So it has been a few days or so since my last posting. 2020 has turned out to be quite busy, both worldwide and in my own little microcosm. I’m hard at work finishing up the second Red Sabre novel: Cinderborn. This has been a very arduous journey and I feel like I’m nowhere near finishing it yet. Though no one comes here to read my work woes.

I’ve also had a lot of personal changes going on in my life. I’m trying to get things finished for a large move to another country that has eaten up more of my attention and time. It feels like I’m starting a new chapter of my life: filled as it is with the typical apprehension and anxiety that such changes bear with them. So this blog post is hardly a sign that I’ll be getting back to my old posting habits. Mostly, it’s a brief oasis in a turbulent sea of uncertainty.

But, more than anything, I have returned with the news that Plaid Hat Games has turned independent again. There is word that Summoner Wars 2.0 is in the works which got me pretty excited! There’s been no details – naturally – of what that will entail. Will it be a reboot? Will it be compatible with the old decks? Will it be so overhauled as to be entirely unrecognizable?

Who knows? But that doesn’t mean we can’t speculate about it!

In honour of this announcement, I wanted to make a list of things that I would like to see changed or returned whenever this game comes to the market (assuming, of course, it does). These are presented in no real order as this post is entirely my first impressions and enthusiasm for one of my classic games getting a very unexpected breath of fresh air!

So let’s begin on my Things I want to see in a Summoner Wars sequel!

1. Better Theme

We’ll begin with the easiest. I wrote at length how bland and generic I found the original Summoner Wars. It’s artistic design was… well… functional at best. If you want to see why I found the Jungle Elves and Swamp Orcs so creatively distracting, you can search through my archives. But it wasn’t just bland flavouring. I also spoke to a great degree how the drab art detracted from the game as well. The original Mountain Vargath look rather indistinguishable which can lead to moments in a game where units blend undesirably together.

However, I also feel like this wish is almost all but guaranteed. I doubt anyone is particularly wedded to the old designs because they were so basic so changes are doubtful to cause outcry. Furthermore, Crystal Clans and Ashes demonstrated Plaid Hats’ evolution in far more distinct art direction. Regardless of whether you like the art in either of those, it at least stands out and I think it pretty much all but guarantees that this is a field in which Plaid Hat will have a one hundred percent improvement. And I hope they push more into their weirder design ideas while keeping a wide pool of wacky factions. Despite having bland names, the clans of Crystal Clans had some nice fantastical variety.

2. Keep the Dice

Here might be my most controversial request. I would really like to see the attack dice return! I know this is often the most maligned aspect of Summoner Wars but hear me out.

I think the dice in Summoner Wars is rather integral to its game. I’ve read numerous articles and design documents from developers explaining how randomness improves complexity and strategy rather than diminishes it. Which runs counter typically to how players and fans respond. But the one thing that randomness does is create dynamism. Summoner Wars is a rather simple game by design and I think its simplicity is an important part to making it popular (it’s certainly useful in teaching it to new players). Removing the dice shifts it to a far more predictable game that both reduces the excitement of turn by turn decisions (since attack actions would be assured) but also decreases design space. We’d lose abilities like Precision, Toughness or even interesting ones like Infernal Preaching (ignore the higher result of your attack rolls). The final second summoners managed to find plenty of additional interesting design space in a system that doesn’t have a whole lot in the first place.

So I’d like to see the dice remain but I would prefer if the system was expanded to give it more support. Having played a bunch of Arkham Horror LCG, I wouldn’t mind something like its “card commitment” system or another one analogous to it added to Summoner Wars.

Finally, Crystal Clans departed from the dice while still adding some element of uncertainty with its hidden card play. And while it was cute, I found it mostly highlighted that I preferred dice. Crystal Clans combat was basically a straightforward game of addition and the hidden card mechanic made it impossible to really play the game by yourself.

And I must shamefully admit that I’ve played a bunch of Summoner Wars on my own. Particularly when I was designing my custom content. I found this unworkable with Crystal Clans even though my games against people hardly took into account what card they played in their defence. It was all but impossible to not consider that information on your own.

3. New Economy

For me, this is the portion of the game which I would really like Plaid Hat to consider and experiment. The issues with Summoner Wars mechanics has been debated simply to death. Everyone has their own answer for what went wrong. For me, the problem lays here. It was clever to have your events and units also double up as your economy. But in the end, I feel that it was also the greatest handicap to the game’s desired flow.

Particularly, killing your own units controversially awarded you with magic. I’ve heard a number of people comment on how unintuitive this is. Furthermore, it led to a particularly bleak period of the game’s lifecycle wherein the most popular mode of playing was to kill all your commons for magic, build all your drawn commons for magic, then hide behind your walls hoping your opponent would come to you so that your saved champions could wallop them and secure you a victory. I’ve been rather critical of the argument that this style of playing was the “best” and that its proliferation was more due to the delicacy Plaid Hat applied to aggressive faction and unit design.

But this system also pushed the game into a rather tight design corner that made certain units and mechanics far less desirable than they should have been. For example, single attack cards were almost all but useless. Two attack was far more guaranteed to wound your opponent with a decent chance to give two wounds. This made 2 attack 1 health units far and above more valuable than 1 attack 2 health units. Failing to secure a kill had a compounding problem. First, you didn’t get the expected magic from the death of your enemy. Second, it gave your opponent a good chance to claim your unit for theirs. A unit for unit trade at least is an equal exchange. But summoning a unit only to have it fail to generate magic and then die the next turn was far too punishing, especially if your opponent killed it with the unit you failed to eliminate! It set you back the resources on your failed summon, gave them the resource of your failed summon and (in all likelihood) resulted in them claiming their own unit as a small refund! It also made it so 1 attack 1 health units were essentially non-existent outside of very niche decks as they accomplished nothing and gave too much resources to your opponent.

What could they do differently? I’m not certain because changing the nature of the game’s economy will have a massive fundamental change on all aspects of the game. Crystal Clans had an interesting push and pull economy with the crystal tracker. I’m not certain it was successful. Partly because I didn’t play enough to really understand the game. Partly because I think it led to a different issue of evaluating better exchanges and value.

Had I a good suggestion for this, though, I wouldn’t be sharing it here. I would be designing my own game. So I wish the best of luck to Plaid Hat on this front.

4. Maintain the Board Size

So, I know I’m referencing Crystal Clans a lot but that’s partly because of my disappointment with it being a spiritual Summoner Wars 2.0. It is largely its own beast and the similarities between the two are more superficial than they are worth highlighting. However, the nice thing about Crystal Clans being so different is it allowed me to hone in on what I really liked about Summoner Wars.

There’s a really fascinating spatial puzzle aspect to Summoner Wars. You have to manoeuvre your units around your opponent’s forces and open up corridors of attack. Or you have to funnel an invader into death alleys while protecting your wounded leader from surprise flanking measures. Crystal Clans lacked all this because its board was so small. You had no sense of actually outmanoeuvring your opponent. But that’s what the difference of 48 squares to 9 squares will bring. I want to have to plan crazy sprints of swift units around enemy bodyguards or using guile to shift units to open valuable columns to rush my assassins through. I don’t know if I would want to see the board shrunk, I’d be happy to see it grow but at the very least it should remain substantial.

5. Balance Defence and Offence

Summoner Wars matches can really grind to a halt, especially against some of the earliest designed decks. There are two reasons for this: the board is large enough that you can put your opponent’s summoner on the retreat (this is good). The other problem was that invading your opponent’s board was far too difficult because of the power of summoning walls. Walls were too strong to reliably address in a timely manner if your opponent’s summoner slipped behind them. And assaulting the walls or trying to work around them left you far too vulnerable to your opponent summoning off those walls and stealing momentum and advantage.

Yes, the summoning wall mechanic was the other great contributor to the stagnant turtle strategy. But I don’t want it abolished. I want a nice balance between defensive strategies and offensive strategies. Playing defensive shouldn’t be an inherent advantage (due to the awkward economy of the cards combined with the positional advantage of defending walls). Instead, it should be strong for factions designed around them. The Deep Dwarves losing offensive value to gain an economic edge is a great design. It puts pressure on the attacker to come and get their opponent otherwise they’ll sit and meditate their way to victory. But it also means that, to truly capitalize on the meditating advantage, the Deep Dwarf player has fewer units to defend herself from an assault.

On the flip side, you had Tacullu who was only strong on defence but did not apply any pressure for doing so. His abilities triggered if the enemy was on his side of the battlefield but there wasn’t anything to encourage the enemy to come to him. So it was often advantageous for his opponent to sit across from him, passing and twiddling their thumbs since Tacullu’s defensive style applied no pressure – it merely punished his opponent if they tried to play the game.

I think Plaid Hat was slowly arriving at a good balance near the life cycle of Summoner Wars between offence and defence. But more than that, I want there to be some mechanic to encourage offensive play. Crystal Clans had its crystals which armies fought over. I think Summoner Wars 2.0 would benefit from some manner of map objectives that allowed an aggressive player to seize momentum or an advantage by claiming territory on the board. I think this could open up greater design space too but having defensive factions built around the idea of reinforcing a space on the battlefield instead of just taking advantage of inherent defensive perks. A theoretical faction could then be geared towards claiming a map objective and sitting on it, making it very difficult to reclaim by their opponent instead of being designed around hiding in a corner behind unbreakable walls.

6. Take Time to Future Proof

I will always sing the praises of the final releases for Summoner Wars. Alliances and the last second summoners were, overall, really interesting from a complexity and creativity standpoint. It really stretched the game’s system and made for some really fantastic abilities.

But goodness was Farrah and her deck a novel. Moyra had her own collection of awkward wording and overall the writing on the cards got smaller and smaller as more text was squeezed into unchanging boxes. A large part of this was trying to come up with ways to write really narrow gameplay fixes to prior cards or strange interactions. I think the game would benefit from having a more fleshed out toolbox. Having things like keywords, generic abilities and unit traits can hopefully avoid needing to remember who has the word Light in their ability name and whether Flight counts for that trigger.

I’m hopeful that this is almost a guarantee as well. Crystal Clans and Ashes had these necessary core elements. Crystal Clans hardly tapped into its trait system as it died on the vine a little early. But I’d rather the system in place than the questionable grammar we got from Summoner Wars.

Also, consistent wording and formatting on cards would be a lovely little bonus cherry.

7. The Filth

I want to see the Filth return. That’s it. I just liked the weird demon cult and how their basic unit was body horror’d into all those delightfully weird mutations. But please leave the pink demon clutches in the past, if you would be so kind.

Well, it’s been a little quiet from me, but I have finalised my draft for the reading beta. If you are interested in helping me out with my next release, code name Cinderborn, please sign up for the beta reading list and get an early draft of the novel. Only you can prevent forest fires!

So, I thought I would write about something that I haven’t discussed on this blog in a long time. You see, I recently was graciously given access to the final second summoners for Summoner Wars! Yes, it’s been over a year but, you see, the cards have been out of print and I never got my grubby hands on most of them. So it was a pleasure to finally give these elusive decks a try.

Now, I would normally like to write an indepth review of the decks. Partly because it would give me far more content to post on the blog but largely because I enjoyed analysing the product. Alas, my time with these releases was too short to get a really good understanding of them. But I was able to get a general impression.

And I have to say, it’s a real shame that Summoner Wars ended. Though it was just several brief games, I found these last six decks to be an absolute blast to play and I think they are some of the best design Plaid Hat Games put out for this system. Now, I say last six decks because I do own two of the final summoners: Farrah Oathbreaker and Saturos. So those I have played on my own time. But the remaining ones (Brath, Scraven, Little Meda, Shiva, Natazga and Melanatar) were all fantastic.

Granted, these are hardly the simplest decks released. But though they can kind of get wordy, I am not certain I found them any more complex than the Alliance decks. I also had the misfortune of playing against Oldin as well, and the stark contrast not just in design but in balance was remarkable. Summoner Wars is a weird little game, and I don’t want to slag its early design too much, but given all its mechanical quirks it is so great to see that it ended on such a high note. Even if some of the later releases pale in performance to the first decks, they are all pretty balanced and – more importantly – enormously fun (barring Hogar)!

I am humbled how you can take a fairly simple system and continually add greater strategical complexity. For example, Shiva gives a player the chance to forego an entire turn phase in order to have unprecedented control of the battlefield. Lessons were certainly learned and, had the game been predominately the releases from the Master Set and on, I think it would have been in a fantastic state. It would possibly be even more loved than it was. These last releases actually renewed my interest and love for the game, which is remarkable because I think after two years of following its product line, I got a bit disillusioned with its glaring flaws.

I won’t rehash its issues here, but seeing Oldin in play and the dreaded “defensive playstyle” I can see where the product line got a bad reputation. And what’s fascinating is the interplay between these final summoners and those early releases. You see, Oldin’s gameplan is to play about eight of its thirty-three card deck. Everything else goes to the magic pile. Playing Oldin looks to be a real drag. Most turns seem to be “draw five cards, kill your starting units, build your five cards for magic, pass.” Repeat until you get a hand of champions and Heroic Feats, throw out Magic Drains to nettle your opponent then summon a beefy champion and kill your enemy with all the extra attack dice your Heroic Feats grant.

But despite how drab that plan is, there was still excitement in the matches against these new summoners who almost all are designed to fight Oldin with this game plan. In fact, some of the summoners just outright destroy Oldin if he does this, forcing the Oldin player to actually play the game the way it was intended. And it was glorious.

Granted, the best games I played were ones between two of these final summoners. All of them have a brawling, fast and active play style and those games were really interesting and engaging.

I’ll give my impressions of the decks. Though, as I said, it have too little experience to really get a grip on their strengths, I’ll roughly organise them by my initial sense of their power from weakest to strongest.

Shiva – Benders

I think my favourite thing about Shiva is how she really captured the Bender feeling without anywhere near the aggravation of playing against Tacullu. Shiva can skip her movement phase to move three of her enemies one space each. This sounds like an awful trade, except Shiva’s deck revolves around Puppets – units that can’t move during her movement phase in the first place. Between them and Sirens (who can move a unit one space as well), you really get a strong sense of controlling the battlefield.

Unfortunately, because of her immobility, Shiva doesn’t make for a really strong attacking deck. And the one thing I noted about most of these last summoners is that they are very strong on the attack. Her events are far less impactful and I found that she got overwhelmed rather quickly when she tried to apply pressure that she sort of fizzled out. She’s probably the deck I played the least, however. I only got one of her champions on the board (Puppetmaster both games but he does seem really good) and I never had an opportunity to play with the Shifter at all which allows you to steal your enemy’s units! So I certainly missed out on some of her shenanigans and power.

Scraven – Sand Goblins

I really like Scraven. However, his base commons leave something to be desired. However, his ability to give three commons a free move at the start of his turn plus guaranteed blockers at the end is so great. I certainly found myself constantly thinking about distances and angles. And it is really hard to get your opponent in a tough position with your army ping-ponging back and forth during your turn. You feel crafty but it is difficult to wield. I’d like to try him some more so I could wrap my head around his battle flow, especially after being told that Wraiths make for fantastic vanguards. I personally had trouble getting him to do anything and he folded pretty fast beneath the other summoners’ pressure. I wanted to get Dinky to the board but was always dead before I got a chance to throw nine dice!

Natazga – Swamp Orcs

Wow, Natazga is crazy. I don’t remember how I ranked her when she was previewed but I know I had a lukewarm impression. I know I thought that she would struggle since she was throwing her attention at walls instead of the enemy’s units. However, most people like to play passive, so there isn’t a big downside to that. Plus, her Skulltakers don’t generate magic on kills so are better for hitting walls. And with Erosion, those walls go fast. My favourite game was between her and Brath, where Brath lost her starting wall and her other two were in the last four cards of her deck! Needless to say, Natazga won though it was a nailbiter game despite this huge advantage!

Generating vine walls immediately at the most valuable locations is a very strong ability. And all of her units hit really hard. It feels like a fast tide of green flowing over your opponents side. Is it fun? You bet. Powerful? Perhaps not. I think she may be the weakest of the swamp orc summoners due to her low vine wall generation (you really take notice of all the unit wall generating powers). On the flip side, she did beat Oldin despite the threat of Besiege the Walls due to the heavy wall pressure she applies plus the small wall generation by her units discouraging the event play to set her back. Also, she totally got lucky on a Gror whiff but that’s neither here nor there.

I like playing her, though, even if she isn’t the most effective. I think she does well against the opponents which are strong against Mugglugg but she certainly struggles with everyone else. Though there’s lots of fun tactical considerations in those struggles. And who knew using Erosion on your own walls would be a good idea!

Brath – Deep Dwarves

Here’s where we get to the meat of the releases. I think Brath, Little Meda and Malenatar are very competitive out of the box and can only get better with deck building if that is your kind of thing. Brath in particular is rather interesting because she sports the lowest average attack value in likely the entire game! Her deck is built around the zero attack Gem Golems, continuing a recurrent theme that most of the second summers kind of minimize their deck building potential by making them reliant on certain commons for their abilities. This concept isn’t new but the integration of these units feels better designed and more cohesive.

Brath, for example, gets around her low attack options by having several ways to make the Gem Golems better. First, she can take a card off the top of her deck to give them an additional die. Second, whenever her Gem Archers attack near a golem, the archers give the golem a free attack. Third, Brath has two events that increase the golem’s attack and she has two more events that allow her to recycle any card she has (and I generally chose those attack increasing ones).

Now, my feelings towards Brath are a little limited as she’s the second deck I played the least. She stomped Oldin, however, even if she lost to Natazga. I found her very fun and very aggressive as she throws her strong golems and supporting army at the walls of her foes. Even trying to wall yourself in doesn’t help as those tricky golems can even attack diagonally! I love them.

