I’ve written before about my enjoyment of Summoner Wars. It’s a delightful little card/war game. Its biggest draw and greatest strength is the simplicity of its mechanics. It’s my gateway drug into more complicated and difficult collectible card games. It’s as far removed from Magic: the Gathering as you could possibly get while still maintaining some of that early interest and enjoyment that I felt when I was young, dumb and had no idea how Magic worked. This was like fifty years ago when Magic only had two colours and everyone gave a handshake at the beginning and end of a match, of course.

Summoner Wars and its art belongs to Plaid Hat Games and Cupidsart. Find Alliances at their website http://www.plaidhatgames.om

Last year, I did my little preview of the upcoming Alliances expansion for Summoner Wars which will nearly double the number of factions I own and the amount of cards with which to play. Up until now, my sister and I have been making do with the Master Set which had been the best bang for our buck. Because it has a limited collectible element to it (thankfully, nowhere near as damn expensive as Magic though it does have its own frustrations), one of the biggest purchasing hurdles was deciding whether we would “reinforce” one of the factions we owned or buy a new one. Almost invariably, the new faction won out. Well, with Alliances, every new deck is a combination of a prior one so the possibilities for deck building will really explode once the damn thing gets off a ship from China and gets to my door.

Seriously, we get flotsam from Japan faster than shipments from China.

Anyway, I digress. The long and short of it is once the Alliances gets into my grubby hands, I can introduce my sister to the more complex elements of these sort of card games: deck building. Thankfully, because of Summoner Wars’ aforementioned simplicity, the deck building will likely be a fairly straight-forward process. What cards do you hate in your current decks? Replace those with some new ones. Boom.

There are more considerations, of course. But these are well beyond our current level of play. One of the trickiest elements of Summoner Wars is managing the economy. Every soldier you can field also serves as the resource required to bring more swords to the battlefield. Every ally which falls to your enemy is more fuel for them to reinforce their side. There’s a limited number of cards in a deck and thus there’s a limited number of things you’ll be able to bring to the board–both physically as you’ll run out of cards and economically in that you’ll run out of magic with which to summon them. Thus, much like Magic, there is the consideration for a good cost spread. You don’t want to throw every expensive unit you have into your deck since you won’t be able to summon most of them. There’s also the wider Summoner Wars meta-game to consider which places greater emphasis on champions over grunt soldiers and its this meta which I want to discuss further.

Prince Elien and one of the dreaded “Big Four.” Art from Battlecon.

I’m not unfamiliar with meta-games. Anyone that follows some sort of competitive scene will have a basic understanding of the term. It is the most post-modern kind of consideration. Before you even start playing the game, you must consider the way that people play the game while you play the game. That is to say, there is a discourse which surrounds every competition and that discourse can affect what happens within the competition itself. The most obvious example of this effect in action is Dota 2. In D0ta 2, certain playstyles or heroes will become–inexplicably–popular amongst the competitive teams and that style will feature in near every game. The picks and bans will focus around the heroes of the month as teams try to predict and deny their opponents key players in their strategies. There’s innumerable stories of this effect in action. The rise of Dark Seer in competitive play is one such tale. Dark Seer, for the longest while, had seen absolutely zero picks by teams and, in order to encourage more diversity in team strategies, the hero saw his abilities continually improved patch after patch. Then, Empire (I think, we’re talking like two years ago now) picked up the guy and absolutely dominated their games with him. Dark Seer, ever since, has received nothing but nerfs to his abilities since. Arguably, the hero was well overpowered for the entire time he had been in the game but since the meta-game (specifically the picking and banning) had snubbed him so thoroughly, the hero just kept getting stronger and stronger. Then, of course, there are stories like Dreamhack’s Sven where that hero was picked in nearly every game of the tournament and then just fell off the face of the earth once the month was over.

It’s always humorous watching people try and explain why these things happen. It’s almost entirely armchair analysis, of course: prescriptive thoughts which have no value or weight in either predicting what teams will latch on to or what will be popular for the next big tournament. However, these discussions are important if only for highlighting where the analysts’ attention lies if not pointing out actual design issues that the creator may not have intended.

Summoner Wars has a similar meta-discussion. However, it is focussed almost entirely on defensive, passive play which encourages and promotes stalemates. Unlike Dota 2’s meta-game which mostly directs which heroes will see the lion’s share of attention and its stagnation simply needs a few soft prods from Valve to remind teams that they have a potential pool of 115 heroes to choose, Summoner Wars’ meta-game is sort of a dread whisper amongst paranoid conspirators about some terrible inevitability in the game’s core design. Specifically, the argument entails, the game is irrevocably broken on a design level and that if played to its ultimate competitive conclusion, the game would be a giant snore-fest of players passively passing turns and staring at each other with their tongues stuck out.

The argument is as follows:

There is an inherent advantage to playing defensive in Summoner Wars. All things considered equal, a person who has to defend their self from an aggressor can more easily reinforce their troops and has advantage in maneuvering their units into more advantageous positions. Since every fallen enemy is more power in your pool for summoning, a defender is able to more easily turn an aggressive advance into a crushing loss for his opponent by wiping out his troops and then performing a riposte fueled with more magic and units that his now expended foe can not rebuke. Furthermore, many of the earlier summoners feature special events which carry a specific rider that they must have fewer units than their enemy in order to trigger. Presumably, the design theory was that this would counteract the loss of an aggressive push, however most players now will kill their own units to reduce their numbers and selfishly hoard the magic gained from those deaths for their own use. Thus, they build their magic pool through their own troops, deny their opponent the same magic, then have fewer units in order to trigger these aforementioned “catch-up events” for an even greater advantage. Thus, they’re in a better position from the start, sitting on more resources than their enemy so should they be attacked, it would be inconsequential to win the war.

