Faction Breakdown: Sand Goblins Part 2

For this post we are going to look at the meat of your Sand Goblin's army, the commons. Sand Goblin's sport some of the best and most versatile commons in the game, which is part of the reason why they have very few, if any, bad match-ups against the other factions and summoners.

Javelineer

The Javelineer tends to steal the show as far as the commons in the base deck are concerned, and not without good reason. At one cost, they give back great value with one attack ranged and two life, and they can't be hit at range. Camouflage can really dictate some match-ups, primarily those against factions that are heavy with ranged units (Bolvi's towers, Benders, Cloaks, etc.) Even with factions that only have one ranged common unit, (think about all the various types of archers) that means that the Javelineer won't be getting hit by 1/3rd of your opponents units unless they are moving those units up into disadvantageous positions. There are a few match-ups where the Javelineers don't shine quite as much, such as when playing against melee heavy teams like Mountain Vargath, Vanguards, Cave Goblins, and Guild Dwarfs. Even in those match-ups, the value of the unit still isn't terrible. I tend to only swap out a few of the Javelineer in the base deck.

Scavenger

It isn't that Scavengers are that bad, but all the other Sand Goblin commons are just better. The thing to remember here for newer players is that every time you kill something and use the scavenge ability, which you MUST use when you kill a unit, you are NOT putting the destroyed unit into your magic pile. You are denying yourself one magic in exchange for stopping damage to your 1 attack melee unit. A lot of players just don't think this is worth it, and I tend to agree with them. I will be interested to see if Scavs and the event card Shiny come back into favor at all with the release of the Sand Goblins second summoner. I tend to take out all of the Scavengers other than the starting two.

Shaman

The Shaman is the common that should honestly get even more hype then the Javelineer does, but for some reason at first glance most people don't get as excited as they should. A two attack RANGED common for only one magic is phenomenal value. You can summon one of these bad boys, move two spaces, shoot a further three spaces away, and then assuming you either had an extra magic saved up or you killed something with your attack, you can use the escape special ability to move back away from retribution. You do have to be a bit careful not to spend too much magic on your Shamans if you are trying to get all three champions on the board at some point in the game, but once again I can't stress enough that movement manipulation is very good in Summoner Wars. I keep almost all of the Shamans in my deck when deck building Sand Goblins.

This finishes up the commons that come with your base Sand Goblins deck, but now lets look at the other two commons that you can use from the re-enforcement pack.

Bomber

Okay I have a lot to say on this unit. There seems to be a huge disconnect between how my gaming group sees Bombers, and how the rest of the Summoner Wars community sees Bombers. I personally LOVE Bombers. I run at least four in my Sand Goblin decks. The reason behind this is tied directly to the special ability Hasty. In my opinion all three possible outcomes of Hasty seem very positive. First of all you are summoning the Bomber for zero cost, which means it isn't sucking cards out of your magic pile that you were planning on using for other things (now remember they still aren't free units, because it is still one less card that you could have built for magic.) When you attack with said Bomber, one of three things is going to happen. You have a 33% chance to roll a one or a two and miss. This is generally a big draw back to "free" commons. If you miss with them they will likely die on the opponent's next turn and you will have given up one magic without doing any damage. However, because of Hasty, if you do happen to miss you don't give up any magic. The Bomber instead blows himself up and is discarded, no one receives the magic. The next possible outcome of an attack is a normal hit (50% chance of happening.) In this situation, you didn't pay much magic and you did at least one wound. Hopefully you used it to get a kill as well, which means the Bomber has already paid for itself. You get a bonus if your opponent paid any magic for this unit. And then finally, you have a 16% chance of hitting for one wound and being able to attack twice, which is all just gravy at this point. Try out a few Bombers. They don't always work out every game, but I think the risk / reward factor is very positive for them.

Slayer

Slayers are the heavy hitters of the Sand Goblin commons. They excel at killing champions (or even high life commons) at a much better magic value than other units. For two magic, you can be rolling 3 dice (this is how many dice your typical champion is throwing!) You just need a way to get that first wound on your target before hitting with your Slayer. With all of the ranged units available to the Sand Goblins, and Krusk's Sandstorm ability you have a lot of ways to get that first wound off. Two life means they have the ability to hang around for a few turns with any luck, as long as you keep them safe. I normally put two to three Slayers in my Sand Goblin decks.

Well that is it for the Sand Goblin common units, check back soon for our last section to cover, the champions.