Last time we took a look at new Summoner Wars Savannah Elves. We saw, arguably, one of the strongest common sets in a faction to date. And I say that even as an absolute fan of the Breakers. On the flip side, we also saw some rather lacklustre champions. They weren’t bad, by any measure, they just did not help with the flaws in the common roster and, instead, exacerbated the high cost of the Savannah Elves’ army.

Today, we’ll take a look at Abua Shi. Kait loved Abua in Summoner Wars 1.0. To the point that she’d pick him over Nikuya Na despite my attempts to convince her that the second summoner was better. 

And I can’t fault her efficiency with Abua’s first incarnation. 

This time, he returns a lot of the old dressings. He’s a high strength, low health summoner who sacrifices one of your precious actions in order to improve one of his units. With the Deep Bender boosting mechanic baked in as a standard system, the new Abua is undoubtedly stronger. 

First, sacrificing a movement isn’t nearly as bad as an attack. And the boost he gives now has a much higher variability in its effect. It’s a great way to “cheat” out extra boosts on the Savannah Elves commons who, smartly, are all able to boost themselves. Which is good because most of Abua’s units want a big stack of boosts on them. 

As such, his events are largely… there to get more boosts. Which is good. Chant of Growth can get you a lot of action economy in a big spike if you manage to get three units boosted from it. Though it’s not really worth putting a lot of effort into getting those large group boosts if it isn’t immediately available. Sometimes it might just be worth getting it on one unit and then moving on.

Chant of Weaving is an interesting little event. You get double duty of turning one of your units into a temporary gate while also giving them boosts for each unit that pops out of their forehead. Unfortunately, with the economic crunch in the plains these days, you’re not really going to be getting more than one boost from this event but the forward positioning for a fresh rhinoceros or lioness can be worth the effort. The downside with Chant of Weaving, however, is that you’re likely to fling your fresh units well out of Abua’s reach since he’s got a pretty tight circle in which he can boost. 

And you want your units to be near Abua because his best event is Chant of Entangling. This lets you share abilities between your commons and, really, there’s almost no losing combination here. Rhinoceros can get super charged lionesses into position. Border archers copying lionesses can refund their attacks while also giving the lioness that deadly second attack. And spirit mages… are best left untouched here. Chant of Entangling is your best “trick” in Abua’s arsenal which is why it’s surprising it’s not his epic event. 

Not to say Chant of Power does not deserve it’s epic slot. And Chant of Power promises such tantalizing opportunities. A border archer with multiple boosts becomes a machine gun for chewing through champions, gates or just hordes of commons. It will put the fear of the wild in the hearts of your enemy summoners. However, there’s a massive drawback to Chant of Power and that is Abua’s reach. He needs to be within that three space radius during the attack phase, so you won’t be getting crazy rhinoceros charges with this. 

This leads to Abua’s peculiar difficulties. He needs to keep fairly close to his units to give them the power of his ability or events. Yet that ten health is always worryingly low. Curiously enough, however, I don’t think there’s truly a risk of assassination simply due to the fact players are going to be moving him around cautiously.

Yet, I think having Abua tempting your opponent is the best bet. At the end of the day, and why I’m skeptical of Abua’s potential, is that he’s very straightforward. You know what you’re going to get facing him. Border archer and lioness spam will crash against your side with a few entangling chants and the odd cry of havoc to back it up. Therein lies Abua’s weakness: just kill his units. 

I mean, this does sound pretty silly on first blush especially given that his units are so strong. However, you’re likely to face an aggressive Abua, so lean heavily into the game’s natural defender’s advantage. Most factions either have cheaper units which they can use to get more favourable exchanges or they have economic advantages to make up for their units getting torn to shreds. Also, Abua needs to pay for his units somehow. I find his gates, events and champions are mulched for each of those archers and cats. Get those off the board as fast as you can. In this way, I think a risky Abua who positions himself aggressively can get some mileage. If he lures some attacks his way then his commons can do what they do best. Otherwise, both players will just end up counting his litter to see how many he’s got remaining in the tank. 

And getting back to these events, none of them do a particularly good job of preserving his precious commons. It’s a good balancing decision but it exposes Abua’s weakness. Which is why I find I build them for magic more than anything else. In this way, I don’t think the Savannah Elves are bad per se, it’s just that a lot of the base decks have answers to this common unit throwdown:

Ret-Talus and Sera recycle their best units so losing trades mean nothing to them. 

Svara’s buildings act as secondary health pools that draw attacks away from her commons so she can get better trades. 

Tacullu can steal those powerful commons for herself if she’s lucky. 

Though I will admit, the Tacullu matchup does expose a few cracks in my original view of Tacullu’s unending power. Her fragile army doesn’t trade well and there’s enough health on the wild side to make Mind Capture a very risky proposal. Mind Control does a fair bit of work here but… I think I need to play this pairing more. I’m starting to believe it’s in Abua’s favour. 

And then, of course, there’s the goblins. Who… I guess just try to rush down Abua before he can draw into all his goodies? 

There is a reason I have the Cave Goblins last, afterall. 

Last, but not least, I’m skeptical of Abua’s future potential. He’s so reliant on these boosting combos that I’m not sure deck building is going to provide much for him. We’ll have to see. I’m just reminded of Endrich’s gimmick, however, which received no further support in later releases so he was left flapping in the wind with his original tricks and toys against an ever shifting battlefield.

At least Sneeks is assured there will be more 0 cost units released.