Summoner Wars: Alliances

After a long break, we are back! It is times to take a look at the big news in the world of Summoner Wars, a new box set to release in October, Alliances. As you might have guessed, this set is going to be similar to the Master Set as it will contain 8 brand new pre-constructed decks that each combined two of the existing factions into one allied deck. Beyond giving us 8 full new decks to play with, you may also use any cards from either of the combined factions to deck build. This is going to give you an amazing amount of choices when deck building an Alliances deck.

Here are the confirmed alliances.
Phoenix Elves - Fallen Kingdom
Vanguard - Mountain Vargath
Cloaks - Sand Goblins
Guild Dwarves - Tundra Orcs
Shadow Elves - Jungle Elves
Filth - Cave Goblins
Deep Dwarves - Benders
Swamp Orcs - Mercenaries

Some of the pairings have some obvious synergy. Vanguard and Mountain Vargath both use a lot of formation tactics. Deep Dwarves and Benders just to sit back and pull off some magic combos. Both shadow and jungle elves like to work an assassination strategy. However some of the pairing as less obvious, such as Filth and Cave Goblins (which I've read that in the story line the Filth have actually enslaved the Cave Goblins.)

For now there is not much else to do other than wait for some previews. One important thing to note is that this WILL be the next Summoner Wars release, which means no more second summoners until after October. I have seen multiple confirmations that every faction will still be getting a second summoner, but they will just not be released until after Alliances.

Another smaller bit of news, Summoner Wars is now available for download on Android devices including kindle fire! the app is also cross compatible with the iOS app for apple products, so you can play your friends no matter which platform they enjoy.

Hope to post again soon and keep a more regular schedule of updates, as always thanks for reading.

Faction Breakdown: Filth Part 2

We continue with our Faction Breakdown of the Filth. Our last faction post covered the summoner and his events. This time we will be looking at the commons and the champions for the Filth.

The Commons

I find that Cultists can be quite useful even without being mutated. They are great for finishing off units at range, while staying towards the back of the board. Remember that every common you lose that wasn't mutated denies you an extra mutation that you could have summoned. No commons, no mutations. 

Because Zealots are only melee attackers, they are much harder to use safely when not mutated. I also find their negative ability, Bloodlust, surprisingly restrictive. All in all, when I want to summon a common and immediately mutate it, a Zealot is what I use. However, Shield of the Hopeful works well with Zealots, as it gives you a blocker or an extra attacker than you can protect from being killed.

Anointed come in the Filth's re-enforcement pack and they are the only Filth common that doesn't cost zero to play. I have yet to use any Anointed, as I find they are a bit expensive in a deck that has so many summoning options at all times. On the other hand, a ranged unit that can heal off a wound every turn might be powerful. I can see Shield of the Hopeful being very powerful with the Anointed. Use it to save them from being killed off before they can heal.

Champions 

What a fun champion! The abomination is all about the extreme. A high cost of 8 magic, for 7 life, and anywhere from 1-6 attack per turn. Try not to rely on getting a high attack value roll every turn, as it is unlikely. The Abomination is also sure to get focused on by your opponent. Use this to your advantage by placing Abomination where he can lure out enemy units. This should also give your other more fragile units more freedom to more and attack without getting focused down. Also if you only have the base deck this is the only champion for the Filth that you will have available.

Her is the first of two champions that come in the Filth re-enforcement pack. Her is a very powerful champion that is frequently seen in Filth decks. The strategy here is simple, summon her in the back and sit tight while you ping off the enemy commons or finish off champions every turn. At 6 magic and only 3 life, you need to protect her for a couple of turns to be able to get value out of her. It is much easier to gain back the magic used to summon her against an enemy with a large amount of 1 life units. 

