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Summoner wars notes

This is a hand management game. In Summoner Wars, you end up with a near infinite number of decisions to make regarding your hand. What to play? In what order? What to keep for a future turn? What to build as magic? What is the likelihood I'll get another one of these? To what benefit is it to play this card now vs. waiting until I get the perfect card to combo with it?

General practices

  • Understanding how to get the most out of your hand--and to ensure that your next hand will be as good as possible--is a key cog in Summoner Wars strategy.
  • Memorize unit abilities: faction abilities are what separates your army from your opponent
  • Summon unit for attack same turn or to move it into position to attack next turn.
  • Don't summon new units when you've already got enough units on the board to reach your move and attack limits
  • Plan the whole turn before you summon anything
  • Move to a strategy based on Events: Event cards are the lifeblood of your deck, swinging the game in your favor as much as a solid unit, usually without costing you any magic.
  • Use common as magic, unless there is a good reason to summon them. Know the number of card per common. Build magic.
  • Keep track of magic piles and champions occurence and appearance on next turn. In the same way, be aware of how much magic your opponent has, and think through which champions they could be preparing to summon.
  • Keep track of opponent's powerful events
  • Learn the power of phase-wraping events and abilities: Ex: Burn and Greater Burn add wounds before the movement phase. Summoning during event phase is great too (Summoning Surge, Forced Summon, Mirage, Channeled Summon and Reinforcements): place a forward wall, then play the event, then summon a unit from a place (probably near the enemy summoner).
  • Understand the unique card economy: every unit's true cost is its summoning cost + 1 (the cost of not using it as magic). Every unit you summon and every event you play is one less magic you could've used for something else. A no draw is truly terrible because even the worst-timed hand is worth 5 built magic.
  • Do not complain about dice rolls, learn to fix potential flaws.
  • Summoner can do a lot of attack in battlefield. Always have an escape route. Most opponents will spend their resources inefficiently in order to try to wound your summoner at all costs. If you have an effective escape plan, your summoner will get away with 3 or so life left, and you will have a much taller magic pile and draw pile than your opponent for the rest of the game.

Phoenix Elves - Prince Eilien

Burn and Great burn events make differences. Archers have to be kept far, and can hit at 4 spaces.

Filth - The Demagogue

This is a difficult faction, with some principles to assess: * Can use the 13 mutations as magic as there is event cards to retrieve those from the discard pile using the Demagogue's ability. This allows for an almost infinite recycling of powerful units. * Use common units carefully as they host mutations; if a common dies, the mutation dies, which brings two magic to the destroyer. It is therefore better to do the last shot to your own mutant. * Conversely, you should rarely build your commons (Cultists/Zealots) for magic, as they are your "lifeblood" and once they are gone, you can no longer mutate. * Utilize the ability to swap mutations on a common to adapt to threats or protect units, as explained on CognitiveBias.org. * Leverage the ability to rapidly deploy mutations, often sacrificing them for damage to secure an early lead. * The Filth can be seen as having to carefully manage their resources. * Be defensive at the start, using only two attacks per turn to ensure you can consistently use the Demagogue’s ability. * The Filth struggles most against factions that can quickly eliminate or bypass commons, such as the Benders (mind control), Cloaks (assassination), and Deep Dwarves. Against these, try shifting to a champion-heavy strategy and using mutations strictly for support. * Mutations by Role: * Defense/Early Game: Horror (prevents adjacent attacks), Spew (ranged), Tentacle, and Spellsucker. * Offense/Assassination: Winged (flying/high dice) and Bestial (high movement). * Utility: Corpulent (damage soaking) and Claw (anti-champion). * Key Tactics & Combos * Self-Killing for Recycling: One of the most essential tactics is killing your own heavily damaged mutated commons. By swapping a low-cost mutation in your hand for a damaged one on the board, you deny your opponent magic and send both the common and the mutation to your magic pile for reuse. * Zero-Cost Swapping: If you hold a mutation in hand that is already on the board, you can swap them for free during your summon phase. This allows any unit on the board to instantly transform into another mutation you need for that specific turn. * Wall Positioning: Placing a wall on the second row is advised to provide a defensive "choke point" and a safe place to hide your Summoner or the champion "Her."