Summoner Wars Master Set - Tips & Strategies

Play this game with help of chess clock to track the game time (30 minutes is a good number). Thus, both players quickly chooses your movements and attacks. When the player’s time ends, that player looses the game. I tryed this game mode and it works very good with my friends.

Its important to keep track of some in game stats to know if you are ahead or behind in the game. This will help you decide if you are in need of a desperate move or have time to sit back and build your hand some. There are three different stats that you will need to figure up to see if you need to make a move.

Champions – Who is summoned more champions? Has your opponent already brought out he heavy hitters and you have survived and still have a few of your own? Then you should be winning.

Magic – It sucks when you are about to be surrounded, but don’t have enough magic to call in some backups. Keep track of magic and who is doing what. This will also show you when you should start preparing for your opponents champions to be revealed.

Deck Cards – What’s worst then running out of magic to summon fighters? Running out of fighters altogether. If you are playing the cave goblins you’ll notice that they run through the deck quickly since they don’t have to use magic as much. If you can stay ahead in this category and exhaust your opponents deck it will give you an upper hand.

Starting out as a new player one concept you will need to get comfortable with is the idea of building magic. You may feel like you need to get these commons on the field now to help out and build a defense, but that’s not the case.

The game starts out with commons on the field so you CAN build magic to get your heavy hitters out.

The game is designed so that you only have so many units you can move and attack with. Ask yourself, “Am I going to attack with this unit right away or move them into a strategic position on this turn?” Then use them to build magic. In turn you will be able to bring out your champions sooner and get the upper hand verses your opponents.

The Key to the Sand Goblins lies in their simplicity. Their units are not expensive, however two of their commons (Javelineers and Scavengers) both have 2 hit points. Thus as long as you’ve got cards in your magic pile, you’ve got the option at nearly anytime to bring out another durable unit. This plus good wall position can allow the Sand Goblins to level the playing field. Every unit can nearly make up it’s cost if it comes out and kills a dinky 1 hit point enemy unit!

-Here’s the key though, why stop there at earning your money back? If your common troops get wounded and have only 1HP now, then on your turn consider denying your enemy Magic points- attack with the wounded troop, but have ranged troops in the back (I prefer the Shamans myself) waiting to attack your own troops after their attacks fail! Because if you kill your own wounded Javelineer, you’ve now got the mana to put out a healthier 2HP version next round! The secret to the Sand Goblins are that all of your troops are walking Magic sources, once they’re wounded and not going to make it, either use them to block… or just finish them off yourself to keep your deck fueled up!

While playing with the master set and it’s included gameboards, I have experienced a lot of slipping and sliding by said boards. The boards themselves are of GREAT quality, but are a bit slippery on the bottom. (At least on my glass and smooth wooden tables). I grabbed some little rubber stick on feet in the hardware department at Wal-Mart, stuck them in all the corners of both boards, and the problem is solved! AND everything still fits in the box. A simple fix to a somewhat annoying problem!

Have fun gaming!

Seriously, these guys are awesome. They really are a lot of fun to play, I mean – what’s not to like about humanoid mountain goats with a grudge?

The Vargath are a very aggressive faction within the game. One thing that I find with them, more so over the others, is that their Summoner makes some good usage of the Common troops. Something that I’ve found out that’s a good tactic is to create a kind of Offensive Line with them, where you have your Summoner located in the middle of a line with two Common troops to his left and two common troops to his right. If you can, maybe even try to place some in front of him to further the aggression. The Summoner for them adds +1 to their attack value, meaning that you can create some pretty good damage for the cheap. If you use the Event card that stretches the Summoner’s ability to 4 spaces and not 2, well even better!

Another fun aspect for them are their Commander units. The Commanders here are fun Commanders for the most part. Quinn is a ranged caster unit, and I think the only ranged unit for the Vargath, and has the ability to strike twice for the cost of 1 magic point. His attack is rather low, however, but with an attack of 2 and the possibility of hitting for 4 – its nothing to sneeze at! Growlden is an anti-wall Commander. He hits hard at 3 Attack, but his ability to damage a wall he’s adjacent to is ok. I don’t happen to use his ability all too often, but its nice to have in order to put some added pressure on the opponent. Lastly, you have Tordor. My personal favorite Commander out of everybody in the Master set, Tordor has a rampage ability that lets him walk through units and deal 1 damage to them as he does. He’s one unit that will be moving every turn, and with the event that helps him do this he’s even more deadly.

Lastly, take advantage of the Summoner’s event card which allows him to search your deck/discard for another event card. This, combined with either Torodor’s event to have him move more or the Summoner’s event to stretch out his ability can lead to some good pressure on the opponent!