Little Meda – Filth

If I was hard on Natazga, I know I was lacklustre towards Little Meda. I really wish I bought her now that I got to give her deck a go. I don’t know how, but the second Filth summoner I think is better than the first. And that’s saying something since I think the Demagogue was one of the best. Now, I’m feeling he’s the worst of his faction!

That said, Demagogue is easier to play and far more defensive so there is a certain amount of play style preference at work. I thought Little Meda would be unwieldy because she needs to keep to her Nanny’s side if she wants to survive. But, in the end, I feel that she’s almost more survivable than the Warden! And she hits three times as hard too!

Granted, she has a bit of a learning curve. She has some magic economy but it is reliant on her Amoeba mutant. Though she has two events to pull it out, my first game with Meda I failed to get the Amoeba until the last couple of turns of the game and by then it was too late for it to have any impact. In later games, it kept getting Magic Drained so mileage on that will vary. Her mutations are a mixed bag too. I think her best ones are worse than Demagogue’s best but her worst aren’t as bad as Demagogue’s worst. She’s more levelled the usefulness distribution. Her events are, much like her forebearer, where she shines.

Probably her best event is her most innocuous. Daddy I’m Scared allows her to move at the end of an opponent’s movement or attack phase, either setting her up in a good position for an attack next turn or (more often) getting her our of harm’s way. I dodged a Heroic Feat bomb doing just that and if you snatch Oldin’s Heroic Feat threat, you nearly defang him. Ironically enough, I find that you are spending more time trying to protect Nanny than you are Meda. Also, their immunity to events and abilities is straight up aces.

That said, she does struggle on a traditional offensive front. Since she’s largely the source of consistent damage and you spend so much time manoeuvring her and her nanny, you can’t rush down your opponent like the other decks. In that sense, she’s more of a traditional deck though she has some measure of applying defensive pressure to force a confrontation even if that pressure is somewhat easily countered.

Very fun though and I feel less complex than the Demagogue because she’s not nearly as reliant on her mutations. The ones she uses are generally ones that you have already drawn so you don’t need to memorize your deck either.

Malenatar – Mountain Vargath

Malenatar has the distinction of having the most hilariously one-sided fight against Oldin. And that’s considering that Brath chased him into a corner and punched him between walls.

Malenatar is a juggernaut. He comes so fast out of the gate and he just does not let up the pressure. He could crowd the walls of all his opponents in the games I played by round two which gives little time for an effective defence. And he hits so hard that the wall is unlikely to stand for very long. Assuming you want to go for that wall. Generally the summoner is waiting just behind it and given a turn, Malenatar has a decent chance to just end the game against a number of summoners.

Funnily enough, his commander common is fantastic yet I find I never used more than the starting one. The guard can keep it alive for so long, is cheaper and also can protect aspirants who were pitching most of my dice.

Malenatar did make clear that the biggest thing holding aggressive decks back was the restriction on moving units. When pushing across the board, you have to choose whether to keep up your attack or replenish your line. But if you weren’t going to commit to the attack, why did you go into it in the first place? So aggressive pushes traditionally were more like assassination attempts. You throw a lot of resources on a single attack and hope it gets you the game.

But Malenatar alone can move five other cards when he moves! Will he? Of course not! But you will likely be moving an additional one for free (with Battle Procurement) and that alone helps maintain a continuous assault. Aspirants, of course, help things shimmy along.

Guards, of course, help things keep going since (with some Unity), they can help protect Malenatar from being in poor positions when the enemy walls start to come down. And talk to a Moyra player about how big keep a well placed unit around for an extra turn or two can be.

I have to say, I was really impressed with Summoner Wars last hurrah. It was such a good note to end on and refreshing to see such variability in design. My favourite games were the ones between these last summoners. They were fast, frenetic affairs that felt like they could go either way. That the game was balanced on the edge of a die roll. And now I’m sad to know that these great decks are out of print and impossible to find.

But at least I got two of them before they went.

Last week we saw the first four of the last eight second summoners for Summoner Wars. Those were my “bottom picks” for who is and isn’t the best. I ran some clarifications on how I do my ranking but one thing I didn’t mention is that I also focus on general utility. I show preferential treatment to decks that are capable of facing off against multiple different opponents in Summoner Wars than those that are tooled to deal with specific match-ups or playstyles. So, while I ranked Natazga of the Swamp Orcs rather poorly, I think her cards can be really good against certain foes. For one, she can do well against her Swamp Orc brethren. Her units are obviously unimpeded by the walls of her foes and her Swamp Archers will be fantastic at sniping Mugglug’s Hunters or getting hits on Glurblub that likes to use his as blockers. All her units hit hard enough to tear down any walls that crop up from her opponents and she can halt Mugglug’s growth if she gets some early Erosions on his starting walls. Finally, her Fury of the Fen can shuffle around her own walls to corner off Mugglug’s growth if he does manage to grow beyond his confines.

So it isn’t like she’s complete rubbish. Likewise, I’d expect Brath to do better against opponents that want to play slow and defensive. And Farrah certainly fares a lot easier against factions she already has faction symbols of in her deck.

But the thing about the tip top tier decks is that they have very few tough opponents. Their gameplan is either powerful enough to dictate the pace of the game or they possess enough tools that they can adjust their strategy on the fly. And I think these last four really cover both of those options.

4. Get out of my head, Charles. (Benders – Shiva)

These middling decks I’m the least certain about. I like a lot of what Shiva is doing but she has one glaring weakness that holds her back and that I find a bit troubling. Not because it isn’t insurmountable but that it seems so uncharacteristic of her faction that I have to question how it came to be. Generally, factions are designed around certain core concepts. The Cave Goblins, for example, are cheap expendable units that basically rush zerg-like towards their enemies and try to win through sheer numbers and audacity. A four magic common with a high health pool would seem very out of character for the faction.

Likewise, you’ll notice that the Mountain Vargath are pretty hurting for ranged units. Same for the Filth.

Thus, I was a little taken aback by the sheer proliferation of melee units in Shiva’s deck. Tacullu had all ranged and laid claim to the “fragile but strong” archer archetype. Sure, parasites are a thing but not one anyone really paid much attention to. A few melee units I could live with as I can imagine continuing to make only ranged units would get difficult after awhile. But for the majority to be shirking the design space of the original seems a little… odd.

Plus it makes Shiva worse. Had she one or two more really strong ranged units, I’d feel far more comfortable ranking her higher.

For, you see, Shiva has a really strong ability. She can forgo her own Movement Phase to move her opponent’s units around instead. It’s only one space each but the board’s small enough that even one space can ruin your opponent’s formation. You can pull weaker units out of cover. You can expose enemy summoners to your attacks. You can separate units boosted by each other’s abilities, be it Moyra’s Defenders or Brath’s Gem Golems. And, of course, you can draw them to your side of the board where you can slaughter them amongst your own forces all within the safety and comfort of your walls.

Unless, of course, your units are tripping over themselves because they are all close range. I definitely think Shiva’s potential will raise when she puts several of the powerful ranged units in the Bender’s arsenal into her deck. Deceivers, Geopaths and Controllers all benefit from Shiva’s Influence. And Shiva’s units themselves are all quite powerful in their own right. Puppets are a magic cheaper than their statistics. Their negative for this discount is offset by Shiva’s strength but even if you don’t Influence that turn, Puppets can take an attack to move adjacent to a nearby friendly Bender. They can cover for Shiva if she moves in to leverage her powerful 3 ranged attack. Shiva can command them with an event and even the Puppetmaster can move them around into position. Shiva does seem locked into including the unit because of all the support she has for them so it’s fortunate that the unit has a fair bit of flexibility and use. They cover the weakness of the parasite by sporting both more health and attack so summoning them doesn’t feel much like a waste.

We also have the Siren that has one of the best abilities revealed. It’s like a mini Influence that targets only one Common or Champion near the Siren but it doesn’t require the expenditure of a movement or attack action. We saw Brath’s champions eat attacks to pull of their abilities but the Siren can just sit on the field and do nothing but lure victims towards (or away) from her. And with two attack, she also makes for a strong and cheap offensive option.

Unfortunately, with both her two main commons being melee, Shiva falls into the same problem as Tacullu. She wants to play on her side of the board but doesn’t include anything natively in her deck to encourage opponents to come at her. This can be addressed through deck building whether through Endrich’s Geopaths or Owl Gryphon but it’s troubling to see a defensive deck created without some lure to avoid stalemates. Maybe the designers thought she would be more aggressive but that seems unlikely. I can only think that Influence was meant to force opponents into Shiva’s defensive position though I imagine it’ll work only to encourage her opponent’s to hunker down on their side of the board and not summon things. Even worse, Shifters encourage your opponent to not play commons as you can simply steal them with the Shifter then Wither it to get some of your magic back. It’s a neat idea to adapt Tacullu’s mind control element and is very similar to a faction I had designed.

Shiva breaks the Bender mould even further by providing some decent champions to the faction as well. I’m not convinced of Lem’s power as it feels too inconsistent and chance based for my tastes. But both Puppetmaster and Haku are fantastic units. Haku in particular deals with champions pretty well or any unit with a low number of attacks (hi Bladed Mutant).

Finally, I should mention that Hinder is a great event for stalling a game which adds more credence to the idea that Shiva is expected to play passive and boring. Sadly, without any late game advantage, I don’t see Shiva doing well against the stronger defensive factions. Even other stalling decks like Brath can probably do some damage to Shiva as she needs to twiddle her thumbs and hope for her opponent to be drawn close enough into her trap. Which is unfortunate because even just one ranged common unit could provide her with the pressure Shiva needed to move forward and force the fight to her. Which is a pity that she has such a glaring flaw since her deck looks incredibly fun otherwise. This is why I’m uncertain about Shiva’s placing. I could see her performing worse than both Farrah and Brath though I think the general strength of her individual cards keep her from being the absolute bottom of the releases.

3. Moo, I say. (Mountain Vargath – Malenatar)

If first Summoner Wars summoners were deemed strong and had weaker second summoners, then it stands to reason that the inverse would be true. At the very least, Malenatar makes a compelling argument.

Like Shiva, however, there’s a peculiar design decision that has left me scratching my head. Granted, at first I was skeptical of Malenatar’s direction. His revealed ability required discarding cards from hand to fuel it. We’ve seen this before in the Mountain Vanguard Korbolden and I ranted about it to no end. So here we see the ability crop up again and I was readying my pitchforks. I have gently tucked them away because it seems my prior complaints were heard. While personally I thought that units with costed abilities should receive a built in discount, Plaid Hat did the opposite approach and provided renewable resources to keep paying for the ability. We saw Little Meda get her Amoeba last week. Malenatar has Battlefield Procurement. So at least these summoners aren’t starting from a weaker position than their non-costed companions.

Renewable economy, Malenatar’s got it.

The part that confuses me, however, was the lack of a discarding mechanic amongst Malenatar’s commons. Considering that Malenatar has more than Battlefield Procurement to help refund these costs, it seemed strange to devote so much of his event suite to discounting these abilities when they’re only on three units. And for Ossa in particular, her discard mechanic is really unnecessary for her power.

Personally, I would have liked to see the Commander need a discard in order to trigger her ability. Then she wouldn’t need to be so expensive. We’ve already seen two factions get a melee unit that has two attack and two health for one magic. Malenatar instead gets one at three. Oh well, she does not so Malenatar has some events that he can always build for magic. It also makes these commons more exportable to Sunderved who is more than happy to have a unit that will allow him to attack with powered up Cherubim more than once per turn. And, of course, it improves Malenatar’s damage output by squeezing in additional attacks.

Multiple attacks – Malenatar’s got it.

But while we’re on strange design decisions, the Aspirant also breaks the Vargath design space by providing a low health unit to their pool. I do like the two attack with one health for one magic option but, once again, it just seems strange for it to show up in a faction that doesn’t really support that kind of design. I get that Malenatar lacks the attack boosting power of Sunderved and having a higher attack option was necessary to bump him up into these higher predictions. Probably the best thing about Aspirants is that they provide a turn by turn use for Battlefield Procurement. Malenatar can move the Aspirant with his Strategic Positioning, allowing the Aspirant to move another nearby unit one space. Then the Aspirant can take a normal move and move the other unit or a different one an additional space. It’s a quick way to get four movement a turn – a necessity for any faction that wants to play aggressively. Also, that Malenatar can move up to five units (why do you have five units out?!) is also pretty crazy for making a strong rush down deck when you consider that any freshly summoned unit can move at least four spaces on the turn they appear. This also helps his all melee common troupe get in position to pull off their attacks.

Mobility – Malenatar’s got it.

And, of course, there’s the guard which is a fantastic unit that is pretty close to one I designed for a custom faction so I’m obligated to love it. I’m a little saddened its ability wasn’t called Light Cover so it could benefit from the Crusader’s Shining Aura but that would have been a bit too cheeky.

Additional heath – Malenatar’s got it.

Probably the biggest change Malenatar brings to the table over Sunderved is an event suite that actually benefits from containing Superior Planning. Sunderved’s events were pretty mediocre but Unify on its own gives Malenatar something to dig from his discard repeatedly. It may even be worth pulling from the Draw Pile if a good opening presents itself. Malenatar also brings some good champions to make-up for the rather disappointing options traditionally offered the Vargath. Varden offers the rare ranged attack and gives you something to play with Superior Execution. As mentioned, Ossa is fantastic and can single handedly halt a Cave Goblin rush.  Kadros is… an option if you make it to late game and have lots of magic lying around.

Powerful champions – Malenatar’s got it.

There’s really nothing more to say about Malenatar. He’s got a deck full of good units with good events. He has good attack and maneuvering making him an excellent aggressive summoner. When all your stuff is good, it’s hard to not expect a deck to do well. Basically, Malenatar addresses all my criticisms for prior aggressive summoners and why their strategy fundamentally underperformed compared to others.

Victory – Malenatar’s got it.

2. Follow the leader. (Sand Goblins – Scraven)

Malenatar provides his troops some really great movement options but Scraven takes it to a whole new level. He can grant three units free movement at the start of every turn. Even better, he automatically pulls them back as blockers at the end of the turn. It’s a mixture of Maldaria’s Save the Queen and Jexik’s Brilliant Strategist – both of which are excellent abilities in their own right. I can, however, see Scraven being hard to pick up and play if you’re not familiar with your enemy’s options. There are some units that would make you really need to change your strategy, like the Jungle Elves Archer which can shoot through Scraven’s loyal protectors to wound him directly.

But Scraven has a few of his own tricks up his sleeves. First, he’s packing a couple of Event Abilities which opens Marek’s cards up to some interesting deck building options. And some of those abilities are really wonderful. Strong Wind is perhaps the stand out, giving a unit a sort of “taunt” movement that lets you pluck enemy commons from their defenses while working your own troops into the midst of combat. Flingers also see past blockers and walls alike to throw their dice around. Once again, we’re seeing the refinement of aggressive deck design here. And Scraven really focuses on the common play, with Cyrus, Hunters and Scraven himself benefiting in multiple ways by flooding the field with goblins.

And speaking of Cyrus, it wouldn’t be a Sand Goblin deck without some truly stand out champions. I love scaling attack power. Hester is one of my favourite champions and can consistently get up to six dice on attack. I’ve had games where he’s throwing twelve on the attack. Cyrus… isn’t going to be getting that high but he can certainly build up to a respectable attack power in a hurry. And having extra bodies on the field doesn’t hurt Scraven who is happy to get more units to use with his Esteemed Leader. And even if it’s just Hunters you’re throwing down, at least they’ll be getting stronger whilst bolstering Cyrus strength. Cyrus even comes with the Sand Goblin discount to boot even though his ability isn’t really a negative and definitely not to the same level as Kreep or Biter.

Then there’s Dinky. Here’s a champion that the opponent always has to keep in mind and that absolutely punishes champion play. Even better, you have control over Dinky’s weakness and can decide to hold off summoning him until the battlefied has cleared a little. He may seem like he’s anti-synergistic with Scraven’s common deluge but more likely he’s the answer to when your little guys inevitably die. And he’s probably the best late game champion in Summoner Wars, not to mention a fantastic wall breaker. And there really isn’t any other champion that can rival him. Little Meda better watch out because Dinky is just going to squish Nanny if he ever gets a swing on them. He’s such a large threat that likely your opponent is going to be required to spam commons in anticipation of the oaf arriving. Which works just fine for Scraven who has such cheap and strong commons that he’s apt to win the exchange.

Finally, there’s the Wraith. I don’t think you can make any comment on Scraven without talking about this guy. He’s like a super Shaman. He’s only harmed on die results of 6 though he vanishes after he makes his attack. But that’s a ranged two attack that is incredibly hard to prevent. Better yet, he’s immune to abilities that directly apply damage, absolutely ruin units with Precise and doesn’t care about events that destroy other lesser units. All of that for one magic. And that’s magic that’s never going to your opponent. He doesn’t combo with Esteemed Leader’s return ability, so there’s that to keep in mind. And he can be destroyed with enough dice thrown his way but the more attacks he eats, that’s less attacks coming at the rest of your forces. And if the enemy doesn’t attack him, well that’s fantastic too because you want him to disappear from your attack.

All of that said, I’m not sold on Hunters or the Sand Drake. Their combination seems a bit too “best case scenario”. Sand Drake itself is rather expensive, cutting into your common economy and really needs to get some units sieging with it to be scary. But it has such a slow ramp up of damage that I feel like it’ll die before it’s truly a threat. And the staggered summoning platform element is a touch too slow for my tastes as it allows the enemy to respond. As for Hunters, their strength is in their zero cost but if you have more than one they immediately lose that strength. And improving health is the weakest statistic to improve in the game. Their one attack is underwhelming as well. That said, you can set up a good Barrage turn with them and in this regard they are a “fixed” Scavenger.

