The Tundra Guild in Summoner Wars Alliances holds a very important place in my heart. It has the gloried distinction of being my least favourite faction in the entire box. It’s important that the Tundra Guild exist so that I can at least look fondly on the other factions which do poorly. In order to understand love, we must experience loss. Bliss is possible because we feel pain.

And the Tundra Guild brings the pain in spades.

It does not, however, pose a threat to its enemies. Every time I was forced to play this downright dreadful deck, I felt like I was basically stalling the inevitable. I can speculate over why Melundak was given such poor commons. I’ve even come up with some deck builds where I would want to use all of them. And, of course, Melundak has his outstanding champions so even if his commons need to go directly to your magic pile, you’re building towards something strong. Or at the very least, you’re building towards something fun.

Hogar is simply a deck composed of thirty-four crap cards. Well, that’s unfair. He has three walls. So thirty-one crap cards.

The only explanation I have for how this awful, awful deck came into existence is that one playtester managed to have one game where he absolutely dominated the lead playtester. Furious and vindictive, each card was sent out to the back of the shed and shot in the knee. Prior, I joked that Plaid Hat Games concept of balance was to make everything so bad no one would want to play it. I’m convinced this is how the Tundra Guild was designed. I want to blame the community who spent so many words complaining about how broken or unfun or annoying the Guild Dwarves and Tundra Orcs are to play. This is their penance. Hogar was, presumably, crafted so those factions would have nothing to bolster their ill-repute. In that sense, the Tundra Guild is a soaring success. Grognack and Oldin won’t touch anything from this deck with a mile-long pole. I can see Bolvi taking a few cards but, really, that’s only if he wants to force a square peg through a round hole. And Hogar himself? I reckon he will never see the light of day outside of forced tournament appearances. There is no saving this summoner. He is terrible. I’ll probably have to houserule him heavily to get him even playable amongst my kin.

And I say that in all seriousness. Hogar is to bad, useless design as original Thorkur was to bad, overpowered design. As a brief refresher, Thorkur was the three ranged attack Guild Dwarf champion who could spend one magic in order to ignore all wounds dealt to him by an attack. This was not limited to once a turn or anything so the easiest way to win with the Guild Dwarves was build your entire deck as magic, summon Thorkur and then just march him across the board as an invincible juggernaut. He stands as the only card to receive errata in the entire game. I think Hogar deserves to be the second.

I didn’t win once with Hogar and Kait did manage a surprising win against the Cave Filth with him. Course, this was after we had an informal “no dispelling his runes” agreement installed. And the idea behind his deck isn’t the worst. It’s a noble aspiration to attempt to provide options to the wholly under performing second summoners of the Tundra Orcs and Guild Dwarves with the deck’s construction. In fact, as with the Jungle Shadow, I can appreciate the attempt to tie the Tundra Orcs and Guild Dwarves around similar gameplay elements.  This takes the form of the Rune mechanic.

Runes compose the majority of Hogar’s events suite and are treated like the upgrades from Bolvi’s deck though they can be applied to any card instead of just those with the Built ability. Torgan also had three ice armours which would go beneath a common to make them a little more survivable as well. On their own, Runes would have been a really neat mechanic. Unfortunately, they are not unique and are simply a drastically worse version of the Sand Cloak’s Event Abilities. But we’ll cover that on another day. The one benefit that Runes have over its cloaky counterpart is that they can be stacked beneath the same card. The one detriment makes the whole Rune system absolutely useless.

For, you see, any rune can be dispelled by the enemy for the simple cost of two magic. Even more egregious, that two magic will remove ALL runes on that one card. Thus, the only benefit Runes had over the Event abilities is immediately destroyed by its weakness. You want to stack your Runes because that’s the only way to make a strong threat in the Tundra Guild deck but the moment you do the opponent is going to remove all those runes on his turn for the incredibly cost effectiveness of two magic. Thus, if you want a juggernaut, you’re stuck hoping to have a fistful of runes in your hand while your opponent has no magic to immediately counter it. Even worse, you only have four runes for enchanting your own units so the loss of one is a pretty big deal. What’s more, there’s only one recursion card in all of Hogar’s deck and it is, hilariously enough, another event cutting into his stock for enchanting. And of course this Master Rune is further restricted by forcing you to play the rune you search for the moment you play it, thus stuffing your hand with a dead card until the opportune moment may–or most likely will not–arrive.