I don't typically run Vomitus in my Filth decks, as I find Abom and Her more fun. At only 5 cost, he is a cheaper option in a champion spot then the other two, and he works well with the typical Filth strategy of sitting back and attacking from afar. Like with Her, you are going to want to summon Vomitus in the back of your board and pop out to get line of sight for a long range attack. However, Vomitus can handle direct combat much better than Her can, since he sports 2 attack and 5 life.

Well that covers all the commons and champions available for the Filth, part 3 will cover all the Mutation units that are unique to the Filth Faction. Check out the previous faction breakdown on the Sand Goblins and be sure to leave a comment.  

Faction Breakdown: Filth Part 1

The masses have spoken through the polls, and our next faction breakdown is the Filth.

The Filth were one of the last faction decks I added to my collection, and I wish I had bought them earlier. They have quickly become Flavid's favorite faction. They are among the most complex factions when it comes to the amount of different units they can field in one match. This makes them one of the most unique and fun factions to play.

Lets jump in and take a closer look into the lair of The Demagogue.

With two ranged attack and six life, The Demagogue has a standard stat-line. It is his ability that defines the entire deck. Mutagist is an ability you want to use as much as possible. Since it limits you to only two attacks, this entices the Filth to play a more defensive game then most other factions. The big draw of the ability, beyond simply searching for cards, is that you can take cards back out of your discard pile and reuse them.  This means you can search for some mutations units early in the game, build them as magic, use that magic to summon either a champion or a different mutation, and then use mutagist to bring the spent mutation card back to your hand. This gives the Filth excellent flexibility and even better magic economy.

Events:

Possessed wall is a great card to draw early in the game, or when your opponent only has one wall. It forces them to burn two cards to be able to summon units again which can completely screw up their game plan. Even when your opponent has multiple walls out, you can deny the best summoning spot which will help keep your defenses secure. Great card.

Shield of the Hopeful is a great card to keep your commons alive for one more turn before mutating them. Because you only have a limited amount of commons to mutate, you cannot let your opponent pick off your common units before you get to mutate them. This event card also allows you to summon a mutation deeper into the opponents territory, as you can move up the common, play shied of the hopeful to avoid damage, and then next turn summon a full health mutation. Just remember that you can't play this card on a mutated common (how crazy would that be?)

Channel Corruption is a very straight forward card, and it is very powerful. Try to use this card on a three or four cost mutation to maximize your value on this card. This card can create an extremely powerful turn if you save up to play a champion like Abomination, and then also summon a strong mutation for free.

Heretic's Rebuke is my favorite card in the Filth deck. Extremely powerful against factions with strong, expensive commons, as you can make them waste so much magic by stealing them. Four spaces (not clear spaces) is a very long range from your summoner and gives you tons of options to pull this card off. Again, as with most Filth cards, try to maximize your magic economy with this card, which in this case means targeting high cost units that your opponent just burned a lot of magic to summon. Hopefully you can time it so that you leave him with a powerful mutation to deal with in a situation where he has little magic left to summon units to fight it.

Well that is all for part one of our faction breakdown. Check back soon for part two where we will be going over the commons and champions, and then later part three will cover the mutations. If you missed our last faction breakdown of the Sand Goblins be sure to catch up.

Champion Spotlight: Stink

At first glance, Stink simply looks like an average champion in a faction full of powerful and dominant champions, so most players forego adding Stink to their deck when playing as the Sand Goblins.With only 3 health and 1 attack, along with a 5 magic cost and an ability that appears only average at best, I can understand why so many players leave Stink out of their Sand Goblins deck. I however, never play as the Sand Goblins without having Stink as one of my champions, and he is easily one of my top 5 favorite champions (My other favorites from SG are Tark and Biter). I'll explain why below.

For many, but not all champions in Summoner Wars, their abilities are highly situational. This means that while a "situational" champion has an ability that is extremely powerful and effective in one type of situation, that champion's ability or even the champion itself may be useless or disadvantaged outside of that situation. To make my point more clear, I will provide an example.

