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. 

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

Faction Breakdown: Sand Goblins Part One

I first started playing Summoner Wars around Christmas with the Master Set, and within my group of friends there was a quick favorite among the six factions. Sand Goblins. I will admit they are my own favorite faction, and most people agree they are one of the stronger, if not strongest factions in the game.

Lets take a closer look at this faction's Summoner, Krusk, and his events in part one of our breakdown.

Krusk sports a solid stat-line of two ranged attack, with six life. I would consider this the standard summoner stat-line as summoners with below six life are considered fragile, while summoners with 7 or more life are generally more combat oriented. The big draw here is the special ability Sandstorm. Movement manipulation is something that the newer players in my group have overlooked while getting into the game, but after playing a few matches and seeing how clogged the board can get, newer players quickly see how useful and powerful movement manipulation is. On top of being able to push and pull other units around,(notice I said units, not enemy units, keep that in mind and you might find a way to pull off a mind blowing move that your opponent didn't see coming) Sandstorm also has a 50% chance to deal a wound to each unit that you moved. Now remember you don't have to actually MOVE the unit, as the ability says "up to one space" it is perfectly legal to move a unit zero spaces, and then roll to wound. With Krusk you could roll to wound 3 separate units, then attack for 2 dice at range, while still having two more attacks left over. That is a lot of fire power for a ranged summoner and Sandstorm attacks do not require line of sight as they just have to be within 3 spaces of Krusk after he moves.

Events: Duck and Cover

Duck and Cover is a solid event card in a deck where events are not entirely needed to win like they are with other summoners. I think that a Sand Goblins player could build all their event cards as magic and still be able to win the game, in fact I use this strategy sometimes if I am playing with higher cost champions or if I just can't find a good value for my event cards when I draw them and I don't want to bog down my hand. Duck and Cover is pretty simple, the main thing to remember is it works on ALL Sand Goblin units, summoners and champions included. This is obviously a much more powerful card against ranged heavy factions (Benders, Cloaks, anyone with archers, etc.) But if you are playing someone like Sunderved, or Samuel, you might want to build them.

Mirage

I really liked this event card when I first looked at it. But, after all my hours playing I can't really say I've used it once where I felt I really got the full value of it. Being able to heal all of your walls for three is obviously powerful, especially against a faction that favors wall destruction (guild dwarfs, cave goblins, mercenaries, etc) and being able to move your walls after your opponent has set up his formation can really change the game. I keep finding myself thinking that this card is overrated. Then I think about being able to move a wall, summon a champion in the event phase, and run up to a suddenly unprotected summoner and smack him for 3 dice. Kind of changes your mind, yeah?

Shiny

I hate Scavengers, ergo I hate the event card Shiny. If I ever saw someone use Scavengers, this card might actually have pretty good value, as they would only need one kill to qualify for the ability bonus, and then they would be rolling three dice to attack. Until someone proves me wrong, I will be building this card as magic. (A future champion card with the ability Scavenge has been suggested on the plaid hat forums, wouldn't that be something? Fingers crossed.)

Taunt

This is the Sand Goblin event that I get the most use out of. It is a great card for pulling commons out of position where you can gang up on them to wipe them out, or you can pull blocker out of the way to open up shooting lanes. Lots of potential with this card. 

Well that is it for Part One of the Sand Goblin Faction Breakdown, check back soon for part two.