Taken to its logical conclusion, the only way to counteract this strategy by your opponent is to perform it yourself. There would, thusly, be a race to self-extermination with both players thinning their ranks to the barest of bones then sitting with a huge stack of magic to counter summon against an attack that will never come since their enemy is doing the exact same trick. Thus, by the game’s design itself, the best action to take is inaction and if any player truly desired victory, they must always retreat and hunker on their furthest lines with nary an assistant and wait for their opponent to make the first move.

Queue staring contest.

Grognack of the Big Four. These guys are seen as the worst of the turtling factions

I am, by no means, a Summoner Wars professional. That said, no one is. Part of the issue surrounding Summoner Wars’ meta-game is the dearth of voices participating in it. There is not the player base for the game like there is for Dota 2. Thus, conversations generally devolve into the same few people shouting the same few arguments again and again. Innovation and development often come not from old guard who have figured the game out in their own eyes but by new blood who approach the game with a different perspective. This, once again, comes up in Dota 2 constantly. Invariably, with the yearly shuffling of teams and players, old dominating teams fall to the wayside and younger teams in the wings rise into prominent spots. Often, these players get an edge over their experienced opponents by utilizing new and surprising strategies. I would use MVP Phoenix as an example. The team from Korea is, in my mind, a rising star on the Dota 2 scene having worked their way to the last International through a very tough qualifying phase. And though their performance at the competition left a little to be desired, they have continued to play and improve posting results over old players that were once top tier. And one of their most famous hero selections is Warlock–a hero that sees just about as much play as Dark Seer did before Empire rode him to the top. Warlock had, for the longest time, been considered a lane support for more important heroes and languished in that role compared to other laning supports. MVP Phoenix, however, play the lovable guy as the actual farming carry–and hold him in the first position for gold and experience acquisition. That’s a far cry from the fifth position most others had seen him. And you know what? MVP Phoenix quite often dominate when they play like this. He’s a first ban in most games against the Korean squad as teams don’t know how to deal with him but neither do they know how to play him.

I feel Summoner Wars biggest issue is that its infusion of new blood is pretty small. I won’t deny the defender’s advantage but I don’t think it’s as dominant a strategy as people bemoan. I think the advantage of fighting on your own side and being able to immediately reinforce a defence serves more like a come-back mechanic or “rubber band effect.” These are usually systems put in place to make sure that an early lead in competitive games does not snowball into an impossible offense. Dota 2 has these mechanics. Heroes that garner kill streaks–many successive enemy kills without dying themselves–gain a larger and larger “death bounty.” That is to say, when this murderous hero finally dies, the reward for killing him is much greater than someone who hasn’t killed anyone in the game. Furthermore, a person that has died multiple times in succession without garnering a kill themselves has a lower and lower “death bounty” generating the murderous team less and less gold and experience for continually picking on the poor soul. Other games have similar systems. League of Legends has their base respawn after a certain amount of time has elapsed since a team destroyed parts of it–turning the improved soldiers for the successful army back to normal so these uncontrolled members of the teams return to an even level.

So, rubber banding isn’t inherently bad. Without some system, games can be determined within the first few minutes of their start. Terra Mystica has no rubber band effect and I suspect within the first few turns, you can probably determine who will win the game. For spectators, this really diffuses excitement. If first blood was the primary determinant of a match, you’d probably see teams play far more passive and defensive, taking less risks and extending the period of time that first blood would occur to try and wrangle themselves the advantage first. You can see in League of Legends how this passiveness can occur. The average game of League will have far less action than the average game of Dota (and no, for fans of either I’m not going to do a dissertation to support this–suffice to say I’ve seen enough of both to know that this generalization is true). Having some mechanic so that a player can come back into the game can keep the action exciting and intense, thus making the game even more enjoyable.

Oldin of the Big Four. This card is one of the reasons for their hatred. The worst catch-up event that gives too much of a swing to the player that murders his own troops. Can also be found, surprise-surprise, with Prince Elien, Tacullu and in a roundabout way, Grognack.

Ultimately, that’s what I think the defender’s advantage is in Summoner Wars. It’s a more subtle effect that insures that whoever takes the first turn and is able to get the first few kills won’t spiral off that early two to three magic advantage into a position that is indefensible. Is the defensive advantage too strong of a rubber band is the real question. I think, with the game’s earlier designed factions, it is. It extended past the point of being a serviceable boost to keep the balance of the game tilting too quickly into one player’s advantage and offers a defensive player too much to discourage anyone from wanting to cross the middle line. However, I feel the main culprit for this is the company’s earlier fear of aggressive play being too powerful. You can see it in some of the earlier factions and how they were “weakened” well beyond the point of balance. For instance, the Jungle Elves first summoner has an event that allows him to move a unit two spaces during the event phase. This, in-of-itself, is a good event but not the best in the game. However, the faction also has a three attack melee unit (the lioneer) which can move seven spaces in a straight line on its movement phase. No doubt in playtesting, the designers found the Jungle Elf player was able to move this unit two spaces and then charge right on the summoner, opening up the possibility of a one or two turn kill depending on dice and the summoner they were attempting to maim. Thus, this Chant of Haste was balanced so that it only worked on units with a summoning cost of two or less.

This is an obvious design element meant to weaken offensive play but nearly all the early offensive decks have examples such as this. The carefulness in overbalancing aggressive play is, in my mind, the true culprit for slowing down Summoner Wars’ larger meta-game. Granted, nothing can be done about these factions now, however I feel this is good news. Since the meta-game has developed into such a defensive and stalling direction, I think the upcoming Alliances is going to introduce factions that are stronger on the attack.

