Well, this came out much faster than I expected.

So, I finished my NaNo! Woot! An entire novel done in a month and do I feel accomplished. Alas, it did take up a lot of my time and motivation, so I was not able to track progress in pretty much everything else in my life. So that’s unfortunate. But I’m in full celebratory mode for the moment so I can’t be bothered to be fussed about it!

I was doing a rather in depth look at the reboot of Summoner Wars. Except, as it turns out, my project came to a conclusion just as access to the beta came about! So there goes all my wild speculation! Now I can get some actual experience with the game which now makes it poorly based speculation!

For those who are only mildly interested, and to give myself a little more time to get familiar with the decks against things that aren’t boneheaded AI, I’m going to do a quick summary of my thoughts for each of the decks releasing in August. Don’t fear, I still plan on doing deep dives on the others. Largely because I don’t have much else to share on the blog currently.

So let’s get into the quick faction breakdowns!

We’ll begin with the factions already covered more in depth in my April reviews. First up are the Breakers. Who I will no doubt misname as the Benders. These mistakes happen with IP updates, I’m certain. Just bear with me. 

Tacullu

Tacullu got a face lift but that has not dampened her power. He was a terror in 1.0. And I think she’s a terror in 2.0 as well. She’s got a rather economic deck packed full of powerful ranged units. With the odds to hit change, however, her lack of melee options is now significant. To compensate, she simply has a large store of dice to throw. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got bad accuracy if you and your friends are all packing uzis. 

More important, however, is that Tacullu still retains her control over the battlefield. I was pretty cold on Mind Control when I first previewed it but now that I’ve seen the other factions, it’s a very good epic event. Its usefulness, however, is matchup dependent and I think this will add to making the Breakers a more difficult faction to master though they do allow a lot of mistakes as well. 

They’d be what you’d call a high floor and high ceiling faction, I suppose. However, their tricks have few counters from what I’ve seen. Positioning was always important in Summoner Wars and now with commons sticking around longer, it’s more important than ever. Tacullu has unfettered control over where units will go and how you can block out her attacks. With all her pushing of allies and enemies, expanded movement on her own soldiers and limited movement on her foes, it’s very hard to keep her out. She can assassinate, she can trade with her high base attack and she has several pressure release valves if the opponent gets on her too strong. 

And that’s not even getting into a discussion of the economic advantages you can squeeze out with Mind Capture. 

Overall, she’s probably one of my favourite factions so far and I think we’ll be seeing a lot of her in the future.

Sneeks

On the flip side, we have poor Sneeks. 

The Cave Goblins certainly capture the feeling of a descending horde of gnawing rats. Unfortunately, I don’t think they do well against a field littered with giant cats. 

Sneeks offers some fun tactical consideration and planning with Sly, however. And it’s great not having to be concerned about your economy since most of your units and champions are free. However, their low health and attack make them rather tricky to wield effectively. I think the key to success with the Cave Goblins will come down to effective use of their fairly respectable suite of events.

However, when one of your strongest units has a measly 1 health, things are a bit tricky to squeeze out a victory. 

I will say, however, that Sneeks has the best chance of benefiting from the expansion of the game. Almost all of combo synergies revolve around 0 cost units which are common enough across factions that I think he’ll have a rather expansive pool after all is said and done to make him a tricky deck to face. 

Does that compensate for his poorer base deck? Well, I’m not one to judge.

Abua Shi

Kait’s favourite faction has returned with a much more theme fitting name as the Savannah Elves.

They feel more like alliance faction between the shadow and jungle elves from Summoner Wars 1.0. Which is weird because mechanically they’re the most similar to the Deep Benders. 

Oh well!

A base mechanic in Summoner Wars 2.0 is the boosting mechanic and the Savannah Elves are here to showcase it on release. They are, however, still focussed on large wild animals but this time they need a little tender loving care to become the big scary beasts from before. All of their units interact with boosting in one way or another. Either they get stronger from boost tokens or they help give boost tokens to their friends. 

On the flip side, everything is expensive. Course, given enough time, the Savannah Elves can turn their regular commons into cheap champions in terms of strength and health so it feels warranted. However, they also feel rather slow. Losing their investments in time and events also feels rather poor, especially if you can’t get decent trades for them either.

I personally find them in this weird middle zone. They’re capable of rather surprisingly powerful turns off a summon or two combined with some token shifting and events. But in between these bursts of power, they struggle to keep up with their opponents. 

They’re a tricky lot to pin down but I’m not certain their tricks are as potent as the Breakers so familiarity will leash their effectiveness. 