Overall, it’s a powerful package and apt to really ruin players that aren’t used to opponents rushing their face from the first turn. Suddenly, the Summoner Wars battlefield got a whole lot more crowded.

1. Watch you don’t cut yourself on all this edginess. (Shadow Elves – Saturos)

And then there was Saturos.

Scraven and Malenatar might be fantastic examples of aggressive design but Saturos embodies it. This deck is filled to the brim with murder. Too bad it’s also covered in Lycra and teenage angst.

Saturos himself, however, is terrifying. He’s slightly weaker than Selundar but packs more of a punch at range. Better yet, his Blood Summon is like a beefy Glurblub Vinemancer Sow. Instead of punting two health vine walls across the board, however, Saturos is kicking enraged Blood Drakes. Any enemy unit he slays on his opponent’s side is a free summon for him. That’s a crazy amount of tempo swing. It grants you a magic for the kill, denies the board position that unit was in, gives you up to a two magic discount on a unit, gives you the board control and potentially places a unit in position to chain attacks on cowering summoners. Saturos even dodges the Burning Skeleton issue as his Blood Drakes can shift a space when they appear. And if you don’t happen to have the sanguine drakelings in hand, Vindicators are quite happy to take their place as two ranged attacks is also hard to avoid.

And holy smokes, Shadow Warriors are bloody fantastic. They’re Swordsmen replacements or, better yet, supplements. Honestly, I think they’re better than the much lauded Selundar Swordsman as Blood Step can give you far greater range once you take control of the middle board with Saturos. To clarify, they can blood step to a wounded unit before taking their regular movement so when you get some champions in play with a few scratches, the Shadow Warriors can leap immediately to the fray from them as though they had been woven from Melundak’s shadows. And you can do it with all three of these guys too.

Beside, look at that attack spread – 3 attack with a blood summoned Blood Drake, 2 attack with stationary ranged Vindicators and 2 attack off those hopping Shadow Warriors. Saturos comes swinging out of the gate hard and none of this is taking into account his events. Relentless Assault is insane, granting a free full movement to all your units. Sure it wounds Saturos in the process but this can be advantageous if you’ve been doing a good job of keeping him safe as it now makes him a jump off point for Shadow Warriors. Greater Blood Summon is plain nuts allowing you to not only Blood Summon off any unit that manages to destroy an enemy common but also to trigger on your side of the board if you manage to get overrun. Note, this occurs whenever a unit destroys an enemy – it doesn’t specify an attack. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? If you’re thinking Satara then good, because she is love and live the dream of bouncing three units in for free before your attack phase.

But what about that defender’s advantage that I’m always talking about? How does Saturos deal with that problem? We saw Scraven pulling his troops out to prevent them from falling into the enemy’s better positioning. And Malenatar can simply reinforce his frontlines like it’s nobodies business assuming his guarded units are even falling to the counter attack in the first place. Aren’t the Shadow Elves suppose to be brittle? Those Shadow Warriors still only have one health, after all. And it’s not like Plaid Hat is going to reprint Shadows.

Well, they didn’t. Instead, Saturos has Revenge. It’s like Shadows if you cared about clearing the board of enemies. Two free wounds is great against units especially tough ones like, say, Baldur who is otherwise going to be unphased by the large attack pools of the Shadow Elves. But wait, the biggest issue with Sunderved was that he had to put himself in danger in order for his aggressive force to benefit from his ability. Glurblub at least had Spore Carriers to take over the duty of growing his swamp after the first couple of turns and he had to pull back. Well, have no fear aggressive Saturos for Vanquish is here to help you. When a common strikes Saturos you can simply knock that unit back to your opponent’s hand while ignoring whatever damage he’d have done. Mugglug may have thought he had a clever flank with a Savager. Now he realizes that he’s gained nothing and is out 3 magic for his trouble. Should he try it again? What if Saturos has his second Vanquish waiting for that exact scenario?

It’s a hilarious way to both protect your summoner while also doing significant damage to the opponent’s position and economy. If Saturos is already wounded and it was a blocker that took the strike, that could mean the enemy is now exposed to your Shadow Warriors.

And all of this without considering Saturos’ champions. Zhant gets you some extra movement and attack though his range is pretty small so he’ll be tough to position properly. Uriel is there if you’ve completely overwhelmed your opponent and he’s fled to a back corner and walled himself in. Congratulations, you’ve just played yourself as Uriel can sit on the opposite side of the opponent’s battlefield and simply choke him out of the game. Finally, there’s Shiiq who brings a lovely 4 attack while also giving you some tricky swapping options at the end of the enemy’s turn. This means any common carelessly left alive can become this frightful woman or, if she’s on the enemy’s side, it can give Uriel an immediate attack on the summoner the first turn he’s summoned.

Yeah, you can basically pluck a card at random from Saturos’ deck and realize how great it is. He’s the definitive example of just making everything great to be effective. It’s telling for a Summoner Wars deck when I think Zhant and Uriel are the least impressive elements when they’d be considered highlights in others.

This doesn’t mean that Saturos is invincible, mind you. He seems oppressive from his preview but even the match-up between him and Scraven would be interesting. While Saturos can Blood Summon Scraven’s loyal guardians, Scraven has Wraiths and Dinky to deal with the fact that commons are going to be vanishing faster than cupcakes at a six-year-old’s birthday.

What I’m most happy to see, however, is that Plaid Hat finally took off the kiddie gloves when it came to designing aggressive factions. I’ve always felt they’ve been holding back either through concern that a too strong aggressive deck would utterly dominate Summoner Wars or that most people didn’t really play defensively to see just how much it hurt their prior offensive decks. Well, our complaints have not fallen on deaf ears and it seems that we have some really great standout decks for all three archetypes of the game.

So while Summoner Wars may be coming to a close, the battles have only just begun.

Well this sort of crept up out of nowhere.

So I’ve rambled quite a lot about Summoner Wars on this blog. Mostly because it’s an easy thing to ramble about on a day when I don’t know what else to write. So when I’m neck deep in work I can riddle off several paragraphs about this fun little board game and not have to worry too much that I’m making a lot of sense. Well, these simple, lazy days will soon be coming to a close. Plaid Hat Games have revealed the last of their second summoners for the game. This rounds out the product (to my knowledge) and caps off the game with its myriad of rules and characters. Most of these last summoners are the second options for the Master Set – the natural jump off point for new players – so it’s good that they’re finally releasing additional deck building options for the armies that most players are going to own.

There’s also eight of these little guys and gals coming out which, conveniently, happens to be the exact same amount that was in the large Alliances box that came out last year. So, you know what that means. Baseless speculation ahead! And just like Alliances, I thought I’d give my initial impressions based off the previews Plaid Hat put up and try and rank them in order from best to worst.

A few keynotes should be stated, however. Firstly, I am judging these decks solely on their base components. Much like Alliances, these second summoners have definitely been designed with deck building in mind. Farrah in particular stands out as a remarkable example of a deck created around the entire game’s release line. However, it has been and continues to be my opinion that base decks should stand on their own partly because it feels a little disingenuous to tell new players that a deck is good only for them to go out and purchase it and realize they need supplementary purchases to get it to work. Also, the way the game is designed with its very restricted deck building rules makes it feel more natural to judge decks by their initial release. A good third of the deck is unchanging and the parts that can change are pretty narrow.

This isn’t to say I won’t make mention of deck building but that my ultimate opinion is derived from what you get out of the box.

Secondly, these decks are being judged amongst themselves. As an overall observation, they are much better designed than earlier releases. Nothing appears to be as poor as Vlox, for example. Or Melundak for that matter. So even the worst ranked deck does hold some potential, just not nearly as much as its brothers and sisters.

Finally, I haven’t actually had any chance to sit down and try these decks so I don’t know how they actually play. I may overestimate how bad certain negatives are and not give enough credence to the positives. See my early speculation on Endrich in the Alliances for that. While my early assessments of his drawbacks were dead on, it turns out that the things that were good in his deck were really, really good that they made up for his short comings. Consequently, I undervalued the weaknesses of Hogar and conservatively ranked him higher based on my uncertainty.

That is to mostly say I’m not a soothsayer and it’s mostly fun to see how my early impressions line up with some experience. And we are, after all, here for some fun, right?

So as an overview, here are the last eight Summoner Wars decks being released:

• Shadow Elves – Saturos: Selundar has been a rather inconsistent and underestimated deck in our experience. Focusing on quick engagements and striking with lots of weak but strong units, Selundar shows a flawed approach to assassination and being aggressive. Saturos takes this design of aggression and ramps it up to eleven while drawing heavily on Melundak’s Shadow Weave ability and the Shadow Elf Hunter design.
• Swamp Orcs – Natazga: The often horribly named Swamp Orcs are a rather disheartening faction to face. Their vine walls slowly dominate the battlefield, choking out avenues and options from their enemy before they can overwhelm them from the safety of their swamp. Mugglug has proven quite effective in his games with his high attack Hunters and Savagers being able to appear right on his enemy’s doorstep. We’ve seen just about every manner of vine wall generation from killing units beside walls to killing enemy units with Glurblub and now Natazga gets them for attacking enemy walls themselves.
• Mountain Vargath – Malenatar: The goats have had an unfortunate run in Summoner Wars. Sunderved was meant to be the counterpoint to the Cave Goblins: a rush down aggressive common focus deck that had more survivable units at a higher cost than the swarming goblins but hit like no other. Sadly, it has been a struggle for Sunderved to cinch victories combating the natural defensive advantage of enemy walls, though Moyra did offer him a number of tools to overcome his weaknesses. Malenatar returns with strong, aggressive units but brings with him something the Vargath desperately needed: good champions.
• Sand Goblins – Scraven: Krusk had some of the best commons in the game with some of the cheapest champions. He’s a pretty solid deck whose biggest weakness has been a mediocre to poor event suite and a really horrible common with few options to replace it. The Alliance deck had very little for the original Sand Goblin faction with Marek introducing a new type of event and having most her forces based around them that made exporting into Krusk’s formations pointless. Scraven builds upon some of the ideas that Marek introduced while also bringing to the table an ability that outshines Krusk’s situational Sandstorm.
• The Filth – Little Meda: The Filth are a fun but weird faction that rely on a special type of common known as mutations. The Demagogue has been a consistently strong opponent with a weakness to early game rushing but an absolutely dominating late game with his not quite champions but far stronger than commons deck composition. Prior second summoners for very strong performing decks have always seemed to err on the side of caution towards making their original release even stronger. Does Little Meda simply make Demagogue impossible to handle? The Warden skirted that issue by utilizing a Prison mechanic but Little Meda is pure filth chicanery.
• The Benders – Shiva: Like the Filth, Tacullu has also been a rather dominant force on the Summoner Wars board. He even benefited strongly from Endrich’s Alliance, giving the passive Bender summoner some defensive pressure to force his enemies to his side of the board – exactly where he wants them. Are the Benders simply destined to win the wars or does Shiva take the faction in a different direction that is both effective and fair?
• Deep Dwarves – Brath: And the last of the big summoners, Tundle of the Deep Dwarves has done very well for himself with a strong common unit, a powerful ability, great events and some of the best champions in the game. All his units require additional magic to use but Tundle can generate magic like no other – assuming he gets enough space to create this advantage. Magic generation seems a core concept of the Deep Dwarves but a powerful one too. Brath certainly tries to take it in a different direction but will it be as good?
• The Mercenaries – Farrah Oathbreaker: You don’t see much talk about the Mercenaries. I absolutely love Rallul but he is a peculiar nut. He’s sort of passive, sort of aggressive with an equally strong economic game and strong units to support his style. I think his strong ability and events were overshadowed by the fact that everyone could poach his very good, if oddly internally incoherent collection of commons. So, in a sense, Rallul was the quintessential mercenary in that his forces quickly abandoned him for higher bidders. Farrah turns this on its head and instead restricts her commons from other summoners but gets to take whatever she wants from her enemies’ ranks. The possibilities are truly endless with the Oathbreaker.

After showing our highly trained team of analyst monkeys and promising them an endless supply of bananas, we at somewherepostculture.com have determined the “Very Most Reliable Ranking of Last Second Summoners.” It’s taken us months, mostly as we figure out to chain monkeys to desks, to produce this ranking. Our data is both mountainous and incomprehensible so I’ll spare you most of the details. I have sifted through their mad ramblings to produce a short blurb on why they are where they are and what to possibly expect when these decks hit the commercial shelves. So here we go!

8. Get off my lawn! (Swamp Orcs – Natazga)

Yeah, we’re doing it in reverse order this time.

I feel that Natazga suffers from a rather disjointed direction. Her ability is the least reliable of the three vine wall conjurers. She needs to score at least two wounds against a Wall without destroying it to make a vine wall. This, inherently, is a less efficient manner of generating a swamp. Both Mugglug and Glurblub can kill enemy units and earn magic on top of getting their wall out. They gain far more board presence through creating their wall while also (potentially) eliminating an enemy unit. Glurblub can be stifled slightly by the opponent not playing any commons for him to kill – though the opponent will invariably have targets at the start of the game for him to murder. Mugglug can always resort to killing his own units.

Natazga, however, needs to ignore the enemy’s forces to get her walls out. Granted, she gets advantageous walls immediately – they’re both on the enemy’s side and cutting off a summoning point – but she misses out on that magic and board positioning. It also reduces the number of attacks she can use against her opponent’s units. Consequently, misses  seem like they’re even worse for her than normal especially since it’s unlikely you could position multiple attackers on walls and not put your own forces at a monumental risk. To compensate, Natazga been given a number of units that can produce vine walls on their own but at a cost. Skrub poops vine walls intead of attacking. Zur Lak bleeds vine walls while he’s dying. Zealot’s both eat an attack and die to make their wall. That’s three different units devoted to something that Natazga’s brothers did on their own. Her events for producing vine walls – Erosion and Quagmire – are likewise less efficient than Mugglug and Glurblub’s events. Quagmire requires you to pay two magic to produce one vine wall and only if you’ve already got one that’s about to be destroyed. Erosion only works against generic walls and gets better the more you devout your units to attacking the walls and nothing else. So both Erosion and Natazga’s Overgrowth have anti-synergy with Skrub and Zealots.

Sklursh and Zur Lak returned to Swamp Orc champion form of being incredibly expensive. The Skull Taker/Battle Champion combo to get them out “cheaper” isn’t actually any cheaper. It produces the champion at cost assuming you have all the pieces of the combo and your Skull Taker survives a round of being worth extra magic when killed. And while the Skull Taker is nice for being a strong, deadly unit that’s cheap his drawback of preventing you from generating magic off his kills is a rather significant drawback.

All that said, Fury of the Fen is an amazing event if you manage to get your vine walls to the board. Unfortunately, Natazga is a common focused deck so the Fury is most efficient when you have no other units on the board. Otherwise, you’re angling it for a surprise two or so attack on an entrenched opponent.

And while Swamp Archers are the unit that Mugglug has always wanted, I have to wonder how effective they will be in Natazga’s more sparse swamp.

There just seems to be a lot of anti-synergy amongst Natazga’s cards and a deck that is more focused on trying to shore up her lackluster Overgrowth that it stagnated her potential overall.

7. Children are disease factories. (The Filth – Little Meda)

Here’s a controversial opinion, I think Little Meda is nicht zehr gut. I do think there’s a lot of interesting design going on with her. I simply feel the execution results in something a little too chancy and inconsistent. Specifically, I recognize the problem of designing a second summoner that doesn’t simply make Demagogue a demigod. Demagogue can use Mutagist to recycle mutations endlessly, creating an infinite economy so long as he possesses things to spend his money on. It’s a late game engine where he can put out mutant after mutant until he overruns his enemy with super commons. But it comes with a negative and that’s the Demagogue’s weakness to early game pressure while he tries to get his little money printing machine working.

Little Meda appears to twist this Filth tempo on its head. With three ranged attack and a champion on the board at the start, she (probably) has the strongest first turn setup in the game. My guess is that Little Meda is a powerhouse in the early to middle game with painful events (3 wounds from Daddy Doesn’t Like You!) and a large health pool to soak the initial retaliation the opponent can cobble together. Her ability drains her economy, however, but lets you react to an opponent’s counter play immediately instead of requiring the prediction from the Demagogue. Her magic generation options are, however, limited. She has a single “magic drain” and a mutation that feeds her ability and early game pressure.

Unfortunately for Little Meda, her commons are worse than the Demagogue’s. This isn’t usually an issue since Filth commons exist solely as mutation platforms but with Little Meda’s focus on that early game, having 0 cost units that could support her aggression would have been wonderful. The Herald is way less consistent than the Zealot though if you’re lucky he is better. But good luck getting doubles. Deathseeker is poor since she’s ranged but her ability is meant to be used for blocking. Even worse, she only stops movement so she can’t even block a ranged unit from getting into position. Then she dies without even eating an opponent’s attack.

Then there are the mutations. Nearly half of them are… well… not that great. Gas-Filled Mutant is cute but a worse Barbed Mutant and really expensive for a girl that doesn’t have the spare money that her kin possess. Leech Mutant is a high priority target with little health and a melee attack which makes him easy to hunt down. Blade Mutant is a more niche Claw Mutant. Drool Mutant is niche and expensive with an ability essentially under the opponent’s control. It at least has four attack.