Ultimately, I can understand the hesitation over making attacking too powerful. What the stalemate proponents fail to realize is that you literally can not win Summoner Wars without attacking. The whole “issue” arises because players refuse to attack, trying to force their opponent to do so first so they can utilize the defender’s advantage. For most of us, this sort of mentality won’t be a problem. My sister and I are too aggressive, if we make any sort of mistake. I think this “sit back and wait” mentality would only really crop up in tournaments–as few as they are. And to fix the problem in that setting, I think is relatively easy. Set a maximum game length and, should the game go to clock, both players will have the match considered a loss. This would make the player with the advantage forced to press the issue–the only element which currently is missing from the game. Since, if I’m sitting and “turtling” the best, building up the greater magic pool and holding the best series of events, then waiting until the clock runs out is against my goals. It means that I will definitely lose a game which I currently have the stronger odds for winning. Since there is now an “inevitability” of a loss, I would have to act or–ultimately–get the loss and hurt my overall tournament standings.

Granted, this isn’t the most elegant fix. What I predict is that the Summoner Wars’ meta-game will devolve into picks and counter picks where factions have a disproportionate level of success given their opponents. Thus, the meta-game’s top tier deck could be the Filth as they have the greatest success against other strong decks but the Filth may have incredibly horrible match-ups against the Cave Goblins and Cloaks who, otherwise, may be considered some of the worst. Ideally, you’d want each faction with close to equal chances of winning regardless of the match-up. Though that’s a tall order to fill. Ultimately, I’d rather factions with lots of one-sided matches but with still clear weaknesses that can be exploited by others than a game where two people decide to simply sit across from each other and stare.

The last of the Big Four. Ultimately, I don’t even think they’re the best turtles; they’re just the most annoying. But we’ll see when Alliance hits… any day now.

So, I may have gone overboard with my prior post and ended up writing way too much about something that I haven’t even gotten my grubby hands on. So, instead of editing it down like a reasonable person, I split it into two parts. I’ll repeat my warning in the last post, just in case people forgot it. This is all purely speculation based on the cards revealed during the sneak preview on Plaid Hat Games website. I have no great insight into the game beyond what I’ve learned through playing with my kin. That said, my judgments are still good, damn it!

Summoner Wars and its art belongs to Plaid Hat Games and Cupidsart. Find Alliances at their website http://www.plaidhatgames.com

5. Fallen Phoenixes

I don’t care for the undead. I don’t really care for haughty elves either but at least they have the decency to look pretty. Unless they’re the Phoenix Elves. Then they have nothing going for them.

The Fallen Phoenix faction is… interesting. The Phoenixes trick was that they alleviated the inherent randomness of Summoner Wars by making many of their units hit for their strength in damage without needing to roll. The Fallen Phoenix take this idea and balance it. Now they have “precision” only when Immortal Elien spends magic to increase their die roll. So, you can still be screwed by bad rolling but if you’re David Windrim and rolling in the money, you can just throw enough magic at it to make the problem go away. 

The Fallen Phoenix are the only faction to get really picky about what their abilities target. Good, old Karthus here only grabs Fallen Kingdom units from the enemy’s discard pile. Thankfully, alliance units count as both factions so out of the box there aren’t any worries. It’s an interesting idea though the execution is kind of a mixed bag.

The biggest downside to the faction, however, is that they are costly. Not only do you want a large pool of magic of Immortal Elien’s “cheating” but all three of his common units cost 2 magic. He wants lots of magic to kill things and he needs to kill things in order to have lots of magic. There’s a slight way for the Fallen Phoenixes to skirt around this. A few of their events have adopted the Fallen Kingdom’s raising of the dead though the triggers for these abilities are often rather specific and finicky. Karthus can pull your units but only from your enemy’s discard pile and if you pay for them. From the Ashes can pull them from your own discard but only if they’ve been killed by your units (and only those associated with the fire elves). 

They’re strong but pricey and require just the right set-ups in order to excel. On the plus side, they have better all around options and Forced Conversions and Purge can really open up an opponent’s defence to let you break through and strike with those unerring Phoenix attacks.

6. Vargath Vanguard

Revenge of the ugly goats.

I like the idea behind the Vargath Vanguard but I can’t help but feel they’re a faction designed to make their parent factions better than to actually offer a good deck on its own. Moyra is a poor man’s Sunderverd. Seriously. Her special ability lets her grant 1 strength and 1 extra movement to a single common each turn within two spaces of her. Sunderverd gives all your commons 1 strength when close to him. The question here is whether 1 extra move is worth 2 overall strength. 

Nay, I say. The Vargath Vanguard are all about positioning with all of their units getting stronger the closer you bunch up all your guys. But this sacrifices board control in order to make your units more powerful. Unfortunately, Moyra doesn’t really offer her units that much in terms of events or even her presence. Throw all her troops into Sunderverd and you’d have a much stronger deck. He allows repositioning with Muster and Fall Back. Greater Command lets him extend his influence to four spaces. Sure Superior Planning and Toradin’s Advance are dud events and while Moyra’s are stronger I just don’t think they’re strong enough to lose what Sunderverd offers.

And that is three cherubim attacking for 3 strength each turn. The largest failing for the goats was that in order to succeed they had to march themselves and their summoner across the board into enemy territory. Unfortunately, walls make it effortless to raise an overpowering defence that will chase them away. Now, Sunderverd can create a Roman Phalanx of impenetrable troops which loose endless volleys upon their enemies. Two cherubim sandwiching a defender gives both of them the Shield of Light power. Stick a crusader behind one and they’re under constant Blinding Light. Yes, both of these can be mimicked or played by Moyra but these effects don’t stack and are easily replicated by commons alone. 