Which, I guess, is accurate to their 1.0 incarnation. I feel they’re more effective than the Cave Goblins but have struggled to get them rolling compared to the others. 

Svara

I’ve been taken aback by the Polar Dwarves. Yes, they’ve been touted as Summoner Wars 2.0’s first new faction. But let’s not kid ourselves. Beneath that sheet is Old Man Hogar and we don’t really need the Mystery Machine gang to figure this one out. 

I won’t ever hide my disappointment with the Tundra Guild from the alliances box. When Svara appeared, I was expecting… well… more disappointment.

Even my first impressions were pretty low. I’m coming around to the idea that this may have simply been biased.

I… kind of like Svara. I think she’s pretty strong. Her whole deck revolves around structures which have had a rather tumultuous history in Plaid Hat Games. And this might be the first time they’ve actually done them well.

She’s a defensive deck that sports a very powerful punch. I originally thought she’d be very combo event based but I think those are just some cute tricks she can do to catch her opponent off guard rather than relying on Glacial Shift and Ice Ram shenanigans. Ice Mages pack a huge and cheap punch. And the massive health pools are actually difficult for her enemies to take down. Ice Golems are terrifying with the sluggishness hardly a brake on their strength. Shifting structures is simple enough with Svara already but that they can be summoned like structures and serve as mini gates makes them hard to avoid.

And if you’re ever worried that their attack is too weak, just toss some Ice Smiths on them to make the problem go away. If that’s not enough, you’ve got some Bear Cavalry in the back pocket.

Svara’s biggest weakness is that she has possibly one of the worst champions in the game. But she also has some decent ones as well so it’s hard to be chuffed. This is a very strong deck that is slowly growing in my evaluations.

Sera Eldwyn

Sera is back with a vengeance baby! Tired of being considered one of the worst factions, the new and improved Summoner Wars 2.0 Vanguards are insane. 

Absolutely nuts. 

I will say, I like the mechanical similarities she shares with Ret-Talus. It really does feel like an opposite sides of the same coin sort of relationship. They both pull into their discard for units and such, but Sera’s has a rather impressive ceiling to it. It comes with a cost, however, which makes her deck exciting.

In order to recycle your units and have access to infinite magic, Sera Eldwyn must be on the frontlines attacking enemies. It puts her in a precarious position which is good because her deck has a phenomenal potential for crushing any game that gets into the late game. To get there, however, she has a very rocky early and mid game to contend with. Her units are expensive and, honestly, a little weak. Their cost is more of an investment, however, since you can play six, seven or more Citadel Knights in one game. 

Which does feel oppressive. Granted, you’ve got to keep something alive on the board so there is some counterplay. 

She’s a tricky one to navigate, I feel but has the punch to really be effective if done well.

Ret-Talus

Summoner Wars 2.0 is really a story about redemption. 

Barring the Breakers, all that was dusty and old is new and shiny. Ret-Talus had a rather poor reputation which was only ever polished up in the last days of Summoner Wars 1.0. 

This time, however, he’s coming out of the gate swinging. 

And what he’s swinging are noodles.

Sorry, I’m not going to make this about his art. Ret-Talus is a rather powerful, exciting, combo-oriented deck all about murder, death and unlimited power. Power.

Power.

Unlimited power.

Sorry, I’m still just blown away by how good this deck is. The basics are simple. Stuff dies, you get stronger. But it gets better. See, killing stuff is necessary to win the game, so your opponent rebuffing your assaults works in your favour. And to rebuff your assaults, it leaves units for you to kill to get stronger. And you really don’t care about your stuff dying because you  just bring it back for the low, low price of a little health. Oh, are you near death? Just heal up after a massive turn of delicious massacre and repeat the whole process again. 

That there’s a bunch of ways to force the sacrifice of your units, which then makes all your other units stronger, is simply gravy. You’ll have these board states where one unit dies and it causes a whole cascade of effects that ultimately result in your enemy dying. 

It’s fantastic and I’d say Ret-Talus is about on par with Tacullu as the deck to beat.

Now, I may think there’s a ranking of power between these decks, but I do want to emphasize that the balance of Summoner Wars 2.0 is a lot better. I think all the decks are much closer in effectiveness. You’ll probably notice the imbalances when you’re playing the extremes rather than anywhere else. And even then, the Breakers can lose to the Cave Goblins. Kait’s done it in the demo already. Which is great news if you’re a sucker for underdog factions. It’s also exciting since it makes predicting what’s good or how matchups will shake out rather murky. 

I’m excited to really crack this nut open and I’m so happy to see Summoner Wars returned to form having clearly learned all the lessons of the past and much improved because of it.