That leaves Springy, Tusk, Amoeba and Bloodspray Mutant. Little Meda has poor options for tutoring these cards from her deck, however, and is reliant on the luck of her draw. As her opponent, I’d see any moment she plays Daddy Loves Me for card draw as an opportunity to try and murder Nanny since Little Meda is going to be hesitant about putting those wounds on herself. It also means that when these guys go down, Little Meda has few options left to close out a game. Though Amoeba does give her some magic generation like the Demagogue, I see this more as a way to off-set the cost of her Gifts from Daddy ability than a true economic engine. It is great that he can keep coming back to the table again and again (assuming you have Deathseekers and Heralds to mutate) so long as your opponent spends their magic.

I feel like Little Meda is under her own pressure to close out a game within five turns or so. After that, her effectiveness looks like it drops off rapidly as she accumulates wounds on Nanny and your enemy can pull out answers that can deal with her mutants. But it does look like she can make those first five turns pretty terrifying.

6. They dug too deep! (Deep Dwarves – Brath)

Yeah, there’s a trend appearing. The second summoners to strong first summoners look like they’re less powerful. Brath, like Little Meda, has an ability that is much weaker than her colleague’s. Deep Magic pulls a card from your Draw or Hand at any point in your turn, turning it into magic now instead at the end of that turn or the next. To me, this suggests that Brath is – once again – a deck that wants to leverage her immediate advantage before she burns out by the end game. Unlike Little Meda, however, I don’t feel like her early game is all that great.

But let’s rewind a little and talk about Tundle. The Deep Dwarves are known for two things: being defensive like hell and crazy combo turns. With units that all require magic to activate, Tundle needs to build up a bank of money to summon his units and pay for their abilities or drop a Wake the Father Gem. He then wins with powered Gem Mages striking at targets beside Scholars while Kynder and Lun wreck havoc on the opponent’s formations. Tundle’s biggest fear is getting overrun before he has all his units on the board and in position but he can rely on Magic Stasis, Summoning Surge and Illusionary Warrior to alleviate some of that pressure.

Brath is similar in that she has some crazy combination potential. Her ability to survive until those perfect moments, however, look like they’re less powerful. Her pieces revolve around Gem Golems and Gem Archers. Both of these are pretty uninspired units on their own. The archer is a basic one attack with one health. The golem has no attack unless Brath risks burning an important card from the top of her deck to empower them. Consequently, Brath’s power is the opposite of Tundle’s. Tundle wants to meditate as much as possible until he’s under pressure and has to perform. Brath doesn’t want to touch Deep Magic until she has her important cards on the field and in her hand. So it isn’t even an early game power but one that’s mostly for improving her golems.

That said, if you manage to pull off Brath’s combination, it is far scarier than Tundle’s. Gem Archers in position and strengthened through Call of the Mother Gem are hitting for two ranged attack and allowing the Gem Golems to shift one space and make a free 2 melee attack. With just two archers and a golem in a good position, you can get 8 dice with two attacks. With three gem archers, that can turn into 12. With a single Gem Mage, that can be 12. If you somehow work a Scholar in there somewhere, you can roll 17 dice! Throw in a Magic Strike to place wounds on anything within two spaces of your golems to soften them first. If you have a Will of the Mother Gem you can have your golems attacking diagonally too! Use Back to the Deep to recycle those Call of the Mother Gems to repeat the process multiple times. You can blow up walls, vapourize champions and blast summoners hiding in positions they originally thought unassailable.

Sadly, without the preparation, Brath is a lot less threatening. Gem Golems are rather pricey for their base statistics and until you have your pieces, you’re risking a lot to get them to attack with a pathetic one attack. Drek can stall but he isn’t hitting hard either. Aurora can substitute for a Call of the Mother Gem but she’s rather an expensive back up compared to an event plus eats into your attacks. Noa’s there to try and fix the Gem Golem cost. Finally, Geomancers are a poor man’s Gem Mage since they’re trading the potential for a third attack in order to assure a second wound on their target. Good against Baldur though.

And the more you have to use your units prior to getting your combo, the more you risk burning yourself out with that complete lack of economy engine. If the stars align, Brath looks frightening. But consistent pressure should see her draw reliant strategy fold more often than not. Perhaps the best she wants to see is a passive summoner that’ll dither and let her build up to her crazy potential.

5. United we stand. Divided we fall. (Mercenaries – Farah Oathbreaker)

I… don’t know what to think about the Oathbreaker. Mostly because she’s so weird. So, she’s built all around the whole faction symbol that’s been on cards but has done nothing for years other than be pretty.

So, let’s get it out of the way. I think Farah has some severe weaknesses in her design. I think she also has some insane overpowered elements in there as well. She’s a combination of extremes. First, let’s talk about the good because everyone likes good.

Undercover Agent. Wowzers. That’s an event. Assuming you can meet its requirements, Farah gets an invulnerable unit that reveals her opponents hands. First, the revealing is pretty minor. It may seem strong and powerful and whatnot. People will talk about the advantages of a whiffed Mimic giving you insight into your opponent’s hand. However, unless you’re Rallul, hands change pretty quickly in Summoner Wars. Deck knowledge is better than hand knowledge as most opponents will burn through their hands the turn they draw them. Barring combo decks (like Brath) or insistent champion play, the reveal isn’t likely to spoil too much that you wouldn’t know. It’s good – I’m not saying otherwise – but it’s hardly a gamer changer.

But that invulnerable unit? Phew. That’s a blocker your opponent can’t remove. That’s a summoning spot you can just stuff for as long as you want. That’s an assassin that the enemy summoner can’t escape! Slap this on a three attack unit and just stalk Elien all around his house scaring the living daylights out of him. There is literally nothing that the enemy can do about this. That’s a game changer.

Now, unless you’re one of the original six factions, getting that Undercover Agent is going to require some work. You either need Mingle or Disguise which means that Farrah is a bit of a combo deck herself. No accelerated draw, however, so you’re going to have to dig for those events.

And now we get to the massive negative of Farrah: 3 commons. That’s huge. One of the largest problems with Selundar is that he only has 3 swordsmen in his deck. I make mention about consistency and draw luck and Farrah is at its mercy. You don’t put six of a common into your deck because you plan on summoning all of them. You put in six so you can build most when they wouldn’t be helpful and summon the ones when they will be. Farrah…. can’t. Not really. Every unit she builds as magic is decreasing her chances of getting use of that unit. On top of that, she starts with a whole mitt full on the board which means she only has 2 of those commons in her deck. Really need that Heavy Knight now? Too bad you built one and lost the first one. The final is probably the last card in your draw. Good luck!

One way Farrah combats this problem is by having a whole whack of commons worth summoning. So you may only have 3 Rune Smiths but at least the Heavy Knights aren’t that bad of a draw. Farrah’s commons are pretty great across the board. The only one that seems lacklustre for Farrah is the Augur who would mostly serve as an Undercover Agent against the Fallen Kingdom for her than using its ability. One magic to save one wound is meh for having to keep him beside Farrah. Otherwise, Heavy Knights, Rune Smiths and Invaders provide a decent stock of attack in the deck. Changelings are perhaps the best 0-cost common in the entire game though for Farrah the cost of transforming them is a bit of a hit. Lurkers are meh but at least they’re free. And the more junk Farrah throws to the ground, the more her Unity improves her attack value. And Rune Smiths can make a really awkward economy engine between returning disguises and recovering undercover agents but it’s not really great.

Sadly, there’s not a lot of attack in Farrah’s base deck. Fortunately, her champions are relatively cheap. I didn’t expect to see another Khan and his ability can be nice given Farrah’s numerous 0 cost troops. Lukestor provides a bit of ranged fire power too and Soar is a decent survival ability. Pity you have to pay extra for it. So while I think invulnerable units are likely to be really good, the generic attack spread of Farrah’s deck means she’s reliant on that trick in order to get her victory. Getting your agent looks like it’ll be a bit of gamble, however, especially against the Alliance or Master Set factions. And Inside Information can be pretty crazy if you’re lucky and snatch a strong event or champion from your enemy’s deck.

There’s a lot of cutesy tricks Farrah knows. But like Vlox, I don’t know how often those tricks will lead you to success.

Here we are at the end. Our king of the Master Set round of Summoners is none other than the green menace himself, Mugglug. Oddly enough, Muggles hasn’t actually won a single tournament. But he’s come close each time and that top four finishing is consistent enough for him to come out on top after weighting results.

And if there is one way to describe the Swamp Orcs is that they are consistent. They’re a good faction and I’ve seen numerous players able to pick them up and do well with them. They’re not crazy but they are fairly intuitive. And their base mechanic – getting walls on the enemy’s board – is strong. Mugglug in particular is the defensive approach to spreading the swamp through the poorly named vine walls. But that isn’t to say that he doesn’t have any teeth to his side while he’s poking around his garden.

For one, Mugglug has always been a common focused deck even back when the game revolved quite strongly around champions. This mostly grows from the issue that the Swamp Orcs have, for the longest time, really bad champions. Their reliance on their commons was bred more through necessity but it helped that they had really good commons.

And there really isn’t anyway to discuss the Swamp Orcs without talking about Vine Walls. Walls are really important in Summoner Wars as they give you unprecedented board control. The high life value of walls is key to keeping defensive summoners alive and thwarting early attacks with kill lanes and creating pockets of inaccessible territory to hide your precious summoner. Then, of course, is the need to have walls on the board in order to summon your forces. Staggering walls is an important tactic to leave as many summoning spots open as possible to prevent the disruption of timely wall crowding. And anyone that has lost their starting wall and had the misfortune of their deck placing the last two on the bottom know just how important preserving summoning spots are.

So, being able to spam walls is an incredibly powerful ability and no other faction really does it quite like the Swamp Orcs. Of course, their walls are a meagre two health compared to the nine of a standard wall. This would be a weakness – and is in a select number of matchups – but isn’t quite the problem you would normally expect. Due to the restriction on the number of attacks a faction can perform a turn, a round where your enemy is attacking your wall is a round they have less attacks to throw at your forces. A lot of the game, it’s simply ineffectual to deal with the spreading swamp and the opponent is simply left being overrun. Only in the late game, when the threat of summons are reduced due to diminishing magic piles or empty draw piles, can an enemy really handle these little thorns in their side.

As such, it’s quite common for Mugglug to slowly plod through his deck, not building or playing more than he needs to keep the swamp spreading and the harassment on his enemy flying. The enemy has to respond since Vine Walls are just as effective as units as choking summon points – more effective really since they give the Swamp Orcs new avenues to summon and attack. Oh, and they block line of sight and potentially wound and stop enemy units that try to crawl over them.

Unfortunately, the major stumbling block for Mugglug is that there are simply a handful of decks that really make his match-up very difficult. The Guild Dwarves are masters as wrecking walls and destroying the hard earned swamp with one or two event cards. Rallul, the other master of wall destruction, can rip down vines while fuelling his draw power or churning out even greater economic advantages. And without vines, the rest of the Swamp Orc forces are simply not the terrors to handle as they normally are.

Mugglug (3M-7W-Rampant Growth)

Mugglug sports the standard orc high health and attack value. You’d think from his statistics he’d be a good bruiser summoner but he actually sees very little combat. His high attack value is simply good for crushing little attempts to assassinate him and not much else. The extra health means that there’s still a bit of bite if you manage to grind the Swamp Orcs to the late game as he fulfils the champion slot of his forces once there’s no threat of an instantaneous counter assault. When it comes down to summoner versus summoner, that extra little durability will give him the push through a ranged summoner’s first salvo to get up and crush his face.

Granted, that’s never the real end goal and Mugglug’s route to victory is pretty clear. Rampant Growth necessitates that his swamps are constantly fertilized and you will be providing them plenty of blood to really hydrate that soil. He is capable of sprouting roots from any body – whether it be friend or foe. During the early game, it’s going to be mostly your own forces giving their life to grow forward. While the classic example is a full regiment of imported Apprentice Mages so Mugglug can develop his economy while sowing his weeds, Shamans work well in a pinch from the base deck. The goal isn’t to make all your units grass seed. You’re just getting close enough that your opponent will have to respond to your actions and once they start stepping beside your vines, you’ve got the growth you need.

As such, Mugglug has three Vine Growth to give a free wall to push forward. Vine Guard and Ambush both grant an ability from one of your commons to the rest of your forces and are really great for it. Ambush is the least useful of the pair since you can’t stack the abilities on your Hunters and they form the backbone of your army. However, it’s fantastic for giving your Savager a surprise boost and – more importantly – the ability to extract himself from the swamp should he get overwhelmed himself.

Finally, there’s Ensnare. It’s a bit of a non-combo since it places enemies on your walls which means they can’t get you more vines but it does rip blockers away from your opponent’s summoner as well as put vulnerable archers right in the middle of your swamp where they will be surrounded and eliminated.

It might not be the sexiest collection of events but they’re all pretty solid. And, for the most part, if you aren’t playing them when you draw them they’re not so vital that pitching them immediately for magic is an issue.

Hunter (1R-2W-2M-Vinemancer Ambush)

These guys are good. For Mugglug, they’re essentially a 2 range, 2 health unit for 2 magic since you’ll almost never attack with them without dancing on or off a vine wall. For those stats, they’re pretty economic. That they’re ranged as well is just icing on the cake. The best part is, since they need to be on your swamp to get their ability, they’re really hard to surround. A lot of the time, they’ll only have one unit to return fire and that two life can get them to last an extra round or two. It’ll allow most of your exchanges to be in your favour and if you’re winning exchanges, then you’re winning the economy game.

Savager (3M-3W-4M-Fear)

The Savager is a rather fearsome unit, coming in with stats that are comparable to cheap champions. Three attack is a pretty big threat for champions and summoners alike and their Fear ability makes it a tricky proposition for melee units to retaliate. Fear is more likely than not to fail, so if you’re facing these brutal shock troopers, it’s often in your best interest to go for the attack anyway. Especially if the alternative is letting the Savager rampage through your forces. Course, ranged units are able to attack without the worry of running away in fear but Savagers also eat ranged units if they managed to catch up to them.

A point of interest is that the Savager doesn’t natively have any way to traverse the vine walls so is at mercy of getting stuck in them and picked off by ranged units as the enemy is. Course, you can rescue them with Ambush or, typically, just summon them on the edge of the swamp and run these guys into your enemy’s ranks. Savagers definitely make up for the lack of champion play on the Swamp Orc side so their prohibitive cost isn’t nearly as problematic in other decks that want to play their champions.

Shaman (1R-1W-1M-Vinemancer Guard)

I feel like Shamans are a little underrated. Partly because they’re competing with Hunters and Savagers for your precious magic and, in comparison, the greater damage output from the other two are hard to pass up. Shamans mostly live to die and grow your swamp further, however they’re a pretty resilient unit in their own right. Requiring a 5 or 6 to hit is no insignificant amount and these guys can hold a flank like no other common. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of situations where you need to stuff a flank especially since you’ve got Vine Walls to accomplish the same and Vine Walls don’t give magic when they’re destroyed.

As a third common, they’re not the worst and you can get the odd one to hold up a champion longer than he’s worth. Mostly, though, these guys will be going to your magic pile for fuel or summoned for a vine wall instead. Ultimately, that 1 attack just holds them back too much like most single attack range units.

Blerg (2M-6W-7M-Adaptive)

And here we have a prime example of why you don’t play Swamp Orc champions. Blerg is overpriced for his stats, offering you the same threat as a Hunter but at melee and for more than three times the cost. Adaptive is certainly not worth the extra two magic that Blerg is priced beyond expectation, especially since it takes additional magic to use. If you’re looking at giving him 3 attack, you’ve now sunk 8 magic into the guy – and made him more valuable to kill to boot.

That said, his heal does trigger without spending the magic but at two attack, you’re likely looking to have other units set up the kill or he’s killing commons. Issue is, the Swamp Orc commons are already good at killing commons.

Blerg is nearly the cost of two Savagers and chances are those two Savagers would probably get you further than this Swamp Orc that trips over vines.

Glarg (2M-6W-5M-Vinemancer Reach)

Glarg is the exception to the rule. He is fantastic. For one more magic you can have twice the health of a Savager. He’s a super hunter and you should play him as such. Glarg is certainly the champion I try to get out every game and is the other reason that Mugglug at 5 magic is so scary. At a moment’s notice, a Glarg or Savager could emerge from those vine walls and start wreaking havoc.

Glarg is less exciting without Vine Wall support, however. He certainly isn’t as good in the Swamp Orc bad match-ups or reaching around walls you haven’t fully enveloped. He is the first in a line of Swamp Orc champions that work really well in the vines and so long as you’ve grown a good swamp, he’ll help you secure a victory. Also, he does stack with Ambush for scary 4 range attack turns assuming you’re standing on a Vine Wall.

Splub (3M-6W-7M-Vinemancer Sow)

Splub is, yet again, a little too expensive for what he does. Seven magic is a large investment and all Splub brings to the table is more Vine Walls. Mugglug, however, isn’t really in need of help in that department. His events and ability give Vine Walls readily enough and having an ability strictly for growing the swamp means that in champion versus champion engagements, Splub will likely lose out to those that are geared more towards the killing.

He does have three attack, however, which is a good base. And if you were ever in a situation where you need to generate Vine Walls, Splub is definitely adept at it. He just fills a niche that Mugglug doesn’t need to fill. I’m not even certain I’d deck build him because it seems more cost effective to work around the Swamp Orc summoners’ abilities for generating walls than spending lots of magic on it.

For the most part, the Swamp Orcs are pretty straightforward. I think this really lends to their popularity and their success. There aren’t unintuitive tricks you need to master with this deck. You aren’t handicapping yourself by focusing on commons and cheap champions while throwing out your events and marching your forces towards your enemy. That you get such strong units for your magic makes each summon a threat as well.

Mugglug is simply a good, well-rounded summoner. His weak base champions are easily ignored. The only blemish are those handful of decks that just ruin his swamps with hardly any effort. But if he isn’t facing his arch nemeses then chances are he’ll be playing with defenders advantage even if he’s halfway across the board.