Moyra. I want to love you because you don’t wear boobplate. Unfortunately, it’s just not working. I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s me. (It’s totally you, you useless woman!)

That is kind of Moyra’s problem. Her strength is solely in her exportable cards. Her event suite isn’t terrible. It’s just unfocused. Lightning Strike is great but you only have one. Change Form is wonderful but incredibly time limited (to a single turn and thus very susceptible to Mimic as you must hold on to the event until the proper turn). Divine Intervention is not something you want to play if you’re planning on running Moyra in with Change Form and there situations where you want to trade summoner health for common health is pretty limited. Even more disastrous, her only healing option is Father Benny which, thankfully for Sunderverd, can also be carried out from her deck.

The Vanguard Vargath are interesting but ultimately underwhelming in all but the cards which will be poached by the Vanguard and Mountain Vargath.

7. Deep Benders

If Moyra was suffering from burglarizing then it’s an absolute epidemic of Endrich. The Deep Benders seem to have the opposite problem. They weren’t designed to make the Deep Dwarves or Benders better but to not be obsoleted by their powerful constituents. The Deep Benders offer an interesting mechanic with Boost but, unfortunately, the execution leaves something to be desired. 

The general idea is that Deep Bender commons is kind of the inverse of Filth mutations. You can summon them on the cheap in order to get a mediocre unit or you can pump them up to make them really strong. Of course, you’re investing magic either way but you’re deciding at the point of summoning whether they are cheap or powerful.

Unfortunately for Endrich, he is entirely replaceable. His unique ability is a worse version of Sorgwen. Yes, you can combine the two to get a bonus two extra attacks after the attack phase. Unfortunately, Endrich has to be close to his target, they have to be boosted (thus restricting him to just the three commons in his deck) and you have to pay for it! Course, Endrich starts on the board but that’s less of a problem when you are Tacullu and can just search for Sorgwen with an Hero is Born event. Not to mention that Endrich can’t use his ability until he starts getting boosted units so he can’t double attack out the gate either (which would require building a magic pool as well anyway). 

Nearly everything about the Deep Benders feels “balanced for Deep Dwarves and Benders.” The Owl Gryphon has lots of exacting requirements so he doesn’t combine with Tundle’s meditate. Which is irrelevant since Tacullu is going to be the one to grab the Gryphon in order to make him one of the top decks. The actual interacting with boost tokens is mostly in the commons themselves, which is Moyra’s issue. Endrich has a couple of interesting economy cards to try and play with the boost mechanic but it ends up being irrelevant because Tundle can meditate for his economy and Tacullu can grab the Owl Gryphon for his (on top of both generally playing incredibly defensive). Endrich, on the other hand, loses if he attempts to play defensive even with the Owl Gryphon being overpriced and useless on his arm.

Ugh, the Deep Benders are so infuriatingly bad, I’m just going to stick a Swamp Merc event card here instead. Look, it’s a worse version of Magic Pulse!

Basically, the stars need to align in order for the Deep Benders to win. They need to establish an economy advantage with opportune plays of Unlock and Reclaim then push that advantage with a fast assault from their Deep Dragons, Geopaths and Keodel. Course, this opens them up to the age old problems of turtling play. Magic Drain will cripple him and Endrich relies on his units for board control and economic tempo. Any event that outright murders his boosted commons will swipe what economic advantage he can wrangle with his boost tokens. And, ironically, Tacullu can just mind control his units if they try to assault him for a truly crippling economic swing that Endrich can’t respond.

Oddly enough, the overbalancing of the Deep Benders was directed at the summoner and his events when it should have been focused more on his units. It’s incredibly odd how poorly designed the Deep Benders appear especially since the route to take was done on the Cave Filth and Sand Cloaks above. Make them based around their Boost mechanic and the commons will be less valuable for the parent factions. Give Endrich lots of advantages for using boosted units to discourage him from poaching the super strong commons from the Deep Dwarves and Benders. Then you would have differentiated summoners without potentially unbalancing the game.

Instead, we have a summoner that looks underwhelming but brings lots of incredibly powerful tools to the factions that already held most of the good tools in the first place.

8. Jungle Shadow

Well, someone had to be on the bottom.

If Endrich and Moyra’s issues were lackluster abilities and events, Melundak’s is exactly what I rambled about in their entries. The Jungle Shadow have, by my estimation, the worst suite of units in the Alliance box. Granted, they don’t have the worst card, that still belongs to the Tundra Guild scribes, but their shadows, stalkers and shamans are certainly vying for that position. 

The biggest issue with Melundak’s army is that they’re money pits. All three commons require extra expenditure of magic. To haste, spend 1 magic. Want to make your stalkers 2 strength? Spend 1 magic. Trying to maintain board presence with your shadow? Yup, spend another magic. And yet, Melundak has absolutely nothing to help generate magic for all these effects. Even worse, he has one of the best summoner abilities and nothing to use it on. Shadow Weave lets you treat any unit as a wall for a common once a turn. Hogar has to enchant his stupid golems to get that. Rallul needs to use an event. Glurblurgderp needs to cultivate his horticulture. Melundak, on the other hand, just wills someone to pop out of a furry. 

If there’s one thing I really like about Alliances, it’s that the art is has noticeably improved almost across the boards. Unfortunately, if there is one point of criticism it’s that Cupidsart isn’t very good at drawing goatmen and other furries. Though, I have to wonder if that is truly a criticism…

But two thirds of his army are ranged with 1 health so want to come from his back walls anyway. It would be really good if he could extend his power to champions but all three of his champions come with extra mobility anyway so it’s irrelevant. Furthermore, Melundak’s events give bonuses to sneak attacks and greater movement which is wasted on his army composition. His deck is geared all around getting all up in his enemy’s face but its used on a force that wants to anything but that. 