The Tundra Guild encapsulate the Tundra Orcs reliance on luck but in the worst way possible. In order to do well with the Tundra Guild you have to be lucky in your draws. Because of its atrocious card spread, you need to receive the exact necessary cards at the exact necessary moment. But what cards are these? Well, they change drastically with how the opponent plays. You’re dictated intrinsically by the tempo of your enemy because you’re always playing at a deficit. At any moment, your opponent can counter the whole power structure of your deck and this tip-toeing around his actions makes you reactive, defensive and useless. If the stars align, you can be extraordinarily powerful… for a turn. You better hope that in that incredibly brief window you’re afforded you get all sixes because otherwise you will lose. And the Tundra Guild don’t lose gracefully. They stall and lag it out like no other faction.

In short, they’re boring, weak, slow and incredibly guarded.

I hate them and I wish they were never made.

Hogar (2M-6W-Ice Fortress)

I like that Hogar’s art accurately represents him. He’s some preening young dwarf, trying his damnedest to look like a real warrior. But the manicured beard, toy battle axe and faux-fur coif meticulously crafted to look like a bear’s head but fooling no one with any sense of anatomy reveal him for the pretender he is. Hogar is not a combatant. You will run him into the corner of the board and keep him cowering and quivering for the entire match. Two attack is pretty poor. His power, Ice Fortress, does nothing to help him win the game. It simply makes Walls–stupidly indestructible on their own with their nine health–even more tiring to destroy as now they’re only hit fifty percent of the time. I can count on one hand the number of games won through wall destruction. This ability isn’t going to win you anything. All it means is that Hogar has to draw his walls early to stuff up the lanes and draw the game out as long as possible.

Alright, so he has a poor stat-line and awful ability. Maybe this was made to balance an event suite that is ridiculously good? Well, if you’ve read the lengthy preamble, you know this is not true. His Runes have built in dispelling which is hilarious given that Tinkerers, Luka, Chant of Nullification and probably a bunch of other nullifying abilities already exist in the game. And what are these grossly overpowered abilities that need to allow the opponent near instantaneous removal? One gives a bonus attack. Another lets five and sixes count as two hits. The last is the Twarter’s Ice Shield (all dice rolled against it need to count as hits in order for any of them to hit). These are standard powers on the Tundra Orc commons (or, you know, the side effect of giving Sand Cloak Hunters another ability). Rune of Shielding is perhaps the best of the bunch AND it has the further restriction that it can only be played on commons.

Seriously, Plaid Hat Games? Seriously?! What was the worse case scenario that made you so terrified of these damn cards? A Heroic, Powered, Shielded Ice Golem swinging a whopping two dice for one turn?! So, not only does Hogar need his walls early but he also needs to pick up his runes in an ordered fashion, playing them one at a time and forcing his opponent to considered whether he wants to dispel them or not. If you draw too many runes early, you’ll stuff your hand because you can’t discard them as you have no way to retrieve them (unlike the Sand Cloaks). Draw them too late and you won’t have anything to enchant. Your best target for enchanting is your stupid marauders who only become ranged with the damn Rune. So you want to throw one of the attack runes on them so your only ranged unit can throw some decent dice (yes, the Tundra Guild have 0 range even including their champions) but they only have two health so you need to throw a shield on them as well. Oh wait, you’ve double enchanted your unit so your opponent is going to remove half your Runes from the game on his turn for a crippling one magic apiece.

So what events are cutting into his nine total that leaves Hogar with so few runes for himself? Well, there are two runes that go on the enemy. Shackling gives a common or champion Slow but it’s not even a debilitating slow because the opponent can spend one magic to ignore the effect. Which is an incredibly bloody stupid option since they can spend two and get rid of the rune altogether. Why does this have a one magic cost on it? Hell if I can ever figure it out.

There’s Rune of Nullification which would be “ok” as it cancels the ability of a common or champion but, once again, it’s mostly just a two magic tax. And, of course, you want to throw it on a champion for its greatest effect since nullifying a common is probably the biggest waste as the opponent will just kill their common. Or summon another.