And it’s really easy for enemies to get bogged down and drown in Mugglug’s murky waters.

The Shadow Elves are a bit of an enigma. They consistently do well in tournaments, grabbing a double fourth place finish in both. Outside of tournaments, they consistently lose matches. It’s like lady luck has a soft spot for the albinos and keeps providing them the benefit of her touch whenever the matches count. They’re a faction which we constantly underrate and under appreciate. And they’re the type of faction that can capitalize on an opponent’s lapsed judgement.

Of all the Master Set releases, the Shadow Elves are the only real faction that encapsulates the assassination style of play. They have, in general, high attack but low staying power. However, they have several tricks and movement options up their sleeves that can worm their units past defences to strike unprepared summoners. An enemy can’t really know where or how the Shadows Elves will strike next and it’s easy to forget just how far their reach can extend.

Unfortunately, they’re not the most adept as assassins. Along with playing aggressively, the assassination style has always been the hardest to perform. On one hand, it’s the most effective way to win the game. Wherein playing defensive you’re trying to create an economic advantage to turn into battlefield superiority and playing aggressive involves applying more pressure than an opponent can withstand, assassination goes right for the jugular.

Granted, because “assassinating” is kind of an easy concept to understand, your typical player is wary of leaving their summoner in easy reach. For most factions, a player is going to skulk their summoner on their back and furthest row from their enemy. That means an assassination ploy is going to involve getting a unit across the board in order to be in position. Walls and defenders will litter the way so you’ll need better movement to get around them. But unless your opponent is susceptible to assassination, like having a low starting health, then the match-up can be very difficult. You’ll have to work multiple units onto the summoner, or somehow get them to stick for a few turns. As such, it’s easy for a failed assassination plan to hand your opponent the match if you’ve got too weak an economy to defend against the inevitable counter attack.

So why would you want to play this dicey style? Well, outside of making a match very tense, the threat of assassination never really disappears. Depending on how the opponent can deliver their damage, defending against several attempts can lull your enemy into a false sense of security. If their army moves forward to crush you, your opponent may find himself quickly missing the defenders he had before to protect himself. And, since assassins generally use high attack values, their summoned defenders are still a threat to those would be avengers.

More likely, however, a player will switch styles throughout a match. You may be playing defensive, building up a decent economic pool while looking for an opening to strike your opponent. When that happens, you might throw a few assassins out before committing to a full aggressive push. Being flexible and keeping your opponent guessing is the best way to keep the threat of assassination open.

So what does this mean for the Shadow Elves? Well, they have to be adaptive in order to address their opponent’s style. If your enemy is going defensive, you can try to move a few key units forward to pull out extra defenders. If they keep hiding, you can probably pick of stragglers or draw forward walls until you get a good opening or they turn to an aggressive counter. Then you can pull back, lure them into your territory and slaughter their units. It’s much like a fencing match, with all the strikes and ripostes. A few hits on their summoner should dissuade a complete commitment to passive play and frustrate their plans.

This also means that my sister can be effective with the Shadow Elves since rushing your enemy, while not as strong as with an aggressive faction, can still have some teeth to it. I’m still not convinced that the Shadow Elves base deck is as strong as it appears – their only large victory of note in the Big Tournament was against the Swamp Orcs – but hey, if you can’t be skilled, you might as well be lucky.

Selundar (2R-7W-Out of Shadows)

Selundar is interesting in that he has a bit more health than normal for a ranged summoner. This is partly because if you’re going to get use from out of shadows you’ll probably be in place to be counter attacked. But a 2 range that can shift to a 4 melee is impressive for a summoner. He has some real potential to turn eager champions into mince meat should they blindly come after him. He’s a very dangerous assistant to your assaults. But he’s also more apt to play in the mid board position, looking for moments when he can use that four dice in effective but safe manners.

Learning when to advance and when to retreat is important for Selundar because the last thing you want is to be surrounded and “assassinated” yourself. Keeping tabs on the enemy’s magic pool is vital in order to predict what they’ll summon. If you get some units deep into enemy territory, they will naturally draw your opponent’s attention. But it won’t last long. All the Shadow Elf commons are pretty brittle so they won’t stand up to any abuse.

Selundar does have some tools to help him, however. His event Shadows is so representative of his style that it spawned an entire unit in the Alliances box. The event lets you claim a loss of one of your troops as magic for yourself. Get these early and a quick rush on your opponent can really leave their economy crippled as the money from your deaths are denied. If they had to summon a defender themself, this could leave your enemy with an additional turn or two without magic (outside of what he builds). It even lets you refund the cost of your own troops, to an extent.

And if your enemy gets emboldened by your early loses, you have Into Darkness to punish a fool hardy counter assault if they drop a hasty common retaliation. Unfortunately, Into Darkness discards the units instead of giving you the magic but if your two targets are both 2 magic, then you’ve done a significant tempo hit. Yeah, it’s a catch up event but I find it’s too situational to try and set up the conditions for it yourself. Its requirements are more apt to appear through natural gameplay and, given that the ability is almost half as effective as the other big catch up events, it isn’t as problematic for the game in general.

Stalking Advance is the Shadow Elf aggression event. It gives you as many single space moves as you have units on the board so it also doubles as a surprise event to extend the reach of your assassins. It’s a very good if incredibly unexciting event. I can understand why a new player may not be blown away by it on first blush. But after repeated games, Stalking Advance is certainly the event that can ruin your opponent.

Finally, there’s Summon the Night. Between this and stalking advance, you can create a very terrifying turn for your opponent. This event can really cinch a match. If you manage to have a strong board position and throw this out, it’s possible to get essentially “an extra turn” as your opponent stumbles in the one space restriction unable to strike anything. And it neuters ranged factions, forcing them to stumble into melee range where they are more vulnerable. This can really extend the life on your champions in particular as they and Selundar are the most susceptible to a fresh trio of summoned defenders surrounding and overwhelming them. That’s near impossible in the night. It’s also great on the defence, letting you quickly retreat Selundar from assassins or a strong attacking force while out-manoeuvring them with your defenders. It’s an all around fantastic event.

It’s a good but tricky suite and takes some practice to use well and to defend against.

Ranger (1R-1W-1M-Shadow Arrows)

Eh, rangers. I’m pretty unimpressed with them. They’re your only ranged common but they’re not particularly grand. One ranged attack is as disappointing as you get since they aren’t much of a threat against their similarly priced melee units which generally come with two health.

As such, they’re more effective when you’re on defence. Especially since Selundar’s board set up is so awkward. I mostly build them for magic more than anything else but something has to fill that role. As for their shadow arrows, they rarely ever work. First, they have to get a kill which is a tall task for one attack. They also have to be killing something that is within three clear spaces of another juicy target. And it eats up the magic that you get for the kill. Unless I can score a cheap shot on the enemy summoner or take out a more expensive archer of theirs, I usually ignore it. It is your “extra attack” for an aggressive faction however.

Scout (1M-1W-0M-Scout)

Scout’s scout scouts scouts. I can see some of the flavouring took a real long time.

I like the scouts if only because they’re free bodies. They provide the Shadow Elves a chance to always have just one more unit despite the state of their magic pile. Their ability is really good but don’t expect it to ever really trigger. The problem with it is it’s attached to a single health unit and that scout is going to chew up one of your movements in order to crawl onto your opponent’s board. Your opponent will likely then move a lone defender to go and claim the weak girl as magic.

I mean, you could protect it with a hardier target but that would mean you’re protecting a 0 magic unit with a champion or your summoner. And those are things you don’t want to be attacked either.

They’re basically a second magic fodder though it doesn’t hurt to keep a few back to assist with protecting Selundar or to attack anything that comes near your walls. With any luck they can kill things that cost more than them and you can just shoot the girls in the back with a ranger or two to deny their magic.

Swordsman (2M-1W-1M-Swiftness)

Swordsmen are hands down the best common in the Shadow Elves. I’d argue they’re one of the best commons in the game. At least they were before Alliances came out and significantly enlarged the common pool with much better units. I, personally, prefer 2 attack instead of 2 health on my melee commons if only because two health doesn’t provide that much more in terms of survivability in a game with plenty of two and three attack options in most factions. And 2 attack is twice as threatening to champions and summoners. Three of these guys springing from your walls and surrounding a newly minted champion can really ruin your enemy’s day.

But that brings them to their largest weakness. You only have three of them in your deck.

For some inexplicable reason, the Shadow Elves start with half their best units on the board. Not only does this effectively force Selundar to roll for first turn but it also means that the Shadow Elf player can’t get much use out of them. Likely, you’ll be attacking at least one because there is little chance all three of them will survive a turn and so, one turn into the game and already your best forces have been reduced significantly.

It’s one thing I haven’t mentioned but another large problem with some of the earlier summoners is that their starting line-ups really cut them off at the knees. Selundar is perhaps the worst offender of the bunch. You need to have these units in your deck so you have the chance to draw them throughout the game to gain the advantage and surprise of being summoned from your walls. Unfortunately, this is denied to the Shadow Elves unless they purchase a second box and deck build in extra swordsmen. I would have really preferred if only two or (preferably) one started on the field and there were seven or even eight of these guys in the deck. The Shadow Elves can stand to lose extra rangers and scouts.

Having so many fragile units on the board at the beginning really kills the Shadow Elves ability to field an efficient common focused force. And going first with so many melee units also hurts because you are reduced to only moving two. It’s so unnecessary to make the Shadow Elves first turn so difficult. They must stumble before through those first few rounds before they can gain the proper momentum and board state to run the clean and surgical strikes they want.

Hydrake (3M-8W-8M-Assault)

Granted, the poor setup of their commons just pushes the Shadow Elves towards a champion focused game. And they have some pretty decent champions.

Hydrake is the most terrifying on appearance. This fearsome lizard single handedly won the match-up against the swamp orcs. Three melee is good. Able to strike everything around it really discourages the natural tendency for opponents to crowd a champion when it comes stomping into their home. And since high strength range units are rare, this typically translates into an extra round or two of the Hydrake running around than any other champion.

Sometimes, the strongest defence is a ridiculous offence.

That said, eight magic is a tall order to achieve and if you draw him early he’s probably not worth holding onto since you’ve got all your events that you’re trying to time properly. There is a certain satisfaction when the enemy takes casualty after casualty until they finally bring the dreaded Hydrake down and as they reach to claim their prize you drop a Shadows to the board.

Delicious.

Malidala (2R-3W-5M-Shadow Dancer)

Malidala is just plain bad. Just like the Sand Goblin scavenger, she’s a card that is rendered useless because of the grievous absence of a necessary “may.” Maybe if she had the elusive 3 range stat I could recommend her. However, she just isn’t worth the investment when you can get the Hydrake for three more magic. Three wounds is absolutely pitiful but that her ability is so easy to negate is hilarious.

All the opponent has to do is attack Malidala with a one attack common and shadow dance is completely voided. Sure, it forces an additional attack on her but if she’s in a fisticuffs with another champion she’s just going to outright lose. You can squeeze a bit more usefulness with summon the night to save her skin and this isn’t bad if you have other units benefit from the reduced attack range. Course, in that situation, any ranged champion would have been good too. I’d take just about any other option over the weird double skirted cheerleader. But I don’t have anything so straight to the magic pile for you, girl (unless you happen to be my last champion in the deck)!

Xaserbane (3M-4W-4M-Sneak)

Xaserbane, however, is the real deal. When you’re first learning to play as and against the Shadow Elves, this guy is going to get so many good stabs. With stalking advance, he’s a total of five movement. Off a forward wall, you’ve got a good chance of striking the enemy summoner and forcing her to deal with bob cut albino. But he’s the definition of an assassin, easily folding in one round. But he’s cheap as dirt so it’s not too great a loss.

As always, summon the night can extend his life expectancy but even then, chances are you’ll only get one more turn since he’ll be receiving a minimum of two dice attacks. But the threat of Xaserbane can really affect your opponent’s behaviour. Expect your opponent to keep hawkish attention on your magic pool to know when she is or isn’t safe of a sudden stalking advance from this guy. And if he manages to get on an opponent and she fails to kill him on her turn, you’re practically golden for the rest of the match.

On the other hand, there’s nothing more disheartening than getting the perfect sneak with this guy and watching all three dice come up as misses.

So, yeah, I’m still surprised by the Shadow Elves performance. Even after doing an long write-up I still can’t really see how great they are. They have a few tricks that are decent, a few cards that are decent but nothing that is outright scary. And perhaps it is this acknowledgement that they aren’t some sort of “over powered” or “broken” faction that makes us far more exacting in how we play them. Knowing that we have to squeeze every last ounce of strength we can from each card perhaps makes our strategy all the better than when my sister or I have a faction we feel will win without a challenge.

Like I said, it’s almost this idea that the Shadow Elves unimpressive deck lulls you into carelessness. All you have to really do is kill their swordsmen and keep an eye out for that sneaking Xaserbane and you’ll be fine, right? And then, you remember summon the night only as the Hydrake is chowing down on the opponent and Selundar is sliding forward with a stalking advance and striking out of the shadows in a desperate play that pulls you into the grave.

Alright, there’s no way I can make a play on the Benders’ name without it coming across as slightly sexual. Let’s all just be mature adults and politely ignore the humorous oversight of Plaid Hat Game’s naming for this faction.

Snicker.

Ah, the Benders. Is there a faction more hated than this? Oh, and what a coincidence that most of the people in it are women too, huh. I’m not saying that if you hate the Benders you’re a misogynist. I’m just heavily implying it. Do you hate women? No? Then clearly, you don’t hate the Benders.

I for one love our new female overlords. Who are led by a male. Because of course we can’t have a dominant female faction without a man in the primary role. They are also the masters of mind games. This is just the way things have to be in order to appeal to our target demographic. Which, we’ve already established, aren’t misogynists.

Social justice! Down with men! Let’s burn some bras!

Alright, so who are the Benders (heh). Well, for one, they’re the champions of the Master Tournament. So they’re not someone that you can take lightly. On the other hand, they only got thirteenth in the Everyone Party Tournament, taking a low place alongside the Demagogue. So the Benders aren’t invincible either.

They are a passive faction, however, so my sister is not doing well with them. Prior I mentioned in the Deep Dwarves write-up that a passive opponent could really make the game long and tedious. Say hello to that passive opponent. The Benders are perhaps what everyone thinks when they imagine the defensive factions of Summoner Wars. I, generally speaking, consider a faction defensive if they gain some advantage by keeping to their side of the board and not rushing their opponent. There are a number of factions that occupy a rather weird position where they don’t have a good aggressive strategy, a feasible assassination strategy or an effective defensive strategy. We call those factions the Cloaks and they’re losers.

Alright, maybe not quite, but the factions with a sort of aimless design do have a tendency to default to a defensive play. But that’s not the same as being a defensive faction. The Benders are strongly encouraged to hunker down behind their walls and wait for their enemy to come at them. Unlike the Filth and the Deep Dwarves, however, they don’t have a lot of pressure that forces their opponent to rush headlong over the middle line. They have no economy game outside what the core mechanics provide. And, quite frankly, the opponent is heavily discouraged from playing ball.

This is what leads to the Benders low popularity polling. And, honestly, it’s a fault of the design. Basically, a match against the Benders is going to involve the Bender player sitting at the table, pulling everything to the back of his board and shouting, “Come at me, bro!” If the enemy complies, he’s a happy toad on a log. If, however, his enemy pulls his units to the back of the board and returns with a, “No! You come at ME, bro!” then we have a problem. The game can turn quickly into a staring match which each player waiting for the other to blink first.

For many match-ups, this isn’t an issue. Aggressive factions will take the bait and rush forward because that’s what they do. Better defensive factions will hold back and apply that passive pressure, forcing the Benders to react. But for those factions that fall in the middle? Well, the game grinds to a boring halt.

I know the designers wanted to make a faction that would cause friends to hate each other but not like this Plaid Hat. Not like this.

I think they realized their mistake. That’s why the Deep Benders have the Owl Gryphon. It’s not actually a champion for Endrich. Endrich has an economy engine (as awkward as it is) that can apply pressure on its own. He also has an aggressive game if he wishes to attack from a different angle. But Tacullu doesn’t. If Tacullu isn’t playing defensive, he really doesn’t have any (clear) route to victory. So he’s meant to take the Owl Gryphon and be the Deep Dwarves 2.0 because the designers couldn’t think of any better passive pressure to solve the issue.

Long story short, if you own both the Master Set and Alliances, take the Owl Gryphon out and shove it in with Tacullu. Give the alopecian man anything in return. He’ll just build it for magic anyway. This will make your games much better. Tacullu has a Hero is Born anyway.

But, since we don’t review based on deck building, keep in mind that the criticisms against the Benders are valid. Whatever their design, it’s fundamentally flawed to stall games in a non-insignificant number of match-ups. And asking one player to sacrifice their own best interest (whether that be the Benders going against their defensive direction or the opponent to willingly attack a faction at their strongest) to fix a design issue is not a proper workaround.

Tacullu (2R-5W-Counter Summon)

Personally, I think Tacullu has 1 health too many. And no, I’m not saying this because I just want to see the Benders lose. I think the 4 health line for summoners is interesting. It makes the player be overly protective of their summoner. This fits in with a defensive faction. It also makes them more vulnerable to assassination tactics since those factions excel at getting only one high strength strike through. I like the generic rock-paper-scissors power dynamic of defensive beats aggressive, aggressive beats assassination and assassination beats defensive. As a general design paradigm, I think that’s a pretty easy and intuitive set-up.

Oh well, Tacullu has five health and we’ll just have to deal with it. Much like a lot of the Benders other design.

