and that extra health is sometimes worth praying on to get a little more utility in a second round. They aren’t particularly threatening, however. And don’t think that having other scrappers capitalize on Blindside is a threat. Three gentle one dice love slaps isn’t going to give anyone nightmares. Course, this threat would also require each successive scrapper to hit too. So, yet again, slap those hands together in prayer and hope you got a good 6 streak in you.

Thief (1M-1W-0M-Steal)

Thieves are probably the best common in Vlox’s deck. That’s kind of worrying when a zero coster is your only hope. Unfortunately, the base deck doesn’t have lots of thieves. Their lack of a cost is great for taking off pressure on your economy game. And if you’re able to get them to the back of the opponent’s board, they can do some damage to your opponent’s plans. Seriously, though, the Cloak player should choose what’s stolen at random instead of giving the opponent the option to just toss whatever useless common they have in their hand. At least then you could pray to pluck a key champion your enemy is saving for. Unfortunately, don’t expect to get many steals off. One health is easy to pick off and you don’t have much of anything to distract from raid runs. Your best bet is to summon off a forward wall, Raid down an empty corridor and then destroy your thief for a 2 magic swing.

It won’t win you a game, like ever, but you’ll feel better about yourself. That’s really the best victory you can hope for. These small victories. You are playing the Cloaks, after all. Oh, you can also copy a thief, move Vlox to the enemy’s back row and destroy yourself to spare the pain of actually drawing out games. That’s cool too, I suppose.

Dagger (2M-6W-6M-Backstab)

Alright, so the commons are duds. Maybe the champions make up for it. I mean, this wouldn’t be the only faction with awful commons that are made good by their champion line up. There are the Deep Dwarves who… no wait. Well how about the Benders… hm, nope. Or maybe the Guild Dwarves… no they have defenders. Hm, all the good decks have at least one good common. Weird.

But there’s Dagger! He continues the theme of hitting like wet ramen. He has an ability that gives him a bit more bite but is incredibly tricky if not impossible to pull off save for the most fringe cases. At least he has 6 health. Yeah, that’s a positive! Dagger has six health! And unlike the scrappers, his boots cover his toes! That’s two positives. He has average health and proper footwear! And have you checked out that codpiece? Man’s practically on the cutting edge of fashion.

Scam (2R-5W-5M-Escape)

Ah, Scam. You’re really the only other option for a Cloak victory. If your scrapper gambit is going to fail, Scam represents your alternative. Save as much magic as humanly possible, drop this guy to the board and run around being annoying with both Vlox and Scam fretting away your magic pile. Is it effective? Of course not! If it was, the Cloaks would win more than the rare game on a blue moon. But at least you can nettle your opponent. Nettle! That’s worth the price of admission.

Scam’s on the lower end for champions which is the best I can say about him.

Violet (2R-4W-4M-Whirling Blades)

Violet is literally the only good unit in Vlox’s forces. Two range for four magic is a pretty good deal. Sure, she’s paper, but that’s hardly something new for the Cloaks. She’s a decent candidate for Cloak of Shadows and a fantastic target for Vlox to copy. She’s not Satara levels of good but if I made a list of top champions, she could certainly squeeze in there on the bottom. That she can hit multiple units means she’s really going to do more damage than a two attack would normally. Course, her status as the only threatening thing to hit the board means she’s going to attract aggression way more than a three legged cat limping past a pack of starving wolves.

Don’t stare at her legs, though. She hates when people do that.

So, yeah. The Cloaks weaknesses are apparent and their strengths are obtuse. I’m not entirely certain what went wrong with them but their weaknesses are so ubiquitous that they have to be intentional. For whatever reason, Plaid Hat wanted a deck full of low attack, low health units with expensive events and situational powers. It’s the poster child of a drawback melting pot. Its designed path to victory is not only difficult in its own right but made even more difficult by the pieces that are suppose to accomplish it. The Cloaks don’t even struggle against specialized enemies. A simple 1 attack 2 health common will give the cloaks problems since they can’t kill it in one attack but their own units can die immediately to the counter attack. And this doesn’t even address the fact they have no answers to a strong champion focused game.

They don’t really have an answer for anything. An aggressive faction like the Cave Goblins will overwhelm the Cloaks with their additional attacks, movement and cheap bodies. The Cloaks will break against a defensive faction’s protections. And they have no way to protect themselves from other assassination attempts. Even the Alliances assassin wasn’t the greatest but Marek certainly has a lot more tricks than Vlox does for getting wounds on the enemy. Not to mention it isn’t too difficult to get three ranged attacks on Marek’s hunters against an enemy summoner.

So they don’t do anything well. They can’t respond to anything well. And… well… they just lose.