Melundak is the one summoner who just screams to be deck built. Almost any Jungle Elf unit in his deck is terrifying. The Shadow Elf champions are clawing to emerge from Melundak’s walls to rampage across the board. There’s an absolutely monstrous unit pool waiting just beyond Melundak’s grip and he was offered the possibly worst dregs of an alliance between his two factions. He’s the unwanted third child with nothing but raggedy hand-me downs while he gapes enviously at the sparkling toys in his siblings’ grasps. 

And his units wouldn’t be too bad if they were lent to the Jungle or Shadow elves either (seriously, stalkers with Abua Shi are like lioneers that can be chant hasted). Together, they’re a horrible combination but I can see them being useful in separated pieces amongst the rest.

Barring shadows, of course. I still don’t see how they’re anything but a gimmick.

Summoner Wars and its art here and below belongs to Plaid Hat Games and Cupidsart. Find Alliances at their website http://www.plaidhatgames.om

I’ve written a few words on the board game Summoner Wars before. It’s a fun little 2-player game that Derek will never discuss because it lacks the deep strategic element found in Netrunner or Tanto Cuore. However, my sister enjoys the game, the rules are pretty simple and the gameplay itself is straightforward enough that you don’t need a lot of investment into it to have some fun.

So as Kait gets more and more involved with the game, I’m hoping it serves as a gateway drug so that one day she may actually want to play Diplomacy or the Republic of Rome.

Hey, a man can dream.

Anyway, there is a big release coming up for Summoner Wars. For those not in the know, Summoner Wars is a cross between a board game and a collectible card game. Each player chooses a summoner which comes with a preset deck of cards that is customizable–to a point–which they then play upon a 8×8 (I think, I’m too lazy to check the box) grid that adds an element of positioning to an otherwise simplified game of Magic: the Gathering. We got into the game with the Master Box release that had six different factions to choose. Since then, we’ve grabbed three separate faction decks to add a little more variety bringing our total options up to nine.

Summoner Wars: Alliances will add eight new summoners. That nearly doubles our current holdings. Even more exciting, for me, is that each summoner represents a union between two factions. An “alliance” if you will. A couple of these new pairings has resulted in unique game elements and mechanics but all of them follow the same deck building rules: an alliance summoner is free to add any cards from its composite factions to its deck. Essentially, the Alliances box will give us the tools to customize all the factions we’ve bought so far. If I were to get this product (wink, wink) then I would be nearly doubling the content which I currently own and expand the possibilities for decks even further.

So, yeah, I’m a little excited. In the lead up to the launch of the box, the developers at Plaid Hat Games have been giving weekly teasers for all the cards which will be released. Furthermore, if you pre-order from their website, you get all four of the promotional champions only available through purchases on their website. The lead designer will also sign… something, but that’s nowhere near as important as four mercenaries and a second play mat so we can hold 2v2 battles.

Hint, hint.

I’m telling you, Kait, that I want this for Christmas. Pre-order would be better with all the goodies it includes.

At any rate, in my excitement, I’ve been analyzing the revealed factions and comparing them amongst those already released. While the deck building possibilities amongst all the cards released thus far makes a true measure of each summoner’s strength quite difficult (especially for those which I haven’t yet played) I’m going to judge the factions and briefly discuss my thoughts towards game design, balance and functionality. This is a long winded intro do say that I’m doing a pre-review of the Summoner Wars: Alliances product before it even releases.

Yes, there’s very little going on in my life at the moment.

To start off, the eight combined factions being released are:

• The Fallen Phoenixes: The “controversial” Prince Elien of the Phoenix Elves has partnered up with the ever decaying Ret-Talus of the horribly ineffective Fallen Kingdoms. Since I’ll never buy a starter box (they only contain two factions but come with more boards, dice and tokens that I don’t need anymore) I’ll never have to worry about those awkward Elien vs Elien battles as though we were recreating the epic battle between Luke Skywalker and the Swamp in The Empire Strikes Back.
• The Tundra Guild: The Tundra Orcs and Guild Dwarves are considered two of the best and most frustrating factions to fight… if you’re stuck on the game’s iOS version. Personally, I think they’re overrated but, once again, their first summoners feature in a product which I’ll never purchase. A curious decision to combine the two which has led to the revealed Rune Events which adds an interesting twist to improving units seen in both faction’s second summoner sets.
• The Cave Filth: Ermergerd erts teh ferth!
• The Vargath Vanguard: Missed labeling opportunity. They should have been the Mountain Vanguard. Mountain Vargath and the Vanguard regularly come up on the short end of the stick when people discuss tier lists so the question lies whether their alliance will actually improve their original summoners.
• The Sand Cloaks: I love Cloaks. I love Sand Goblins. I’m going to love Sand Cloaks. Kait is going to hate them.
• The Jungle Shadow: In our impromptu tournament with the factions we owned (Master Box plus Cloaks and Filth) the Shadow Elves managed to get into the top four. We just recently grabbed the Jungle Elves. They make sense as a combined faction as both play fast and aggressive but how will their alliance play on these themes of mobility and assassination?
• The Deep Benders: Now here is an actually controversial pairing. The Deep Dwarves and Benders are two of the most powerful factions despite not being expanded with a second summoner like half the other factions. The Benders came out on top in our tournament and, had Kait not sabotaged the Deep Dwarves, they probably would have been second. Will their first real expansion be even more dominating?
• The Swamp Mercenaries: Kait loves the horribly misleading Swamp Orcs. They grow vine walls (I know, they should be Jungle Orcs or they should grow root walls but here we are) which spread like a plague across the board choking out strategic locations and being generally obnoxious. The very close second place finisher in our tournament their combination with the Mercenary faction is a little odd but someone had to be stuck with the sellswords, I suppose.