With Sand Wyrm, the advantageous and disadvantageous situations are obvious. If the player limits Sand Wyrm's movements during his or her turn and has the ability to attack an enemy unit with little movement involved, there is an opportunity for Sand Wyrm to inflict heavy damage. However, most seasoned players know not to move their units close to Sand Wyrm if it can be avoided, forcing Sand Wyrm to move to attack other units, lowering its attack value with each space moved. 

Now I still believe that Sand Wyrm is a powerful champion and like to use him in my SG decks from time to time, but I merely wanted to illustrate the point that he, like many other champions, has situations where he is great and others where he is not so great. Stink on the other hand, has an ability that is essentially (not always) unaffected by the situation he is in. The only situation in which his ability will not be used is during a turn where the player controlling him does not roll any dice or rolls perfectly with no need for a re-roll. 

In my experience, I would say that I average about 3 dice rolls per turn. Probability theory says that in my 3 dice rolls, I am most likely to 'hit' (if attacking) on 2 out of 3 of those dice rolls. However, if I have stink on the board, I am able to re-roll the dice that I missed to have a 66% chance of turning that miss into a hit. I can't tell you how many times having Stink has helped me to destroy units in battle that would have stayed alive for one more turn with the opportunity to strike back on my unit. 

The best part about Stink is that his ability can be used EVERY turn as long as he is on the board. No, he does not need to be adjacent, or within 4 spaces of the unit employing his ability, nor does he need to spend magic to use this ability. Did I mention it can be used EVERY SINGLE TURN? And with as often as dice are rolled in Summoner Wars, you likely will use his ability almost every turn. 

Drawing and summoning him at the beginning of the game is obviously the best possible scenario, as he will place you at a huge advantage in the dice rolling department against your opponent until he is destroyed. 

Now, after you summon Stink, your opponent may either completely ignore the fact that he is on the board and continue with his or her overall plan, or he or she may make it a point to destroy Stink ASAP. Either scenario is to your advantage. If your opponent chooses to ignore Stink and does not go after him, you will obviously enjoy an advantage in dice rolling for the rest of the game, and as dice can often decide how a Summoner Wars match goes, you will be in a better position to win. 

If your opponent recognizes the threat of having Stink on the board and decides to go after him, you can play this to your advantage as well. When you summon Stink, because he is not a combat oriented champion, you should hide him much like you would your summoner. If you hide him on your side of the board, and your opponent insists on taking him out, he or she will be forced to go on the offensive and place his or her units in vulnerable positions. Most of the time you will find that your opponent will not want to go through a hassle to destroy Stink, and will only go after him if the opportunity presents itself. After all, he is not the unit who's survival determines whether the match is won or lost (Although his influence on the outcome of a game is greater than some realize). 

So that's my take on Stink as a champion never to leave out of your Sand Goblin deck. Please share your comments and feedback and let me know if you either agree or disagree with my position on Stink. 

What is Summoner Wars?

For those of you that are debating buying the game or just want to know more about it, I've decided to write up an introduction. This post will attempt to give you a basic understanding of the rules, and teach you about the different types of cards in Summoner Wars. So to start, lets ask the question.

What is Summoner Wars?

Summoner Wars is a tactical board game best played with two players, but is expandable to four players. The best way I can describe it in one line is "Chess meets Magic the Gathering." It is played on a 6x8 grid board (see above.) Each player must select a faction to play with (there are 16 different factions currently.) Each faction has its own deck and starting setup. The starting setup will include your summoner, a wall, and a few common units. Over the course of the game you take turns drawing up to five cards, summoning new units, playing event cards (more on these later,) moving, and attacking the enemy units. Anytime that you destroy an enemy unit or wall, it gets sent to your magic pile and can be used to pay for summoning new units later in the game. You may also discard any amount of cards from your hand at the end of your turn and place them in your magic pile.