With a low attack, he won’t be pulled out to do much of anything in a fight. Don’t neglect Counter Summon, however. This would, in theory, be the fear that a Bender player building up a larger economy pile would put into their opponent. Its restrictions are nice in that it could open the Bender player up to an assassination counter play. And it’s strong enough to really take the wind out of an aggressive focused force’s sails when their impervious champion or common is whisked away without having to chew through defences or health pools.

Unfortunately, this isn’t how Counter Summon ends up playing. It basically turns the stalling game into an exercise in frustration as the enemy builds for a large champion to charge at Tacullu and the Bender player builds a large pool to kick it to the curb, leaving both players back at square one.

It’s still a strong ability if only because it turns one of the best advantages of cheap champions back on themselves. In that way, it’s kind of a cool piece of design.

But let’s take a look at those events.

First, Magic Drain. We all know the deal here. But that the Benders, who are already playing really passive and far back on their field have it means that the opponent is likely to self kill their units to try and keep on par or lower than the Benders to prevent the drain. It just encourages more cold war stare-offs.

A Hero is Born is here for reasons I cannot fathom. This card is pretty bad because there aren’t many “need to have” champions in the game that would require a tutor for them over just building five magic and drawing five cards a turn can’t find. With the Owl Gryphon it could actually see some play, perhaps, but for the most part it’s a bad event.

Mimic is both an incredibly frustrating event for your opponent and not a very good one for you. I kind of like it and with a tweaked Bender deck design, I think it would make a strong addition. It essentially punishes event combo decks. Either a player has to play their events as they draw them or build them for magic otherwise the Benders will claim them. This is doubly important for events that don’t discriminate against factions when firing like Reinforcements. However, it can lead to some interesting plays against combo factions if they’re able to fake out a few mimic plays since Tacullu does have a limited number. And while missing an event sucks with mimic, there is still some value in knowing what the opponent has in their grubby hands.

Except, in summoner wars, most cards are just magic fodder so it’s not as good as other games.

At last, we have Mind Control. This is the card that makes the Benders really want to play defensively. Well, this and they’re all low health and ranged so they naturally utilize the defender’s advantage better than others. But mind control just frustrates aggressive assaults as it not only swings the tempo in Tacullu’s favour but it can leave vulnerable enemy units suddenly exposed to an attack they wouldn’t have received otherwise. However, it’s trigger of your board means that Tacullu almost never wants to go aggressive. He’ll live and die on his side hoping for those mind controls.

Oh, and yes it only targets commons but if you think that means you just need to build champions to take on Tacullu, scroll up and re-familiarize yourself with that section I just wrote on counter summon. They’re a particularly nasty combination.

Breaker (1R-1W-2M-Memory Break)

Breakers have the auspicious title of being the first common in a deck that doesn’t start in their summoner’s opening set-up. That makes them the best bum card because you can completely deck build them out without having that awkward one or two required for the first turn of the game!

Unfortunately, breakers are the worst common in the Bender deck and, consequently, are the ones you’ll never see. It’s unfortunate because I kind of like their design. However, they’re grossly overshadowed by the controllers. So while these gals are meant to offer a rare damaging paradigm – directly attacking the opponent’s deck and, indirectly, their economy – we don’t really get to see how effective this design is. But they have the potential to create interesting situations. Say a breaker reveals a key champion like Kynder from the Deep Dwarves deck. Surely you’d pay one magic to keep the champion around. But would you pay two magic from two breaker attacks? What about three?

And to add insult to injury, the card gets buried at the bottom of the deck meaning you have to dig to get it back. And if you’re not dealing with those breakers, they could just lose it or have to pay even more when it comes up again.

Sadly, you’re just not going to spend two magic for one attack to cause this issue. That the breaker has to hit a unit and not a wall further reduces their usefulness given that your opponent likely isn’t throwing a lot of commons at Tacullu thanks to his mind controlling.

Personally, what I would have liked to see with them is their cost reduced to one magic. Maybe tweak them so they only hit on a 4+ to compensate because I do think the ability is really good. But I feel breakers should have been the cheap option in the Bender deck because their effect is so subtle and pretty chance based. I mean, if you hit one of your enemy’s bum commons, they’ll just pitch it and likely kill your breaker in the next turn for the magic that card could have provided. At two magic, this simply isn’t a worthy exchange for the Benders in a large number of cases.  At one… who knows? Maybe?

Controller (2R-1W-2M-Telekinetic Blast)

These are the all-stars of the Bender army. Two range is pretty strong though 2 magic is the general cost for things as soft as these ladies. The blast has great utility as Kynder demonstrates and they don’t spend a magic to do it. They don’t even need to hit anything so you can attack your own walls with controllers if you just want to push someone around. And I often do this to Tacullu to get him flopping away from angry players running across the board to smack him in his annoying non-face.

Unfortunately, they’re so good that they kind of overshadow the other Bender commons. Personally, I think I’d drop their attack down to 1. I’d still leave their cost at 2 magic because defensive factions should have more expensive units and I do think blasting things is worth the extra magic. But don’t think this is a nerf because I would move that 2 attack stat line to…

Deceivers (1R-1W-1M-Stun)

These girls. These girls right here. I’d make them the 2 attack at 2 magic option. Why? Because it makes them a bit of a nombo (non-combination) with stun. It makes them a little more awkward which is fine because a lot of the time you’re spending that two magic for the attack and don’t really care about the ability. Though they would make wonderful little common haters as they can stun a unit then blow their faces off with that extra attack.

As is now, they’re generally blockers. How? They simply sit beside an enemy’s attacking unit and sing kumbaya until the enemy manages to dislodge them. At one magic, they’re dead easy to summon and pitch mindlessly at your enemy while you skulk behind your walls being a little taunting brat that refuses to put your money where your mouth is. They can slowly roll their die and whittle away their stunned partner’s health but be careful that they aren’t immediately murdered the moment that stunned enemy is dead.

I like deceivers and feel they’re a little under appreciated. Not that I can blame people, controllers are really good.

Gulldune (2R-4W-5M-Mind Capture)

So Gulldune isn’t particularly good. Granted, most the Bender champions aren’t particularly good. But Gulldune takes the cake for probably being the most not particularly good of the bunch. He’s a little pricey for 4 health and 2 range attack. What really kills him, however, is that his ability is pretty rubbish.

You have to kill the unit in order to capture them. At 2 attack, that means whatever you capture can only have a maximum of 2 health left (more likely they’ll only have one). Alright, so you’re not mind controlling any healthy units. You’re still stealing them and permanently, right?

Though if you can kill the unit in one attack, chances are the enemy can as well. And since you’re stealing them in the middle of your attack phase, you can’t move them out of harms way. You can’t move them anywhere, really.

So you now have a low health unit in the middle of the enemy’s ranks who, likely, you won’t be able to attack with him since he can’t move when you take control. What’s the first thing that’s going to happen when the opponent takes their turn? They’re going to kill that shiny unit you just stole.

And take the magic.

So you’re losing out on the magic that you’d get from the kill and are giving it to the opponent. The only way this would be advantageous to you is if you get a good attack with the unit you steal since it’s not going to live very long. Really, the only way this will happen is if your opponent doesn’t see Gulldune coming but once he hits the table, the enemy will be more careful about where potential mind capture victims may be.

Also, he’s four health so he won’t last long. Especially if he fails to kill his target and they run up to him and punch him in his face.

Ultimately, you’re better off just murdering the target and claiming the money than trying to work around this cumbersome ability.

Kalal (3R-5W-7M-Glimpse the Future)

Kalal is your tank in the Benders. She has 5 health. One thing I haven’t touched on is the fragility of the Benders. They’re paper tigers that don’t stand up to repeated punishment. Which is good because they’re all ranged and kind of annoying.

Kalal is nice since she has 3 attack at range. Unfortunately, five health doesn’t make her quite a bruiser. You can use deceivers and controllers to limit the amount of hate that will come her way. And glimpsing the future is a rather interesting ability. You can control, to a degree, your enemy’s draw. Have them pull their bum commons while stuffing their combo events and champions at the bottom of their deck. Or, you can ensure your good cards come up while throwing your bum ones for later.

Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s worth the extra magic that Kalal costs. I get that it’s suppose to combo with the breakers but the breakers themselves aren’t really enticing on their own. And 7 magic is quite an investment for something that’s only ok. Kalal doesn’t really push you towards a direct path for victory. You’re not really going to pitch 7 magic and how many breakers to pursue this circuitous route of burning the enemy’s deck to win.

You’re just going to mind control, kill and unsummon what they bring out.

And if you only want Kalal to kill, wouldn’t you just take a champion with 3 attack that was cheaper?

Sorgwen (3R-3W-5M-Telepathic Command)

Speak of the devil.

Sorgwen is basically the go to champion for the Benders. She has that three ranged attack that is the draw for Kalal. She has a fairly low cost of 5 magic so she won’t break the bank and leave lots of magic for counter summoning. She has telepathic command that gives you an extra attack in the turn as if the Benders were an aggressive faction. I’m guessing that’s because the Benders are suppose to be “a little of everything.”

She’s really hard to compete against and nothing has. Her ability is so good that when they put it on a summoner, they had to give it a cost. In fact, the only difference between her and Endrich is that he has one more health and you don’t lose the game if Sorgwen falls. She makes your controllers all the better. And just think what her and breakers would be like if you actually played them!

Just make sure she’s well protected through controller blasts and deceiver stuns. She’ll probably still be assassinated but, hey, that’s three damage that wasn’t done to Tacullu.

Many words have been said about the Benders and how to “balance” them. I don’t think people really mean that they’re unbalanced but just that they’re not fun. I would like to have seen them provide a reason for the enemy to have to engage them. They have decent weaknesses as is. And with better developed assassination factions, they’ll continue to drop games.

It’s just a shame that some of their more interesting ideas were abandoned amongst the torrent of bad publicity. There was an interesting design space to explore here that was just dropped in the later releases. We’ll have to see if the second summoner picks up this idea of attacking the opponent’s draw pile and economy. I feel like there’s still many interesting interactions left to explore in the system. My hope is that Plaid Hat will realize them.

ermergerd erts der derp dervs. der derp dervs der mer ferverer. ey ruv der derp dervs. derp. dervs.

I don’t know why but this is how I imagine all underground fantasy races sound. Perhaps its because Dungeons and Dragons had the svirfneblin as one of their token deep cavern races. And choosing one of the most unpronounceable Nordic mythological races as your direction just leads to stupid moments at the gaming table.

Though, I guess the D&D dwarves are called duergar. That doesn’t make it better.

We’ve arrived at the top four for the Master Set Showdown, however. The Deep Dwarves just missed the top cut, edged out by the Benders by one game. They managed a poor fifth position in this tournament but really turned things around in the Free for All with claiming a very respectable fifth place again. Just a quick reminder that the second tournament had three times the contenders and not only that but the Deep Dwarves crawled their way up through that bloody gauntlet of a loser’s bracket. Their victims were the Demagogue, the Swarmp Orcs and the Mercenaries respectably.

In fact, I can’t help but feel that the Deep Dwarves were often the loser’s army. How the second tournament worked was the winner of a round had their choice of faction in the next round (which were determined by weighted seeding). Generally speaking, the winner grabbed for their favourite faction of the pair. And Kait hates the Deep Dwarves with a passion. Invariably, this meant that I was playing them.

Part of the reason for the Deep Dwarves mediocre performance is that they do not mesh with Kait’s playstyle at all. Going over my records and I don’t see a single victory for the faction attributed to Kait’s play. This is understandable. They simply cannot smash their opponent’s face. They’re a slow, deliberate, defensive faction that relies on building up a powerful economic advantage through their inherent economy engine to cinch the game in the final moments through powerful combo pieces and a superior magic pool.

Kind of like the Filth from last week, actually.

Unlike the Filth, however, they don’t have the flexibility that mutagist provided the Demagogue. They are pretty reliant on chance draws – perhaps more so than the average summoner because of how combo focused their events are. As such, the Deep Dwarves are most vulnerable during the early and mid game as they try to establish their strong position. But they lack the cheap defenders that the Demagogue has in his 0 cost fanatics. Those first few early turns can really dictate the pace of a Deep Dwarves game.

So you’re looking at trying to capitalize on that inherent defender’s advantage as much as possible. Since Kait is really terrible at that, I have a pretty easy time destroying her in those moments – barring the magical double wall draw opening hand. Overcoming the defender’s advantage is far more difficult so her losing to the Deep Dwarves in the early tournament is understandable as she hadn’t developed the effective tactics for destroying them.

As for the games in the Grand Tournament, all three of them were very close affairs that hinged on key dice rolls and little else. The Demagogue, Rallul and Mugglug are all defensive champions in their own right and any of them could have taken the fight.

But let’s just say the battles against Krusk and Abua Shi were not.

Tundle (2R-6W-Meditate)

I’m tired of commenting on the 2 range, 6 wound spread so I’m not going to this time. Instead, let’s discuss that meditate. This ability likely won’t trigger that often in a fight. The reason for that is, if the enemy hasn’t started coming at you from the start then a turn or two of you generating “free magic” is going to prompt them across the board. And that’s what you want.

As Tundle, you don’t want to have to assault the opponent and you don’t have to either. You can recall how the Filth’s mutagist offered them a way to recur magic but needed a few turns to setup properly? Well, Tundle doesn’t have those issues. He has no free units in his deck so if you need to get magic into your discard you can summon just about anything that you draw. Not only that, but all his units let you spend magic to do things which can get you spending that money like an obedient little capitalist consumer.

What’s the hitch? You can only attack with one unit. What does this mean? You’re trash on the defensive. This is why meditate doesn’t trigger often. If the opponent has three (or more, heaven forbid you’re facing a good aggressive faction) units charging down the derpy dwarves position, you’re going to need your attacks to save your bacon. If you draw your walls and can funnel the enemy down murder lanes that only need a single entrenched gem mage to do the killing, then you’re laughing. If not, you’ll probably need Tundle and some illusions to hold back the tide while you build up that font of power to eradicate your opponent in one grand, laser fuelled turn.

Wait, lasers?

Yes, lasers.

Magic Torrent is an event that lets you deal one one wound to each enemy (barring summoners and conjurations) within 4 spaces of Tundle. It costs you one magic to do so, however. Granted, there’s no laser in the name but that’s how I imagine it’s done. I mean, these are the guys that are obsessed with gems and crystals. You know, for focusing light. Work with me.

It’s a good event that I rarely have the magic to pull of because my sister is smashing my face. But being able to clear blockers for your artillery and draw even on the cost is good. However, there are other things that invariably stuff my hand that I usually pitch this event away.

Alright, so if I’m not playing magic torrent, what am I doing with my time?

Playing every other event.

First up is Illusionary Warrior. This little baby let’s put put to the table for free any single common in your magic pile. This includes enemy commons if you happen to snag a timely savager or other expensive and scary unit. Mostly, this is looking to get a discount on gem mages but even that is good. The downside? It’s picky. You can only use this event if you have a living gem mage or a champion. Why not Tundle? Don’t know. I’m assuming he’s too busy nap-meditating to bother with light shows and magic tricks.

Second is Magic Stasis because you know what’s good? Preventing your opponent from reinforcing his attacking army. It’s especially great when your enemy drops a whole hand of four or five cards. The obvious champion build play is wonderful to delay by slapping this card on the board and giving your enemy your best shit-eating grin. Double style points if you have your second magic stasis to throw the turn after for maximum trolling. Will this win games? No. But you’re a late game powerhouse and looking for every trick you can find to slow the pace of the match and let you get there. Magic stasis is one of the best cards for accomplishing that.

Summoning Surge is your “making up for lost meditates” card. Since your opponent should be forcing you to attack with more than one unit a turn, they’re probably killing your guys to meet that pressure. If you’re losing guys then you’re meeting the requirements for the surge. It also lets you grab a good chunk of your discard pile to reclaim a juicy common to press gang as an illusionary warrior. Oh, and you can summon during this phase as well if you need just one more magic to pull out a champion that you didn’t have at the start.

Last but not least is Wake the Father Gem. This turns on your explosive turns. You know how I earlier mentioned that Deep Dwarves are looking to setup that game winning combo? This is it. If you have two or three gem mages on the board and in position, this lets you fire nine dice at range on units that can then hop back into cover for free. It lets you move units back and forth with your champions to open up firing lanes for said gem mages. And if you also have a scholar beside the target then you can simply laugh maniacally.

Realistically, however, you’ll be using it earlier while you’re trying to grow your magic pile or when you simply don’t have any magic to use abilities at all. The dream is to blow up the earth but the reality is that this lets you squeeze just a bit more from your early units before they invariably push up daisies in the bloody defence.

So, yeah. You can say Tundle has a powerful event suite.

Gem Mage (2R-1W-2M-Gem Magic)

Which is good because Tundle’s commons are rather… lacklustre.

I know this will probably get some flack under the gem mage description but it is what it is. Honestly, if it weren’t for Tundle’s ability and powerful events, gem mages probably wouldn’t be that amazing. They are because Tundle can afford them but I have to question whether anyone else could. Also, gem mages look really good when compared to the competition.

But let’s look at them. Two range attack is strong. One health is brittle. Two magic is expensive. Gem magic is costly and makes gem mages actually more expensive than they appear. Truth be told, you won’t hard pay for gem magic that often. Sure, when you really need to kill that wounded champion or managed to get a clear shot on a summoner you’ll pitch the magic to increase their attack to 3. Hopping them back behind cover for another magic is entirely dependent on how many mages you have left in your deck, how well you’ve been developing your magic economy and how safe the board really is.