Obviously, all that comes next is going to be speculation. I could do indepth posts on each faction and what I think of them but, in the sake of time, I’m simply going to give them a short ranking and a small blurb on why I think they deserve their spots. Let’s begin with the best.

1. Ermergerd erts teh ferth! (Cave Filth)

Personally, I think the original Filth faction is a top bet for being the best in the game. It’s certainly top three and balancing the faction is incredibly difficult because the Filth play incredibly different from everyone else. In a metagame that has revolved strongly around defensive play and heavy champion line-ups, the Filth stand out as being neither. Their unique mechanic, mutations, allows them to change one of their common units into a unique summon which is neither champion or common but something in between. The original summoner The Demagogue is especially powerful for his inherent ability allows him to search his deck or discard for the mutations he needs as well as give him a slow economic advantage by pulling cards from his discard pile which he can then burn for magic at the sacrifice of an attack.

Put simply, the Filth are a mid to late game deck that looks to play defensive until they generate a strong economic advantage by fueling their summoning costs with recycled mutations before flooding their opponent with powerful units that will tear apart commons and champions alike. I love them. Kait even loves them. All hail the Filth!

The new dude, The Warden, is interesting in that his alliance with the Cave Goblins is anything but an alliance. Presenting himself as an antiquated tyrant, the Warden introduces the “Prison Pile.” This acts as a sort of economic “bank.” Abilities that affect a player’s magic pile do not affect the Warden’s prison pile. Thus, the dreaded Magic Drain event can possibly be mitigated by the Warden by leaving his magic pile empty and undrainable.

This guy is probably the worst mutation coming out. Just so… you know… you have some idea of the faction’s measure when the worst is a 4 strength, 3 health for 3 magic.

For the most part, the Prison Pile doesn’t add a lot of strategic depth. The Warden can, for free, shuffle a single card from the prison pile to his magic pile. More than anything, the Prison creates an extra step for him to interact with his army. This would be an issue if the Cave Filth weren’t designed along the same vein as the Filth: make everything so damn amazing that the extra hassle is irrelevant. Technically, the Filth require two cards to get their “mutations” going and when they die they give twice the magic power to their opponent.

On the other hand, you can spend 3 magic to get a 3 strength, 3 health monster which enemies are too terrified to strike back and if it gets weakened you can always mutate that baby back to your hand to inflict upon your next devotee. The Warden has a similar “flawed advantage” which is really just an advantage for him. His basic unit, the Prisoner, has a 50% chance upon being summoned to just pop into your Prison. Course for a 1 strength 2 health unit for free, it’s a bit of a steal on its own. Combined with the fact the Warden himself can just turned “failed summons” into magic once per turn, the Cave Filth player hasn’t lost anything with his unruly subjects.

Furthermore, a lot of his cards require fuel from the Prison. Legion, Soul Eater, Scabbicus and Hector all need or grow stronger the more suckers you’ve locked up. The Warden will start stockpiling subjugates long before his inherent enslaving ability of sending destroyed units to Prison kicks in. To “balance” this “negative” the Cave Filth come with some of the best priced units. 3 strength 7 health for 4 magic is something you won’t find anywhere else. Plus they can have the most powerful unboosted unit in the game: 5 strength and 6 health. Granted, you pay out the nose for that guy. Hilarious enough, even Hector can grow astronomically if enough pressure isn’t applied to the Warden and he can get a rowdy Prison built. He gains 1 strength for every two prisoners beneath his care, has 6 health and a measly 4 cost. To compare, Leah Goodwin is the only other 0 strength card in the game who grows with an increasing economy pool and she has 5 health for 3 cost and maxes out her strength at 4.

Yeah, the Cave Filth are silly.

2. I’m not biased! (Sand Cloaks)

The Sand Goblins were the faction with which I was introduced to Summoner Wars. The Cloaks were my first faction received after the Master’s Box. Both hold a fond place in my heart even though they’re a little lackluster without second summoners or reinforcement decks. The alliance, however, is easily the top in the box.

The scholar both makes the Sand Cloaks and is easy builds for magic. Free (yay 0 magic!) and melee means he’ll be hiding in the back just quietly keeping your event abilities coming back and pumping your troops.

The Sand Cloaks introduce Event Abilities. These events are like prior summoners’ upgrades which went under a unit to improve them. Unlike Bolvi and Torgan, however, these cards can be moved around and synchronized with all the pieces of the deck. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the two stand out factions in the Alliance box are also the two decks that introduce their own unique mechanics which almost every unit reinforces or improves. All nine abilities open to Marek are strong abilities and they can not be lost like Filth mutations. Though they can only improve one unit at a time, Marek’s inherent ability lets her grant the bonus she holds to another unit once per round. Considering that you can enchant her with Camouflage (which makes it that she can only be attacked by adjacent units), you can make a very robust force with very few individuals. Nearly every unit in this deck is ranged as well, the sole exception being the unobtrusive scholar who allows you to move around your event abilities even from your own discard pile.

The only weakness the Sand Cloaks have is that there isn’t inherently any source of strong damage amongst their cards. Only one card naturally has 3 strength and all the commons natively have 2. However, their champions are cheap (4, 5 and 6 respectively) as are their units. That you can then give abilities to each of them to strengthen them or make them hard to kill gives the Sand Cloaks a very strong advantage that will overcome their inherent frailty.

3. Swamp Mercenaries

I’ll just say it: Glurblub, the new summoner, is worse than Mugglug. Yes, the swamp orcs have stupid names. No, it’s not a good idea to say that to their face.

It’s the god damn Boarboon! RAWR! I actually don’t hate the guys. They’re taking the place of Savagers so they’re slightly weaker (1 less strength after the first turn) for cheaper. It’s amazing how much of a difference 1 magic can make.