And then there’s avalanche and hailstorm. I kind of like both but not as singles in the deck. You can’t base anything off them because they’re so random. Also, avalanche is stupid because you have to spend three magic if you target a champion (who you’d want to because you only have one of these damn cards) AND the opponent can easily free the card on their turn by attacking the wall. There’s just additional checks upon checks upon checks to make all his cards incredibly atrocious. Hailstorm would be good except you can only play it after you have enchanted a couple of ice golems (chewing into your limited four Runes again) as well as had an Avalanche be attacked. So… yeah, that’s not happening so this card is a complete dud (as Hogar can’t get ice walls any other way and it only targets ice walls because–screw you I’m Hogar and I’m awful).

In short, Hogar is “Plaid Hat Balanced” around Runes of which he has almost none in his deck and they’re incredibly easy to remove in one turn anyway.

Ice Golem (1M-3W-2M-Runic Transformation)

Let’s get him out of the way. This bastard is going to make me look like a liar. The whole advantage of ice golems is that you can create walls on the opponent’s side. And yet, the two decks that excel at aggressive summoning in Alliances are the two bottom factions in our tournament. Granted, actually making ice golems into walls with Hogar is more difficult than you’d expect for the above mentioned reasons. And, truly, ice golems are incredibly useless as well as being your most prolific common. One attack is never going to win you a match. A rune of power makes these guys hit for about average amount of dice on a melee unit. Three health is good because they’ll stick around a few turns. Unfortunately, you only want to wall them when they have no wounds and you want to give them shielding. In theory, three wounds hit only on four or higher and needing all rolls to hit in order to be wounded is an incredibly durable unit.

But, of course, there’s the hilariously counter that the moment you enchant an ice golem, your opponent will just dispel it on his turn then destroy the golem or at least make it so wounded that there’s no point in re-enchanting the guy. And Hogar doesn’t have any ability to summon during the event phase so your opponent will always destroy your mobile wall before you ever get a use of it.

I build them for magic.

Marauder (2M-2W-2M-Runemetal Axe)

Kait swears marauders are the key to the deck. Their strength does lie in the fact that they’re a decent summon off a forward ice golem-wall with an immediate rune of power to give them three range. It’s a good hunting combo that, once again, requires perfect set-up and board positioning. Unfortunately, ice golems have no mobility options and the easiest way to stop one is to place literally any card in front of one since their one attack means they won’t break through anytime soon. And, even if you manage to get one through and your ranged marauder on the board then you better hope you’re hitting with all your dice because two health is incredibly easy to remove on the opponent’s turn. Or you could shield him and have both his runes removed immediately! Oh the choices! There’s a reason I’ve never been a fan of the 2-2 stat-line for melee.

I just build them for magic.

Scribe (1M-1W-oM-Inscription)

In my preview of the faction, I held the scribe as the most useless card in the Alliance box. I don’t know if I can claim that now, however. It’s a stiff competition against everything else in this faction. The scribe at least has the distinction of being free to throw to the board. Its ability is even worse than I thought since it doesn’t combo with the champions (or at least Zuggdin) at all as it forces you to draw. I suppose if you had multiple scribes hiding with Hogar in the back you could get them to arrange your deck favourably and get your hand stuffed with the forced draw–assuming you’re lucky enough to get a bunch of scribes out and you draw the appropriate cards. And you have a champion on the board. Oh, and those champions are incredibly expensive.

So I just build them for magic.

Raldag (2M-6W-6M-Rune of Aggression)

According to the SSCF, Raldag is overpriced by one magic. I’d argue he’s overpriced by two. Rune of Aggression is a terrible ability on a melee unit since you’re essentially giving up your champion’s attack in order to improve the attack roll of a common. That’s right, you’re not even increasing the number of dice with Raldag, you’re just making it more likely you’ll hit. Except there’s no units in the Tundra Guild that do anything when successfully hitting (or are even required to make all their hits successful though two thirds of their commons are one attack so it’s irrelevant).

He’s awful, expensive and I just build him for magic.

