Summoning up a damn fine game

I promote clean rules over ‘messy’ rules any day. However, even when presented with a set of clean rules, even I have to do a double take sometimes.

Take Summoner Wars, a fantastic card game by Plaid Hat Games.

The rules are so clean, that only because people are so used to messy rules, is there any confusion.

In a game like Magic, you have so many timing issues and rules that it becomes somewhat confusing when a card can be played or whether one action triggers another card. In fact, I daresay, so many players have gotten use to multiple rule interpretation (i.e. how multiple people can interpret a rule differently) that it’s practically become the norm.

Summoner Wars has a lot of clean rules. They have very few exception based rules so it presents an odd challenge to a new player who reads an effect and is curious about how it works.

For example, several card effects say: At Any Time. We have been conditioned, by so many other games, that those three little words can often mean, at any time….during your activation…during your magic phase…during your butt scratching phase…whatever. But At Any Time can mean so many different things in so many different games.

Not so in Summoner Wars. At Any Time does mean just that. You can pretty much interrupt anything you want, except perhaps a dice roll itself, to use an ability or effect that says, At Any Time.

One figure says when touching ‘a wall’ they get a bonus. Does that mean any wall? My opponent’s walls? YES! The effect is very clear, but we are so used to mistakes, typos and other messy rules that we need clarification on really simple things.

Now then, Summoner Wars is a fantastic game, as I said. Why? In large part because it’s clean mechanics, but it’s also a smart mechanic.

In Summoner Wars (SW) you take the role of a Summoner who can…well…summon soldiers to fight and attack your opponent (who is also a Summoner). This isn’t Shakespeare here, but it’s un-similar to say, Magic: The Gathering (in which you play a ‘planeswalker’ who can summon monsters to kill other planeswalker).

In SW, however, you have a simple map, a grid, where your cards go. This adds a chess like aspect to the game as you move around the board. You get to Draw cards, Summon units, play Effect cards, Move up to 3 units, Attack with up to 3 units and then Build your Magic.

Now that last part is the trick to the game strategy. See you have a limited deck of cards. Your cards are either units (common troops or champions) OR effect cards (like spells from Magic: TG). You have maybe 25 unit cards and 9 effect cards. And that’s your deck for the entire game.

Once your deck is exhausted you cannot draw more cards.  You play with what you got on the board.

The key here is that Summoning…well it ain’t free. You need Magic (Mana if you will) to summon. Where does this Magic come from? Well, at the end of your round (in the Build Magic phase) you can discard any number of cards from your hand to build your Magic pool. Additionally when you kill an enemy unit you get to take that card and put it in your Magic pool. Then, in the following turn(s), you can spend that Magic to summon your units. Spending Magic puts it into the dicard pile and once there, it’s out of the game.

So your strategy is clear: What cards are you willing to put into your Magic pool? Throw away a cheap unit is fine, but once it’s in the Magic pool it’ll never be available for you to summon in that game. Do that too many times and you’ll run out of valuable units.

In this way the game features a Risk vs. Reward in which cards do you sacrifice to build your Magic. Throwing away too many units to allow you to summon an expensive Champion might be a good idea, but it might bite you in the ass if your opponent rolls over you (or butchers your champion).

The summoning of units leads to some interesting features itself. First, you have to summon next to a Wall. You get one Wall for free and there are three more in your deck available. Walls can be destroyed but in my experience, they are rarely worth the effort (except for the dwarves who have increased damage vs. Walls). Walls block movement and line of sight so they are highly useful both aggressively (so you can summon onto different parts of the board) and defensively.

Units do not suffer summoning sickness so they can be summoned, then move and attack. It can be quite disconcerting to wipe your opponent’s units from the board only to have new ones appear and do the same to you.

Combat is nice and simple. Units have attack values (ranging from 1 to 5) and you throw that many dice. On a 3+ you hit. That’s a 66% chance of success and a 33% chance of failure. I like that the odds favour success in this game. I consider that controlled luck.

Units can take from 1 to 9 points of damage but the bulk of units can take only 1 (maybe 2) so most common units are ‘johnny-born-to-die’). When you kill a unit you get to take that card and put it on your Magic pool (as mentioned before). This means you kinda need to play an aggressive game, because if you feed your opponent your own troops, you’re also giving him more Magic.

Now I’m mixed about the 3 Movement and 3 Attacks per round. It’s a solid rule and it’s simple, but I played a LOT of Wizkid’s stuff and was really (really) tired of the limited number of Actions in a round. It felt entirely artificial in that game and as the years rolled on, all Wizkid’s games just felt like chess games rather than wargames.

Having a limited number of Movement and Attacks in a round does at least allow the weaker player to have a continued chance. If an opponent has tons of units on the board, they will only be able to activate so many of them. It’s a balancing rule and I get that. But it will then always feel like a bit more abstract to me. More like you are playing a game rather than simulating summoners trying to kill each other. Therefore, clearly, this is a game first and not really a ‘simulation’.

There are four factions (currently) and each faction does in fact play differently from the others. Also each of the 4 factions is elemental based, however they do not come out and state that anywhere. But it’s a neat subtle touch.

• The dwarves (Earth) are tough (of course) and good at breaking down walls (of course).

• The elves (Fire) are good at forgoing the die rolls and causing automatic damage.

• The goblins (Air) are very cheap (like 0 cost) and have lots of extra movement and attack cards. Given a chance, they will swarm all over you.

• The orcs (Water albeit frozen) are the most luck based group with lots of units who get big bonuses IF they roll well. They also can put up weak Ice Wall and Freeze their opponents.

Each faction just ends up having different strategy to them and not just one strategy. I personally see how the Elves are the strongest faction and the Dwarves are the weakest and yet, on the forums, I can read how somebody has the opponent opinion. That’s not just two players being difficult – that’s us both seeing different strategies on how to play the game. I think even the game designer is surprised at how varied his game is.

Soon, there will be two new factions. Eventually, there will be merc cards to incorporate in your deck. Eventually, there might be more cards for each deck to allow for some deck building opportunities (currently you play with the starter deck and that’s it). This game has a LOT of potential. A couple of releases a year could allow for some real healthy re-playability.

To read about it will not do the game justice. It really needs to be played.

I’m very impressed with this game so far. My only problem with card games like this is the buy-in. While it’s very helpful to have set, limited decks, I find it hard to get other people that I know to play it enough times to challenge me. That statement isn’t as arrogant as you might first presume: If I teach 10 people to play it once, I’ve played the game 10 times and they’ve each played it once. I’ve likely played through all 4 decks while they’ve just played one. I know all their cards while they do not know mine. Regardless of my infamous luck, the advantage will be mine, until I can get other people to play it enough times to even our skill out.