Mugglug has the far stronger ability to spread his swamp. Any unit next to his walls which dies grows a vine wall. Glurblub only gets vine walls natively from his ranged attacks. Overall, I predict smaller swamps with Glur but faster invasion of the enemy’s board with those swamps. Which is good because the real strength of the walls is giving advanced summoning positions to overwhelm defences. Glur even takes this further by having a 2 strength, 1 health for 1 magic swordsman which is a statline I love for its pressure and aggression. The boarboons, his cheaper ravagers, have 3 strength on the turn they’re summoned. Though they essentially lose any extra abilities beyond the first turn, this is not actually a big negative given the proliferation of “nullify” abilities or cards that are starting to return units to their owner’s hands. Glur also finally comes with a 0 cost common though he can’t attack them for free walls. But the slippery swamp rats are open to his Spore Carrier events which lets him destroy his units to grow walls where necessary. Glub won’t choke his opponent out of the board but he will plant a garden in their front yard and immediately attack the house with it. And while Mik was designed for Mugglug’s deck (finally a useful champion below 6 magic), Glurb has a 3 attack 3 health 4 cost champion that can negate one attack so long as he is beside a vine wall.

It’s a good thing that Glurb flings his walls too since his deck is entirely composed of melee units.

4. Tundra Guild

They’re good and bad. I don’t know what else to say. Hogar was just recently revealed and my gut instinct is that he isn’t that great. I’m looking at scribes as the old, Master Box design of “always include one auto build as magic unit.” Scribes are probably one of the worst units released in the entire box. They have 1 attack, 1 health and 0 cost which I don’t super hate but their special ability lets them look at one card from the top of the deck per scribe and allow Hogan to put those cards back in any order whenever a Rune Event is used.

So, to get the most out of their ability, you need at least two scribes sitting on the field. You also only get 6 chances to trigger their power since that is the total number of Rune Events in Hogar’s deck. You can’t fling scribes at the enemy and immediately kill them to deny their magic since you need them to stick around the board. With them being melee, you aren’t likely to attack with them at all. So they’re just going to sit on your side of the field being useless hoping that you get a good Rune Event draw which will let you manipulate your pile for your rather lackluster champions to be a little less awful.

They’re bad. At least the swamp rats can be killed for vine walls.

The marauder doesn’t fare any better. It’s a 2 attack, 2 health for 2 magic. When he is enchanted with a rune, he can attack at range. However, you’re never going to waste one of your very limited Rune Events on these guys. So he’s a 2/2/2 which doesn’t really live longer than a 2 strength, 1 health unit but at twice the cost.

The only really great card in Hogar’s deck is the Ice Golems and they are really good. Rune Events are, essentially, Event Abilities that can stack on a single unit. However, unlike Event Abilities, any player can spend 2 magic during their event phase to discard all Rune Events on one target. So, yes, you can pump Hogar up with a ludicrous number of enchantments to turn him into a murder machine. And yes, the opponent can clear all of them for the low price of 2 magic on their turn to leave Hogar naked and sad.

Single handedly putting Hogar in the top four of the upcoming releases. Ice Golems rock. Or… chill?

On the up side, the cost to erase the runes is the same as Magic Drain so it’s a pretty hefty price. More than that, the previously mentioned Ice Golems get counted as Ice Walls when they are enchanted. This means they operate as mobile summoning platforms much like the Swamp Orc’s vine walls if they were on legs and could punch idiots in the face. Plus, Hogar’s boring ability (walls are only damaged on rolls of 4 or higher) stacks when the Ice Golems are enchanted making them extremely hardy.

Unfortunately, Hogar’s champions are all really expensive despite their abilities being pretty lackluster. He has two 6 cost champions and one 7 cost but only one of them actually has 3 strength. But it becomes 4 strength if you happen to have a Rune Event on the top of your deck when he attacks! At least he’s better than Dagger I suppose. Except Dagger can be built into Marek’s deck so he can gain Greater Sneak on top of his Backstab…

The “random chance” of the Tundra Orcs is represented in these champion abilities but, unlike most of the tundra dwellers, the champions aren’t really that great if they aren’t getting lucky.

So, it appears even with my post on resolutions, neither of my co-contributors managed to put something up despite their promises to the contrary. I am shocked – shocked I tell you! But mostly I’m just happy they demonstrated my point about New Year’s resolutions. Never fear, though, I will never leave you dear reader. I am enduring just as are my misguided rants. Today’s is going to be on Summoner Wars.

For some background – I was introduced to Summoner Wars first by Derek who raved online to me about how great the game was. Then, when Jeremy picked it up and I got to play it, Derek had nothing but harsh criticism for it. Go figure. However, that didn’t dissuade me from the little past time. It’s cute and quaint in its own way but it isn’t Netrunner for all the positives and negatives that entails.

But that doesn’t really tell you anything about the game.

All cards and therefore art belong to Plaid Hat Games and whatnot.

Summoner Wars features a slightly asymmetrical confrontation between two players on a custom but simple board. Each player chooses a faction represented by a pre-fabricated deck of cards containing one Summoner, three walls, three different types of commons and three unique champions along with a handful of summoner specific events. I would probably liken the game as a mixture between Chess and Magic: The Gathering but with a focus on simplicity and accessibility. It offers some synergy between the cards, most of it focused on proper timing with events. The factions offer their own unique abilities, however, whether it be from the Swamp Orcs and their spreading walls that cover the field or the Deep Dwarves who all feature special abilities that each cost magic but have powerful timing events that make all of those abilities free for one round.