Each movement phase you can move up to three units and each unit can move up to two spaces. You cannot move diagonally. Each attack phase you may attack with up to three units. When you attack with a unit, you roll the number of dice shown in the big circle in the top left of the card. When you roll, each result of a 1 or 2 is a miss, and every result of 3 or higher is a hit and deals a wound. Ranged units can shoot up to three, clear, straight spaces away, so you can't shoot through other cards. You also cannot move through other cards, including your own. If you run out of cards to draw, you have to continue playing with whats left until someone wins.

Now that you know the basics of what you will be doing on your turns, lets look at the different types of cards you will be using.

Your summoner is like your king in chess. If he dies at any point you instantly lose the game. All units starting life are marked by a number of dots near the middle of the card. Tacullu (above) is the summoner for the Bender faction. He starts with five life as shown by the dots on the card. He rolls two dice when he attacks, as shown by the large 2 in the upper left corner of his card. The two symbols under the attack value represent the cost to summon the unit, and if the unit is a ranged attacker or melee. Since Tacullu is a summoner you never have to pay to summon him to the board (because he starts out, and if he ever dies you have lost the game.) Instead of a cost number the little lightning bolt is a reminder that Tacullu is a summoner. The bow and arrow symbol means Tacullu is a ranged attacker, a sword would indicate that he is a melee attacker.

The wall cards are your summoning points. When you summon new units into the game they must be played next to a wall that you control. Think of the walls as your forts, both protecting your summoner from fire, and allowing you to sally out with new units. Your walls are not invincible. They have nine life which is high but walls will still die quickly if you allow them to be focused on. If you do not have a wall on the board you cannot summon any new units until you play a new one.

An event card is a card that you may play for free from your hard, invoking some sort of effect or special ability. Each summoner has his or her own set of event cards and they all allow you to do various cool things, such as deal damage directly to units, summon units for free, move enemy walls, or event take control of enemy units!

Champions are high cost units that can smash through enemy armies. They tend to have higher attack, and much higher life than most common units. You may only have three champion units in your deck. Bellor (above) is a six cost champion with seven life, and he gets a chance to hit back anytime someone attacks him. Almost every faction wants to get at least one champion out per match, and some factions attempt to get all three out.

 The last type of card is the commons. Common units are the meat of your army. Every faction gets to start with a handful of common units on the board at the beginning of the game. You are allowed to have 18 commons in your deck, including the ones that start on the board. Because some factions start with more or less units on the board at the start of the game, the amount of cards that start in your deck may vary slightly. But, over the course of the game both players have the same amount of commons to use. This Warrior Angel (above) is a common of the Vanguards. He has two attack as shown on the large shield in the upper left, and costs two magic cards (shown on the small banner) from your magic pile to place into play. Like all other units he must be placed next to a wall you control. His special ability lets him fly over other cards (this includes walls) which is very useful. 

That concludes my overview post on how to play Summoner Wars. I find the game very addicting, and while it is simple to learn, it is hard to master. If you are interested enough in the game to give it a try, I recommend buying the Master Set. It contains six different faction decks that you can play with and are not found in any other set. It also comes with a hard board instead of the paper play mat that the older starter sets come with. I find that the six factions in the Master Set are some of the most fun to play, and they are all considered to be very strong factions.

I hope this post satisfied your thirst for summoner wars knowledge! If you have any more questions be sure to comment.  

Faction Breakdown: Sand Goblins Part 3

Welcome back readers!

In this post we will be finishing up our breakdown of Sand Goblins by looking through the champions.

Lets start with a huge favorite of mine, Biter. With three attack and six life for only four magic, Biter is extremely, EXTREMELY cheap. Because of his negative ability he can be a little tricky sometimes, but it also makes strategy with him somewhat simplified. Just throw him next to whatever you want dead, and keep whacking til something breaks. Seriously though there aren't that many other champs in the game that I'd rather have to just summon and sent directly into the brawl. He works well in one on one fights against most other champions, and as long as he does some damage, he is normally cost effective even if he doesn't get the kill. Remember that because placement isn't the same as moving, you can swap him away with Silt's ability. I always find it extremely hard to remove Biter from any of my decks. He is just too good for the cost and has always done very well for me.