Often, this means you aren’t jumping the mage. Granted, you can meditate and attack with a gem mage in a turn and use either the increase attack or jump ability and break even for magic. This is typical if you manage to draw your walls early and can limit the avenues the opponent has to get to you. But barring murder lanes, you’re probably better saving the magic unless the situation is really dire.

Miner (1M-2W-1M-Tunnel)

And then there were the bums.

Miners are your auto build card. You don’t ever want to place these guys on the board. They’re bad and there’s no way around it. Their stats are standard for a 1 magic melee unit. But tunnel is just plain awful. Note that your whole movement is spent placing the miner adjacent to another miner. Thus, for the ability to be useful, you have to be investing in miners on the board in the first place. Second, you need your first miner in a location where you’d want more miners. Third, this location has to be exactly one space away from whatever you want to target.

Basically, you literally need an enemy summoner one space away from your miner for tunnel to be useful. But an enemy summoner will never be in this location. If they’re attacking a miner it’s either in melee (so a tunnel will just have your buddies holding hands but the original miner is the only one in range) or they’re attacking three squares away so a tunnel will just leave your miner one space out of reach.

Granted, you could then tunnel another miner in front of him. But you know how else you could cover two spaces from that original miner? That’s right, by just moving him forward. Don’t forget that tunnel costs 1 magic too.

So, this is basically a naked 1 melee with two health. Maybe he could be a cheap blocker? Oh wait, no, scholars are a thing.

Really, tunnel needs to let a tunnelling miner to still move two spaces after joining their friend. Otherwise, the fact that it uses up a movement just absolutely kills this unit. For that reason you won’t even use them during a father gem awakening since you have other Deep Dwarves to putter about. You know, the ones that can hit for more than one die. More specifically, the ones that you can increase to three dice for free.

But thanks miner for giving them the energy to do their job!

Scholar (0M-3W-1M-Insight)

Scholars are… not great. You’ll mostly need them if you need those cheap blockers that miners could have potentially been. Three wounds is better on a blocker and their lack of attack isn’t really a negative in a faction that’s happy to only attack once a turn anyway. And they can increase the attack of any units shooting at whatever they’re standing at? That’s pretty great too, right? It should really stick it to champions.

And, yeah, it does. But you’ll mostly be building these guys for magic because you both need a large magic stack and you want to be drawing lots of cards. Draw them early and you’re still (hopefully) being a nuisance with your starting scholar and miners. Draw them late and chances are you’ve got better units to be using your movement and attacks on.

I suppose I should point out that you don’t spend 1 magic for each of these guys but 1 magic for all of them. Same with the miners for all that’s worth.

I just find I never pull these guys out. Their need is very niche. But they’re still ok for those rare times that come up. They’re just not great.

Kynder (2M-6W-5M-Mage Push)

Well, if I’m saving all this magic, how am I going to us it? Surely I don’t need that much magic for my gem mages.

No, you need it for your champions. Because your champions rock. Remember the Sand Goblins and how they had incredibly cheap champions that came with negatives. Well, surprise! Deep Dwarves have cheap champions that come with crazy positives!

That said, you’re paying through the nose with them. The whole Deep Dwarf shtick is that everything costs money. That’s why you’re building your bad and mediocre (and often your good gem mages too) commons for money. You need your champions and you need their abilities.

Kynder is your heartiest with 6 health for 5 magic. Two attack is ok but he really shines with his mage push. Remember how Silts was super good because he had that rare “at any time” trigger for his ability. Well, grin like a devil because Kynder has it too. Yours costs magic, however, but you’re getting essentially two free uses with your starting cost discount. Plus, you can meditate. Oh, and I guess the father gem can help as well.

But basically this is Silts’ cunning only at two range. Is it better? Eh… hm, there’s lots of factors to take into account before I’d claim that. I will say it’s just as good and, much like cunning, is game winning but at a price point for more digestible.

Lun (3M-4W-4M-Gem of Calling)

Ok, Kynder is good but where’s the real powerhouse of the faction? Where’s the Biter?

Oh, here he is. Wait, he only has 4 wounds? But you complain how 6 wounds is so fragile! How can this mewling, bald Deep Dwarf be so good?

Well, that’s because Lun can pinch your opponent’s units from the wrong side of a wall and deposit him right in the middle of a clan of angry Deep Dwarves. Do dwarves congregate in clans? Or are they more gaggles?

Either way, for a single magic investment, you’re whittling your enemy slowly down. Probably in a position where they can’t retaliate. And remember all those issues with attacking and how getting around walls is difficult and reinforcing takes time and all that jazz? Yeah, Lun makes it all apparent. You have to kill this jerk but he’s hidden in the back row behind as much obstruction he can plucking hapless victims from 4 spaces away to deposit them at a murder feast and your opponent is on the menu.

Both Lun and Kynder are actually priced at expectation but I consider both under costed simply because their abilities are that good. Yes, even with them costing a magic to use each time. You use these guys basically to isolate the weakest portions of the enemy’s forces and destroy them. Then, as your opponent’s assault is crumbling, you line up your gem mage artillery, drop down an awoken father gem and leave a pretty little crater where your enemy once stood.

Sprong (2R-6W-6M-Restructure)

Oh. I’d forgotten about Sprong. He’s pretty bad. You’ll be building him for magic almost every time.

What’s wrong with him? His numbers look fine, right? I mean, he’s priced how we’d expect him just like the other two. Well, put simply, his ability is way too niche to really ever need Sprong. He doesn’t help you on the big play turns. He doesn’t help you build to your big play turns (since his cost cuts into the magic you’re building). He simply doesn’t fit the style and game plan. Draw him early and you don’t want to waste all your magic on a guy that provides so very little to a defence. Draw him late and you’re looking for three dice gem mages or your pushy other champions.

Toss him. You won’t miss him at all. He works better as laser fuel.

I like the Deep Dwarves if only because my sister hates them. They’re certainly not a favourite of mine, however. But the interplay you get in the first couple of turns with them against your opponent are some of the tensest you’ll find in Summoner Wars. There’s this race against the clock on either side. You’re trying to stall it while your opponent is trying to break it. And struggling through the hectic rushes that come your way make your victories all the sweeter.

That said, they can really grind a game if an opponent isn’t going to co-operate. If your enemy decides to hang back they you’re going to be in for a tedious game. It may not be longer but it will certainly be less interesting. And you’ll probably win it too, assuming you don’t offend the dice gods. But the Deep Dwarves dynamism requires that an enemy is going to play ball. If you happen to match up against an aggressive summoner then it’s all good. But if you’re against a defensive one then it can really sap the enjoyment of the game.

Thankfully, my sister plays everything aggressive whether it should be or not.

So, we need to talk. This is a conversation that’s been long overdue. Please, you might want to sit for this.

You see, Summoner Wars, we need to discuss you. Who are you? What are you going for here? I’m not even certain I know you anymore. You’ve got this whole double persona going on. During the day, you’re a friendly, casual board game that’s great for pulling out during a party. You’re simple, straight forward and fun to engage. You bring a smile to player’s faces as they tensely roll for the long shot play.

And then at night you’re a completely different person. You’re this competitive and no nonsense person where everything has to be exacting. Decks must be optimized to a razor edge and you dictate your games must be played beneath the tyranny of managing every last loose scrap of magic. You’re self killing and mean, focusing on denying your opponents instead of engaging them to squeeze every advantage – real or imaginary – as you possibly can.

You’re a bit scattered, Summoner Wars, and I simply don’t know how to deal with you.

Well, actually, that’s a lie. I do know how to deal with you and have been doing so this whole time. But I haven’t actually told you why I’ve been doing this. You’ll notice, when I review you, I take a pretty strict approach. I almost solely only discuss what you offer out of the box. I may make the off handed comment here and there about deck building but, really, you need to stand on your own merits, Summoner Wars.

I like that you blend elements from traditional board gaming and collectible card games. But you’re not Magic: the Gathering or Netrunner. You’re far more board than paper. I think it’s pretty apparent when you look at your very rules. Building a deck is far more involved in an actual collectible or living card game. There’s greater mechanics and far more interactions between the cards. I mean, you can literally throw every single card you own into a deck for Magic (assuming you keep to their four copy rule). Only restrictions you have is that you must have at least sixty cards and you need to follow whatever legacy or card restriction rules your group or tournament holds. That’s it.

Netrunner’s pickier in that you have to follow influence options but, once again, you’re not restricted by a maximum card total but a minimum. You can pull your icebreakers from any faction. Or your economy. Or your hardware. You simply can’t go over the influence limit of your identity. Other than that, you have the entire pool of your identity’s factions cards to pull from including numerous icebreakers, economy and hardware.

Then we have Summoner Wars. What are the deck building options? You can’t have a deck greater than 34 cards. Period. You must have 18 commons and no more than 10 of a single common. You must have 3 champions. And you must have your summoner and the nine events unique to him. Oh, and your walls. You can only tweak your commons and champions and only amongst a very limited number.

I mean, it’s nice that there’s a deck building element but it’s pretty bare bones. Because, ultimately, it’s not an important part of the game. It’s an option, like playing with four players. The game’s design is far closer to that of a board game where you pull out the board and players pick their assigned pieces.

Just to be clear, this isn’t to say one type of game is better than the other. You can have very competitive board games and card games as well as really fun and casual ones as well.

So, while I appreciate the option to further tweak and customize your favourite faction, I only really care about what comes in a deck’s core. I’ve played Summoner Wars in many different settings and, really, whenever it occurs out it’s always someone grabbing the box and us digging in and pulling out some armies to fight. You don’t expect someone to show up with their constructed deck like you would if you were getting together for Magic or Netrunner. And the interest for sorting through each faction’s different options is rarely present when the board is unfolded.

Furthermore, none of my friends have a complete collection which also reduces the prevalence of deck building. While having played everything that’s been released, I myself only own about half the product. Long story short, base decks are the primary method of play and, I feel, it’s the standard the vast majority of players will interact with the game. So while you may pick up the expansions for your favourite faction, you’re not likely to have all the cards that are available.

This is why in my discussion of decks I don’t mention any sort of solutions that a faction may have in their supplementary releases. I don’t think prospective players should have to inform their buying purchases with additional materials. The product should stand on its own. Thus, it doesn’t matter to me how super broken Hogar is if you purchase every single Guild Dwarf and Tundra Orc product and shove their best champions and commons from each into him. He’ll still be treated by the merits of what he came with.

Also, these reviews are long enough without having to take into consideration of every possible permutation of a faction and their opponents. Basically, it should go without saying, that if you replace every bum card in a base deck with a better card in an expansion than the faction will be better.

I bring up this point now because we’re going to talk about a faction that was, essentially, designed to be deck built. Alas, I didn’t purchase their reinforcement deck and when I finally got the Alliances box, they had to face their alliance deck in the tournament so couldn’t deck build.

I am, of course, going to talk about The Filth.

The Demagogue (2R-6W-Mutagist)

Good old Demi managed third in our Master Set Tournament. He then took a shocking thirteenth place in our All In Brawl. Kait and I have always considered the Filth really strong so for them to be eliminated so early was quite the blow. But despite their power, there’s some very specific flaws in the Filth base deck that can be exploited.

To understand these flaws we must first look at the Demagogue’s mutagist ability and what the faction is all about. Mutagist is one of the strongest summoner abilities in the game. It’s a built in card tutor that lets the Demagogue search either his deck or his discard for a mutation and put it in his hand. It does cost an attack so not only does this mean that the Filth player will only have two attacks that turn but you can’t use that mutation that turn. But this doesn’t prevent the Filth from building that mutation for magic. And if you just pulled it from your discard than that’s creating a point of magic that didn’t exist in the game!

I’ve mentioned before how tight economy is in Summoner Wars. Since your cards act as both army and economy and your deck is constrained by an exact number of cards, it means there’s only so much magic to go around. Being able to break that limit is power. As such, most summoners that can squeeze extra magic from the game must do so with a cost. The Demagogue’s is less strict than the other summoner in this tournament who can do this but the Demagogue’s is trickier to use. To generate magic, he must have mutations in his discard. To get them there, they have to be spent from his magic pile. The Filth have to spend money to get money in this game as there is no other way for him to get his mutations into the discard from hand.

Wait… what are mutations?

Mutations are the Filth. They’re the core of the deck serving as magic (mentioned above) and army. See, they’re a common that follows their own rules. First, you can’t summon them directly to the field. They must grow from a target, bursting forth from their hapless victim in as gruesome a manner as possible. This doesn’t remove the poor soul, however, who must remain tortured and broken beneath the mutation. In game terms, this means that every mutation on the field rewards two magic when its dies. But to compensate for its downside and requirement, the mutations are stronger than typical commons. They’re more like mini-champions. Which reflects their nature in deck building.

See, I was getting around to that.

Mutations can occupy either a common or champion slot in your deck. For the Demagogue, this means he only has one champion in his entire deck. Personally, I’d rather there weren’t any. But there’s certainly a lot of variation available to the Demagogue should he ever want to tweak his deck.

Alright, so he has a good ability that makes magic. Oh, and it also gives him flexibility in that he can pull out whatever mutation he needs in his next turn. Sure, this makes him pretty reactionary but being able to get the cards you need is always a strong power. But how do his events look?

Well, they look pretty damn good.

One other downside with mutations is that they cost a decent chunk of magic. Sure, they’re cheaper for their stats and abilities than if any other faction had them but they still average about three magic. Don’t worry, you have Channel Corruption to make up for that. There’s not much to say about this event because it’s good and obviously so. I mean, I guess it’s a combo card which is a bit problematic but since you can use mutagist to pull the mutation you want so long as it’s not locked in your magic pile it’s not much of an issue.

Then there’s Heretic’s Rebuke. Which is also fantastic. Granted, it’s not saving you money but it does something even better: it kills an enemy common and gives you a mutation target. This is pretty big since the Demagogue is weakest at the start. Invariably, when the enemy comes knocking, Heretic’s Rebuke will be turning their dangerous units into your little monsters. It can also be used to peel defenders and get your mutations in forward positions if you have the upper hand. And you can use it to eliminate costly commons like savagers for nothing. Yeah, it’s good.

Possessed Wall is the Filth’s worst event but it’s sort of like a less interesting magic drain. It’s really draw dependent, needing you to pick them up before your opponent can get his walls out to ignore it. Even if you do block his wall, however, it’s not difficult to remove it. It can be discarded at any time and the opponent will be drawing before they want to summon. It’s a speed bump and a minor one but it costs you a card and little effort.

Shield of the Hopeful is incredibly important and, appropriately, you have three of them. Your mutations mean nothing if you don’t have anything to mutate and while you’re building your economy you’ll be relying on your non-mutation commons to protect the Demagogue in the early stages. Shield of the Hopeful will see your little cthulu cultists stick around for their otherworldly blessings. It’s also helpful to keep a target breathing when you mutagist a needed mutation and have to wait your turn to play it. Requiring your opponent to spend more attacks killing your cultists can throw a real wrench in their plans. And if your opponent is trying to play around Shield, doubling up their attacks on pathetic cultists then they’re using their units inefficiently and, well, that’s a victory too.

Cultist (1R-1W-0M-Hex Thrower)

One of the two Filth commons, the cultist is your range devotee to the cause. Since your mutations are all good, your commons are bad. Or, at least, they’re suppose to be. In any other faction you’d likely be unimpressed (though a 0 cost ranged unit is actually pretty good in-of-itself). But the idea isn’t that you’re keeping your cultists around for long. As a unit to thwart and annoy your enemy, they’re good.

As they’re ranged they’re a little harder for the enemy to eliminate. They’re a thing. Oh, I should mention they can’t attack things beside them because that’s bad.

Zealot (1M-1W-0M-Bloodlust)

So this is your melee version of your cultist. It can’t attack walls. So don’t expect to be able to apply a lot of pressure with him.

Like I said, these guys are basically here to slow the enemy down and give you something to mutate. So let me talk about an issue with the deck. There’s just way too many of these guys. It’s a funny thing that the Demagogue has a decently strong economy engine but all his little weenie units cost nothing. As I mentioned earlier, you need to spend money (mutations) with the Filth in order to make money (pull those mutations from the discard). Your cultists don’t help with this. So you want to use your first few mutations as magic fuel in your recurring engine but in order to get that engine going you need to spend it on mutations.

What the Demagogue wants is a common he can spend money on. But without further purchases, you’re going to hope that you get a few mutations in your early draws and hope you don’t draw too many cultists that you might have to throw out for magic just so you can draw more cards on your next turn.

Long story short, you can get very screwed by your draws in the first couple of turns. And if the opponent is rushing into your face you kind of need to throw your cultists to the field to protect yourself. But if you end up throwing too many cultists in an early defence, you could run out of targets to mutate once you’ve established a large economic advantage to afford an army of gibbering mutants.

And the great unspeakable ones forbid that you don’t manage to draw any walls to defend yourself in that early rush.

Bestial Mutant (2M-3W-2M-Greater Swiftness)

So, to summarize the mutations really quickly, they’re all good. Some let you be an aggressive bruiser. Some can easily let you go for an assassination. Some let you just smash face real good.

What I want to talk about instead is the weaknesses of mutations. And yes, they have them. Mainly, you only have eight of them. And if these things end up in your opponent’s discard pile, you’re stuffed. Losing mutations, especially key ones, can be crippling to the Filth game. It’s why even the mewling Cloaks can be a threat if they’re floating an Assassinate event to murder your horror mutant. And if you’re trying to use them for your economy, you’re kind of cutting into how many you can be throwing to the field.

So there’s this weird game of who gets the last whack on your mutant moles. While most factions will often try and kamikaze their high attack value injured units to maximize damage, the Filth kind of rush to get the last kill so they can grab that mutation from their discard again. And if you go in for assassination attempts and lose the mutation, it is a rather troubling loss. That said, you can swap mutations during your summoning phase, so rescuing an important mutation is easy if it survives the enemy’s turn. And if you use a lower health mutation you can even get the magic for the death when the wounds transfer.