Most interesting is the economy of the game is focused around magic. Well, that in of itself isn’t interesting, but magic is built either through conscious discards from your hand or by landing the final blow on a monster or wall. A player is forced to make tough decisions about whether they want to play their little common minions or discard them for magic to build up a large enough pile to bring forth a champion (all of whom cost far more than the commons). Positioning becomes important as players try to control the board and ultimately the flow of dead bodies by their movement and placement of walls. More importantly, my sister and I have found that it is almost as valuable to kill your own guys as it is to kill the enemies. You only have the opportunity to attack with three cards per turn, however, so it becomes yet another balancing act of choosing whether to go for a full out assault or making quick strike forces which you then murder before the enemy has the opportunity.

The unique and inspiring Tundra Orc Smasher.

It’s quick to pick up, taking a game or two to grasp the basics fairly easy. And the fact that it’s a deck based game with very simple deck building rules as well as pre-constructed armies means introducing new players is a breeze. While I applaud Netrunner for its complexity, it does have the issue of forcing players to keep up with new releases in order to stay competitively viable. But almost a third of a Summoner Wars deck is locked; you can’t mix and match events between summoners, can only have three champions and you must stay within faction when building (or include mercenaries). There’s a very limited pool that doesn’t grow nearly as fast as Netrunner. Especially when new releases for Summoner Wars are often new factions.

So the simplicity is Summoner Wars greatest strength. You can sit down and play it right out of the box without having to construct a deck and when you’re done you can just shelve it knowing it’s ready to go next time you want to battle your opponent.

This isn’t to say the game doesn’t have its flaws. What I want to focus on today, however, is less on the game systems on more on its “fluff.” Specifically, one of the biggest issues I have with Summoner Wars is its art and its themes.

The artist apparently hates feet.

Each faction follows the same formula: stereotypical Tolkein fantasy race preceded by a generic adjective. You have the likes of Swamp Orcs, Sand Goblins, Tundra Orcs and Guild Dwarves squaring off against one another. Elves are on display in the delightful Phoenix (fire), Shadow and Jungle varieties. The closest we get to a unique offering are the Mountain Vargath which are goatmen… from the mountains. So, bonus points for representing goatmen which don’t see ubiquitous fantasy representation but it’s not like we really ran off with the idea here.

Even worse is that the themes of these factions is absolutely lazy and thoughtless. My biggest gripe with the game is that I detest the art. And I don’t mean this just from a style perspective. Though, style is one of my biggest issues. The direction they went with is a very simple, painterly direction. There’s few details and each card is over dominated by the three primary colours used to distinguish each faction. The event cards for the summoners show a zoomed in section of their face which just further highlights the basic design. You could argue that this helps to place the emphasis on the text but Summoner Wars, as mentioned, isn’t a particularly complex system and if Netrunner and Magic: the Gathering can afford to have some rather beautiful art than so can this game.

Best part about the jungle guard is that they’re supposedly reclusive hermits on the fringes of their society, eschewing the rest of their people’s ways and luxuries… while looking the exact same as their kin.

But outside of the direction, I think the biggest problem with this approach is that it makes all the cards from one faction blend together. Distinguishing between an Jungle Elf Archer and elite Jungle Guard is based more on posture than unique silhouette or form. Summoners and champions lack visual punch to really make them stand out amongst the crowd as well. And this isn’t even broaching the ridiculous use of high heeled battle boots on the few females that show up either.

This bland art flows directly from the rudimentary theming of the factions. I almost can’t blame the artists for providing little visual interest in their designs when they are given something to work with like Glurp the champion of the Swamp Orcs. Course, this isn’t an excuse, for a talent artist would be able to design something from practically nothing. If the art is uninspire, however, the theming is just downright apathetic. The Swamp Orcs main feature is that they grow vine walls across the battle field. Let me throw some emphasis on that last sentence: the Swamp Orcs grow vine walls.

I don’t know if the designers at Plaid Hat Games have seen a swamp so let me link some pictures to demonstrate:

I’m even being generous with this one. It’s a mangrove swamp and could have worked with their design theme if they’d just chosen to go with Root Walls instead.

Not a vine in sight. I’m not sure why the Swamp Orcs are focused on vines but the Jungle Elves are not. In fact, the Jungle Elves are equally contentious with the majority of their faction filled with elephants, hyenas,  rhinoceroses and lions. For those not fluent in basic ecology, all these creatures are to be found in African  Savannahs, not the tangled undergrowths that are typically associated with jungles. To top it all off, their second summoner about to be released is wrapped in a white wolf pelt because apparently the artists can’t even be bothered being remotely close to the faction’s theme (yes, I know it’s to keep with the white primary of their faction but they didn’t even need to choose white as one of the three distinguishing colours of the Jungle Elves in the first place).

This gets back to my earlier complaint about how fantasy seems to be drowning beneath the cliches of its genre.   On one hand, Summoner Wars attempts to subvert the tropes of typical fantasy by giving some of their races uncharacteristic ecological backgrounds. But then, when I look at the Tundra Orcs, there’s nothing that really makes them unique from a standard orc other than they have blue skin. They’re still barbaric savages decorated in bone and scraps of cloth. Why aren’t the Tundra Orcs wrapped in hides and furs to keep them warm? It seems like such a logical conclusion from their name.

To finish, I just want to include a picture of a dwarf from the upcoming Obsidian game Pillars of Eternity. Little has been revealed about the setting but I think the image will do most of the talking for me.

Concept art for Pillars of Eternity copyright to Obsidian.

At the end of the day, Summoner Wars isn’t ruined by it’s poor art and horrific faction themes. But it’s not made better by them either. Other games are celebrated for their different factions and spend the appropriate time developing them and distinguishing them. The Corporations in Netrunner are all very well realized and I think it makes the game as a whole a lot better for it.