Silts might hold my spot for "favorite champion in the entire game." People tend to undervalue the ability cunning at first glance but lets really look at some things you can do with it. You can pull Biter and Kreep out of melee contact with enemy units thereby deactivating their negative abilities. You can also use cunning mid-move and then continue moving to swap your way past enemy blockers and slip past enemy lines to the more valuable units in the back including the summoner. You can move up and swap a unit out of a defensive position, leaving it out in the open where you can attack it with multiple enemy units. If you have been taking damage as Silts you can swap with common to try and save yourself from being killed next turn. There is just a ton of stuff that you can do with this ability, and I find it very easy to make a play with cunning each and every turn.

Fun Fact: When I first got the game I was too dyslexic to read the card properly, and was calling him slits (which actually still makes sense because of the dagger) for weeks before someone corrected me.

I find it hard to take Silts out of a deck if I am using Biter.

    

I think Kreep is my least favorite champion on the Sand Goblins, and that is a bit harsh because he is still very viable. He has the exact same stat line as Biter making him very high value. But where as I normally send Biter against enemy champions or higher life targets, you want to send Kreep against targets that he can kill in one turn. Cowardly has a 33% chance of removing Kreep and wasting 4 magic if you leave him in a place that will trigger a roll, which is why Kreep pairs very well with Silts. Most players find the risk is too great and play to avoid making a cowardly roll entirely. I am not a very big fan of Kreep and he is normally the first champion I remove when building a deck.

That covers the three champions that come with the base deck, now lets look at a few of the champions you can use if you have the re-enforcement pack for Sand Goblins.

I love Sand Wyrm and it isn't for what most people think. It isn't because of burrow, in fact I don't think I have ever moved the full three spaces with Sand Wyrm. While it is a powerful ability, I am more interested in finding ways to keep him from moving much and instead using his high attack value. Taunt is a great card to use when Sand Wyrm is out, as you can suck commons right in front of him and then smash away with four attacking dice. Silts also gives you a way to move without actually moving therefore saving you from reducing your attack. I frequently will summon Sand Wyrm in a position next to my opponents walls and then attack the walls with four dice each turn, hoping to force him to move out to attack in an way that is unfavorable to him. Also even though I don't use it very much Burrow is still a very good and very viable option to have on the table. Even the threat of moving him three spaces through enemy lines and blockers can be enough to disrupt your opponents movements and play to your advantage.

I try very hard to run Sand Wyrm in my decks.

In one on one champion situations or when the board is relatively free of units, Tark is king. Conceal is a really great ability that can totally screw up your opponents plans for multiple turns at a time. If used correctly, it should force your opponent into spending magic or cards to respond against Tark in some way. Tark works better in match-ups that are less unit heavy, I don't see him working super great against common heavy factions, or swarm factions like Cave Goblins. Against champion heavy play he should do very well. Because he only has four life you do have to be very careful with his positioning. As I said your opponent will likely summon some sort of response to Tark and try to kill him quickly. Try not to leave him in a position to get blown up by a freshly summoned unit on your opponent's next turn.

I don't currently use Tark a ton right now, but I really want to work him in more often.

The last Sand Goblin champion is Stink. Check out his Spotlight post, here

Battle Report: Frick vs Jexik! First Impressions

Hello there readers!

Fainez: For this match I was playing as Frick, while King Flavid was playing with the new Cloaks summoner Jexik. For my deck's champions I used Dibs, The Feeder, and Krag. For the common's I had a heavy amount of fighters and clingers, two beast riders, and then one climber, oaf, and berserker. This was my first time playing both as Cave Goblins and as Frick.

Flavid: For this match I played as Jexik and ran Dagger, Hawk, and Spider as champions. My commons consisted of a heavier amount renegades, slashers, and bruisers, while I went lighter on the other commons. This was my first match playing as the Cloaks, as I had always viewed them as a weak faction with Vlox at the helm and avoided playing as them.