So you need to kind of baby these little guys. Not too much, though, because they are monsters. But don’t get lulled into a false sense of invulnerability if you manage to get four or so of these guys on the board at once.

Anyway, the bestial mutant is good for rushing into an enemy’s face but isn’t so valuable that you’re sad to lose him.

Claw Mutant (1M-4W-4M-Crushing Grip)

This guy is your answer to champions. Because, you know, you’re not really running them yourself. And he’ll straight up murder them. He can be used for money if your opponent is only going commons on you. If they decide to switch gears later, just yank him from the discard and you’re good to go.

Corpulent Mutant (1M-4W-4M-Ignore Pain)

I use this guy to get my economy going. He’s decent as a roadblock early on not a terrible loss if he goes into the enemy’s magic pile. I never get ignore pain to do anything for me but my sister manages to eat tons of wounds with him.

Edible Mutant (1M-6W-3M-Feed the Brethren)

Another excellent engine starter. I get that he’s meant to assist your mutant assault by taking wounds off your guys but I find that it’s rare to have him around by then. He’s good at blocking lanes and delaying the game with that six health for three magic. I mostly use him for magic, though.

Horror Mutant (3M-3W-3M-Demonic Visage)

Horror mutant is a terror (har har) for melee factions and a very strong attacker. Three attack at 3 magic is a good price point and her wonderful face will limit the number of people that can beat her up. If you do have an edible mutant out, you want him on her coat tails to keep the horror mutant going as long as possible. Take note that she scares everyone including summoners which can be legitimately terrifying for your enemy. Try not to lose her even though the enemy will be putting everything into killing her.

Spew Mutant (2R-3W-3M-Acidic Vomit)

Spewie is pretty good, especially if you need a strong defender. Her stomach acid works on walls too if you really want to try and bust them. There’s not a long of range option in the mutation pile which makes her stand out.

Tentacle Mutant (2M-2W-1M-Insidious Reach)

I actually really love the tentacle. It can reach anywhere and gets into the most difficult spots. And he’s just the right fit too.

I find that’s he’s one of the best early defensive options. You can plop the tentacle behind the wall and keep attackers from hurting your summoning point. He’s a threat behind shielded cultists and zealots. And he costs next to nothing so you can afford him nearly from the get go. Honestly, if I don’t draw him in my opening hand (or if I’m going first because the enemy is a jerk), I’ll usually mutagist him out. He doesn’t have a lot of use late game either, so losing him isn’t terrible.

Winged Mutant (3M-3W-3M-Greater Flight)

This is probably my favourite mutation. Wingie wins games. She’s hard to hide from and she hits like a twenty pound gorilla truck. This is the mutation you want to save as much as possible. Though, it’ll be hard because she’s apt to fly over several walls and be on her own.

So, yeah. As you can see, the Filth are really strong. They’re also really fun. Both of us love playing the demon cult even if they have such a profound effect on the game. They do kind of force your opponent into being aggressive, allowing you to leverage that sweet, sweet defender advantage. But when you get a bestial, winged and horror mutant bearing down on their screaming, trembling, and pant-wetting summoner, it’s hard to not have a crazed grin on your face.

Also, can I just take a moment to say how much I love the art? I normally do nothing but rag on it but whoever directed this faction was really, really good. Using the cultist and zealot as bases for the mutation and also keeping their designs distinct and interesting was just brilliant. And some of those mutations are quite horrifying, lending a very strong visual representation for that delightfully wicked theme.

Oh, am I forgetting something? Do we really have to talk about it?

Fine!

The Abomination (0M-7W-8M-Writhing Spawn)

He truly is an abomination. Play this guy only if you really want to throw your game.

Here’s a stroll down memory lane. I’m out of town, visiting a friend and house sitting when my buddy turns to me and asks, “Would you like to play a game?”

From the next room comes the massive box and I’m left wondering what I agreed to as a great board and numerous chits are scattered before me. There’s the frantic scratches of some forgotten general faded beneath the columns of spacious squares. He hands me a deck of cards.

“This is called Summoner Wars.”

I was playing the Sand Goblins, though that didn’t mean anything to me at the time. I can’t remember who he played. I want to say it was the Benders. All I know is that he taught me the game wrong, something I only learned later that night when I went online to check what other factions were in this strange but wonderful game.

I’m pretty sure I lost, by the way.

And I’ve been keeping that tradition strong ever since.

The losing with the Sand Goblins, not the obsessive online researching. Though, hm, maybe I’ve kept up with both.

Anyway, I’ve always liked the little Sand Goblins. This was before I learned they were suppose to be really good. Bolstered by the fact that providence had delivered me a great faction, I pulled them out against hapless victim after victim.

And I got trounced each time.

I don’t know why, but I simply can’t get these critters to do anything. They’re good. I can see that. I look at them and recognize that they’re good. But they just don’t work for me no matter what strategy I try.

My sister was the same way. In our first tournament, the Sand Goblins were second last, just beating the Cloaks but failing to edge out the Mountain Vargath. Our games outside our little tournaments continued this trend. The Sand Goblins just weren’t clicking for whatever reason. Chalk it up to personality differences or something.

Then the Big Ticket Tournament happened. Everything we thought we knew turned out to be wrong. The little goblins that could rose right up to third place, displacing some personal favourites from the tournament. Tacullu and Tundle were just several victims of these desert raiders. Even more shocking was that they rode this wave solely on my sister’s back. I didn’t get a single win with them and kept choosing their opponent expecting their “lucky streak” to break.

Even more baffling is that this faction isn’t well geared for the headlong rushing that my sister adores. I can’t explain it. I wish I could. I can’t tell if this is evidence of my sister’s good fortune or my bad luck. I’m certainly not going to attribute it to Kait’s strategic skill, that’s for sure!

Krusk (2R-6W-Sandstorm)

Krusk is, I dare say, pretty average. Baseline statistics, average ability, ranged attack. It’s all nothing extraordinary. His ability is a decent 3 spaces and his events are global, so Krusk is going to skulk his back line just like any other typical summoner. He’s kind of forgettable back there and I certainly have a tendency to neglect his ability during a match.

But let’s talk about sandstorm.

At 2 magic, it’s not the cheapest thing on the block. I complained about Endrich’s geopathic command for costing 1 magic. This is twice as expensive. It’s limited by the same range though Krusk has a bit more health so him being in risk of receiving a hit or two isn’t going to end your game. You can target both enemies and allies, however, and it’s a bit of utility in that it can both move and damage targets. Granted, if you’re using it on your own units, you won’t be too happy about that self-harming bit.

It can get a unit into position or even finish off a trooper to deny your opponent the magic. Best case scenario is shifting an enemy into a firing lane and getting a hit on them but at 2 magic, you’re really not going to use this ability unless it’s going to have a major game effecting play.

Personally, I’m not a huge fan but I can recognize its niche use. It’s fine in the sense that a summoner and his deck don’t rely upon their ability. Endrich proved that.

Krusk’s events are a bit of a mixed bag as well. I resent Shiny. I’ve tried to get some use from it but not only is it hard to set-up but your opponent has full control over whether it can trigger at all or not. But we’ll get into how truly bad Shiny is when we discovered the much maligned scavenger. Suffice to say, it’s a bum event and basically just two magic in the deck.

Duck and Cover is interesting only because it’s so situational. It’s a powerful ability, granting conceal to all your Sand Goblins. However, it means absolutely nothing if you’re not facing an enemy that relies heavily on ranged units. It also does nothing if you’ve mostly got a bunch of javelineers on the field – a rather common occurrence if you’re facing an enemy that relies heavily on ranged units. I can’t recall a single use of it that has ever truly impacted a game. I can’t even recall it every being used to be honest. It’s seemingly a good card that’s kind of bad.

The one of is Mirage and this can be quite a powerful card. Not only does this rescue your summoning points if the game has gone completely sideways but it can also convert an early fortification into an aggressive forward barrier. It’s almost always better later than earlier, however, but we’ve had some game changing mirage plays. It’s also an event that your opponent is apt to forget since moving walls aren’t really a consideration in most match ups.

Finally, there is Taunt. I suspect this is the key to Kait’s success. I could never really get a good taunt off. Mostly because whenever I’m playing the goblins, all Kait’s commons are already adjacent to my units. Shuffling them around never seems like a necessary action. However, Kait always seems to taunt my boosted geopaths or controllers into the midst of her ranks to murder them wholesale.

The ability to move enemies and move them quite a distance is really strong and is hands down Krusk’s best event. You’ll likely be playing both of these even as the rest of your events go to the garbage. They alone are the reason I won’t say his suite is bad even if the others don’t pull their weight.

Javelineer (1R-2W-1M-Camouflage)

So, this is a common.

What’s there to say about Javelineers? I suppose we can start off with how 1 range attack is pretty poor. I mean, that’s the same damage as a Gunner. And those girls are awful. Oh, but the Javelineer is 2 health so they would win an exchange with a gunner. Oh, and the gunner can’t attack them in the first place without giving up their ranged attack because of camouflage.

Oh. These guys are actually pretty awesome.

They basically shut out all ranged commons single handedly. And they’re cheap, cheap, cheap. Two health on a range unit is rare and you won’t be finding it on a 1 magic unit anywhere else. The idea is that ranged units are more fragile since they get to make the first attack against their opponent. Granted, these guys do nothing against melee units but their high health can make exchanges possible against your cheap attackers. Do keep in mind that a 1 magic melee unit is likely to have the same stats.

Only downside is that one attack is abysmal against melee champions that’ll just eat these guys for breakfast. But, I mean, they’re a freaking 1 magic common!

Scavenger (1M-2W-1M-Scavenge)

Ugh, scavengers.

These are the guys that made me originally comment on Plaid Hat creating all their decks with an unplayable unit who exists solely for magic fuel. I mean, I can see what they’re going for but the little jerks certainly do not do what they’re suppose to do.

So, see, it’s clear that scavengers were meant to be the core unit of a Sand Goblin army. The idea would be that they’d run around “scavenging” (please, Plaid Hat, hire a creative designer) and build up a bunch of shields to make them tanky. Then, Krusk would play Shiny and now you’ve got a bunch of 3 attack units that can’t be hurt smashing in your face.

But what do scavengers actually do?

Well, first, you aren’t going to be getting an army of them because they stifle your economy. You aren’t just killing enemy units to clear them off the board, you’re killing them because they give you a magic to use for summoning. Ever piece of “whatever” a scavenger scavenges is a point of magic that you can’t use to summon more scavengers, javelineers or shamans.

Second, these guys are natively one attack. So unless they’re facing the Cloaks, chances are they’re going to need other units to soften their target up for them to try and get their kill. They’re certainly not going to be eliminating the enemy’s forces without the use of shiny but they need to kill things in order for shiny to work. So you need the magic they’re denying in order to play the units that will let them kill the units that let them shiny and kill the enemy’s units.

Third, you get no benefit from shiny until after an enemy’s turn has passed. Unfortunately, there is no “may” in the scavenge ability. Whenever the enemy would place one or more wounds on your scavenger you must discard his scavenged shield. So this ability isn’t even making the guys particularly durable since the enemy can first attack with a low attack unit to peel off the shiny then attack with the high attack unit to kill the scavenger. Or, you know, he can just hit the scavenger once and remove the scavenged shield thus making your shiny in hand completely useless.

It’s incredibly easy to tell when Krusk is attempting to set up a shiny turn and trivially easily to stop it. Either Krusk can stuff his hand with the shiny hoping to pull it off eventually or give up on the attempt that’s already burning him potential magic with the kills he’s been setting up with the scavengers. Oh, and scavengers don’t even get a choice of whether they scavenge or not so whenever you play them to the field you’re running the risk of losing that kill’s magic.

Build them for magic and complain to Plaid Hat about how bad they are. Even a simple “may” in their ability would do wonders for them though I don’t even know I’d still play them in that circumstance (wherever they place that may in the ability).

Shaman (2R-1W-1M-Escape)

Shamans rock. There’s not much else to say.

Alright, I’ll say a little more. But it should be evident to anyone that’s read a prior review. Though, really, at this point it should be evident even if you’ve only read this review. Two range attack for one magic is very, very good. And the shaman isn’t even burdened with a negative ability to get this very, very good stat line. Granted, if you start using escape then you’re not really getting that cost discount but you aren’t forced to use it and it can be helpful to block or clear lanes. Remember, the Cloaks are spending an extra magic to get this ability on one of their champions.

Granted, buying cost effective stats isn’t particularly sexy so I can understand why no one would be getting excited over them. But wowie, are these guys silly good.

Biter (3M-6W-4M-Crazed)

Every now and then I’ll mention a deck’s theme. Often this was an overarching design philosophy that shaped the design of the cards. It’s a central idea which each individual piece taps into in some way. The Mountain Vargath were herbivorous bruisers – hard hitting, aggressive bullies who herded together to make themselves stronger. Deep Benders were a fusion of Deep Dwarf economic efficiency with the Bender’s trick of mimicry.

So what’s the Sand Goblins shtick? Well, I think they were meant to follow some sort of racial profile. The Cave Goblins are all about a tide of cheap bodies that rush their opponent. The Sand Goblins seem to forego the rushing element and decide to supplement their strategy with toughness but they seem to still tap into that goblin characteristic of being priced well below their peers.

So… yeah. Look at Biter. He is a whole 2 magic cheaper than you’d expect a champion with 3 melee and 6 health. He’s actually the same price as the Swamp Orc savager and Jungle Elf jungle guard who have 3 melee/3 health and 1 range/4 health respectively. That’s bananas.

To offset this discount, Biter does come with a negative ability. Crazed means that every enemy unit has a free engaged ability. It’s going to be hard wiggling this bloodthirsty goblin onto the enemy summoner as he stops to stab everything that he passes on the way. A wily summoner can keep him at bay, chipping through that health pool to bring him down. A wily Krusk has to play around his disadvantage to wield this powerhouse to his advantage. This is where that sandstorm comes in. You can clear the way for Biter with that two magic discount and get him after the enemy summoner. Even if he ends up dying on an opponent’s champion, chances are you’ll be able to take out his opponent as well and its likely that you got the better deal in that economic exchange.

Yeah, Biter is great. It’s hard to not make a deck without him. A common with a literal stat line of a champion is well worth the negative he comes with. Biter is awesome.

Kreep (3M-6W-4M-Cowardly)

The Sand Goblins have two Biters in their deck?! How is that fair?

It’s not. This is why the Sand Goblins are pretty good. Their commons are cheap and powerful, allowing you to apply pressure with marginal tax on your economy. Then, when you draw your champions, you can throw them to the field to wreck faces. It’s a wonder that I don’t ever win with them.

I mean, four magic for a champion means that you can have the magic to play him in your first draw even as you pick him up!

That said, Kreep isn’t as good as Biter. Whereas Biter’s negative is he gets stuck with any old unit the enemy throws beside him, Kreep gets skittish if he’s left staring in an enemy’s eyes. Sure, it’s only a 1 in 3 chance that he’ll run off but there’s no worse feeling than rolling a pair of misses on a two health common then rolling a 2 on Kreep’s morale check and watching your fresh 4/6 champion scamper off to your discard pile.

Kreep is also significantly worse against champions than Biter. Those beefy targets can trigger morale checks multiple times. It’s also much harder to protect Kreep since your options to pull him away from opponents after his attacks are extremely limited. You really need to count on Kreep not missing whenever he steps up to the plate.

He’s ok and as a duo with Biter he’s fantastic. But he’s the kind of champion that you often want to ensure that he has backup. It’s a fantastic marriage of mechanics and theme, I’ll give them that.

Silts (2M-6W-7M-Cunning)

Last but not least is Silts. Silts almost makes up for the discount on Kreep and Biter. Almost. His stats are actually less than you’d expect for a 6 magic champion and he costs one more. That said, his ability is definitely worth 2 magic.

Cunning has a rare trigger, letting you exchange places with a target whenever you want during your turn. And this is literally at any time. You can move one space, exchange and keep moving. You can attack with a shaman, exchange places between Silts and the enemy and let even more of your ranged army hit the poor victim.

Hell, you can make an exchange before you draw cards if you so desired, you maverick you.

And Silts can move any unit. Conjurations, summoners, champions, commons: it doesn’t matter, Silts will move with them all. This can pull Biter from some blocking weenies. This can yank Kreep away from a terrifying cowardice check. Silts can open lanes, block lanes, expose flanks and generally sow confusion and discord wherever he goes.

That said, 7 magic is a steep cost and 6 health doesn’t hold up well. Cunning protects him from reprisal with clever swaps, though, so if you’re clever you can get a lot of mileage out of this little goblin. But expect a lot of hate to come his way. He’s a more situational summon and though his ability is fantastic, it is hardly necessary. You can build him out for other options and not feel like you’re cutting off your arm in the process.

So, yeah. Here we are with the third worst of the Master Set group and the deck isn’t really that bad at all. There’s a lot of powerful cards in here, a fact my sister proved when she took the Sand Goblins to third place in the major showdown. They’ve got some tricks to them and some strong answers to things that are thrown their way.

That said, their path to victory isn’t assured and it feels like you have to play this weird back and forth game with the Sand Goblins. You’re looking to coerce the opponent into having to spend their magic inefficiently, using double or more their resources to take out your more cost effective options. They don’t have a lot of answers if someone puts them on the defensive, however. Nor are they particularly great at rushing an enemy so if the opponent has a better late game, it’s going to be tricky breaking those defences.

And though they rarely seem to co-operate with me, I still look on them fondly as the plucky little desert weirdos that got me into this strange game.