Vognar (2M-8W-7M-Construct)

I never once got Vognar on the field. Why? Because he was always on the bottom of my deck below Zuggdin and/or Raldag. When building my entire force for magic, I was inevitably under pressure from my sister (who plays every faction like the Cave Goblins) and so I had to waste my entire economy on the other big champions. Of course, to really get mileage from Vognar, you need to get him early or, at the very least, before a bunch of ice golems. At two attack, he isn’t threatening himself (and if you enchant him, the opponent will remove the rune immediately). His only value is in creating an economy advantage by flooding the field with free ice golems. But then all you’ve accomplished is flooding the field with useless ice golems.

At seven magic it’s incredibly unlikely you’ll get him and another champion out so I just build him for magic.

Zuggdin (3M-6W-6M-Rune Smith)

Zuggdin is a card that will never see any play. That’s because he’s 100% useless outside of Hogar’s deck. In Hogar’s deck, he’s not great but he’s the only thing I ever get out and he’s the only thing that ever gets anything done. Chances are, you’re not hitting a rune when you attack with him but at least he’s natively three attack so he’s somewhat scary if you don’t get any runes on your deck top. He’ll tempt you to stall your draw and, honestly, it’s not a bad idea since there’s nothing worth digging in Hogar’s deck anyway. Rune him and it’ll just immediately get dispelled so you might as well leave that rune on the top of your deck so the opponent can’t stop him from essentially having a Rune of Power.

Of course, he’s six health with no defensive capability and you’ve probably built most your commons to put him on the board in the first place. He can’t be shielded or protected and he’ll die in one or two turns. But maybe you can wound the opposing summoner enough that you can get a lucky rune marauder kill over the next seventeen turns you spend cowering in a corner behind your stupid, everlasting ice walls.

I play him every time and he’s lasted me two turns at his longest. I also like to imagine that he always lugs that enormous anvil into battle and conquers his foes through impressive smithing and furry orange cloaks.

So, what would I do to fix this faction deck? I’m considering a couple of options. Since I don’t have the power to rework Hogar’s entire Rune suite (which I would), I’d remove the option for the enemy to dispel runes by spending two magic. In theory, this is meant to create economic advantage for the Tundra Guild as it’s a half effective Magic Drain on the opponent’s economy. In practice, we don’t dispel that much in the first place barring one game where I was demonstrating how stupid that mechanic is against my sister (she lost horribly when I did). Removing Runes at the cost of magic is basically just kicking a man while he’s down. The Tundra Guild have to do enough tricky maneuvering as it is in order to get their golems into a useful position. The faction is, almost ironically, stalled by their opponent’s walls as they posses no true way to take them down. The lack of ranged options is also hilarious since nothing in the deck justifies that glaring weakness. Honestly, at this point ignoring the Runes dispel effect and then replacing the vast majority of the commons with Tundra Orcs is probably the safest bet.

To truly fix the Tundra Guild, they need to go back to the shop and have a massive overhaul. If they’re only going to have four playable events on their own units, then they need a way to pull them out from the discard pile. I like that runes can be played on enemies as it makes it slightly different than Event Abilities but it shouldn’t come at the cost of making your ice golems even more useless. I’d probably give the ice golems a 2 attack, 3 wounds for 3 magic spread like the stone golems from Rallul’s deck. That will make them a greater priority. While I like Hailstorm, Avalanche and Ice Fortress they just don’t synergize at all with the Rune mechanic. Ultimately, the Tundra Guild’s focus is too split between the runes and the ice walls and it doesn’t even do one of those adequately. Though, as I consider it now, you could change scribes and marauders to enhance those capabilities if we turn ice golems into the central attacking unit of the common spread.

Also, we need to pitch Raldag. I can see how he would be tempting with Torgan’s Smashers (and Shamans in general) outside of that niche use, he’s wholly not worth the cost. You could make him far cheaper so he’s a true “support champion” or find something that enhances runes or ice walls instead. It’s all “safe” design in that half his cards are useless outside of his deck–since they have abilities that only trigger on rune events–but those same cards are useless in his own deck as well.

As it stands, if I were to make a power ranking now, Tundra Guild would be hands down the worse faction in the game. With our better knowledge of the game, if my sister and I don’t agree to certain “houserules” they stand no chance of winning. If anything, this faction still demonstrates that, while Plaid Hat Games has come a long way in understanding their games mechanics, we still have a long way to go before we get into a really good design space. Which is telling when the greatest accomplishment this deck achieved was by not being offensive to people that complain about its parent factions.