Fainez: I won the roll and elected to go first. I was able to make use of my clingers and the Jexik's odd starting setting up to get a line of 4 gobbies up in fighting position on turn one, getting some good swings in. The next few turns consisted of an absolute murder fest of commons, almost no event cards were played. As the opening aggression finished up, both of us were able to make use of openings to get at the enemy summoner. I was able to summon a beast rider with a clear lane at Jexik, and he grabbed a clinger on the way in. That gave me two units in the back of Flavid's board and I put a wound on Jexik. Flavid on the other hand was using Brilliant Strategist to march a bruiser over to Frick faster then I expected. That put at least two wounds on Frick. At this point Flavid decided to summon Hawk and send him forward, which became more of a problem than I expected. I took some wounds on Frick before being able to respond by summoning Dibs, who paid me back by going one for three on hawk two turns in a row. By now my attacking force of Cave Goblins had been destroyed from a lack of re-enforcements. then because of not being able to kill hawk quickly, and having a handful of events with no commons to use them on, Frick quickly fell.

Would give Hawk MVP of the match since he was one of only two champions summoned and he did far and away the most damage of any unit in the game.

Overall I really did like Frick and the cave goblins, I think I just needed to be less reckless with my commons. Even if they are zero cost, you still only have 18 of them total. Also drawing a mix of events and commons would have been nice, since the events for Frick seemed very good if I had been able to use them. I will be playing Frick again, with a few more beast riders and a tweak in my play style.

Flavid:  I was pleasantly surprised with how well Jexik's deck played. I was able to dispose of many of Fainez's low cost, low health commons early on in the match, which allowed me to build tons of magic from the get go. As Fainez pointed out, the first several turns of the match consisted of the slaughtering of common units. Because of the nature of both factions used in this matchup, it was easy for both Fainez and myself to summon low cost common units at will to attack and quickly dispose of the low cost commons of the opposing faction. Unfortunately for Fainez, this back and forth slaughterfest ended when he began to get unlucky draws that left his hand filled with primarily event cards in lieu of cheap common units. This allowed me to begin moving in relatively uninhibited with Hawk, a bruiser, and a renegade to attack and eventually defeat Frick.

While Hawk likely did do the most damage of any unit in the game, I disagree with awarding him MVP. In this particular match, I felt that a number of different factors contributed to my eventual victory:

1. To start, I hate to appeal to the notion that luck has a significant effect on the outcome of any summoner wars match, but in this match, the luck clearly appeared to be in my favor. In the vast majority of summoner wars matches, luck tends to even itself out between both players as the number of dice rolled and cards drawn increases. However, in this match, Fainez hit a string of bad luck at the wrong time with both card drawing and dice rolling, and I think it would have been a very different game had his luck swung the other way.

2. Renegade commons are incredible! As I mentioned above, this was my first match playing as the cloaks, so I was not aware of Renegades and their abilities before the match, but they proved useful in this particular match from start to finish. As a 1 cost common with 2 health PLUS the ability to attack instead of moving and vice versa makes this common unit an incredible value and IMO one of the top 5 commons in the game.

3. Brilliant strategist is very, very useful. This ability was instrumental in setting up some of my early attacks on Frick and was a large reason why I was able to quickly trap and defeat him on his end of the board. Having the ability to essentially move ANY unit that you control 4 spaces in one turn will lead to swift and unexpected attacks on the opponents summoner. This ability was especially effective when used on renegade units, which allows them to get in position adjacent to an enemy without using a "move", which can instead be used to attack, and then attack again during the attack phase. I found that 80% of the time I used the brilliant strategist ability during my turn, however, there are definitely advantages to using it during your opponents.

Overall, I really enjoyed playing with Jexik and was surprised at how strong the cloaks ended up being. Definitely a faction I'll play again in the future.