Build Phase!

[Grungebob]

Ok, after many games of Summoner Wars, I would really like to discuss the build phase, as I find it to be the toughest thing for me fully master. I am filled with doubt each turn during the Build Phase.

To get magic you basically have two methods (barring any event card). You can either destroy enemy units(or friendlies if you are desperate) , or dump cards from your own hand to the magic pile in the build magic phase, a phase set aside for just this one task.

But it is tough to get rid of anything. I find that most of the time, my cards are useful, or I am building up to make them useful. Almost all events are very useful even game changing at times. Each wall is like an insurance policy. Each common guy is a precious part of a dwindling supply, and each Champion represents and inertial control of the games flow, a dominance if you will. There is no fat to trim here at all.

Events: Event cards seem to be the easiest for me to use to build magic. If an event is dependent upon a condition I can no longer achieve or is no longer important, then I dump that event. Easy choice there. Also if I have 2 walls out and my opponent is not using any attacks to attempt to hurt them, I will dump the 3rd wall.

Units: I will dump a 2 point cost unit to summon a 1 point unit on the following turn. I find that I do not like to part with my 1 point fodder. There are too many times where a cheap unit blocked the advance of an opponent who was on the offensive. I will dump a Champion if I don't feel confident in my ability to bring enough magic through whatever means. In these cases it is usually the highest cost champion.

Building for your opponent: Has anybody noticed that 0 and 1 cost units are easy to kill and give your opponent magic which he can use to summon crap to destroy you? It's odd that if I kill an opponent's champion I only get 1 magic point.. the same as if I had destroyed some lowly common.

So I suggest that you don't summon too many targets for your enemy. Be mindful of what you are giving away. If you get all of you commons destroyed, you won't have much magic coming in to afford those costly champions. Nothing brings in the magic like being able to attack with three units every turn.

Champions: Know your army, asses the battlefield, your opponent, his army and the current conditions. Plan on only bringing one champion out, know his cost and plan for him. The other two should be used to build magic. That's what I have been doing anyway. Remember that Champions hit hard but come in severely limited numbers often costing as much as 7 or 8 commoners put together.


Cards I like to use for Magic:

Ice Walls
Spirit of the phoenix
Hero is Born


How do you all look at the Build Magic Phase.

[Creationist]

I agree a lot with this. My main magic-
Ice Walls
Krung
A Hero is Born
Fire Drake
Guardians (cause the other two are so much better)
Fighters (same reason for me)

[DrLivingston]

Units: I will dump a 2 point cost unit to summon a 1 point unit on the following turn. I find that I do not like to part with my 1 point fodder. There are too many times where a cheap unit blocked the advance of an opponent who was on the offensive. I will dump a Champion if I don't feel confident in my ability to bring enough magic through whatever means. In these cases it is usually the highest cost champion.

I have played this the same way. I feel like if I am not bringing out somebody every turn that I am losing an opportunity or wasting time.

My son dumped just about everything to bring out the Elven Fire Drake as quick as he could ("He looks like a Pokemon, daddy!") in what was, I thought, going to end up being a bad move.

But the Drake just killed everything. And his 3 range fireline auto wound threat limited my moving.

I think you posted that an unusual/unexpected strategy you faced was an opponent dumping commons in favor bringing a lot of champions out quickly. And that it worked out well.

So I think I will continue to sacrifice high cost champions/commons to build up my forces I may do the opposite if I think I have time to get away with it.


Building for your opponent: Has anybody noticed that 0 and 1 cost units are easy to kill and give your opponent magic which he can use to summon crap to destroy you? It's odd that if I kill an opponent's champion I only get 1 magic point.. the same as if I had destroyed some lowly common.

This was devastating in a game I played with the goblins! It's the biggest lesson I took away from that crushing defeat.


How do you all look at the Build Magic Phase.

Like a novice? HA! My first game I would discard Guardians and Archers and I had no idea if I would even see them again. I had no idea what was in the deck. It worked out okay, but when I did the same thing with the goblins I ran out of units and had nothing on the board but my summoner with no way to bring anyone else on--just out of unit cards. As I learn what is in the decks and get a better feel for the cards that I need to win, I hope it will get easier.

(Although it seems the more you know the harder some decisions get... Well at least they'll be well informed difficult decisions!)


I agree a lot with this. My main magic-
Ice Walls

Wow--I though ice walls were one of the best things the Orcs could do! I really need to play more games...

[Jexik]

Hah!

I think I pretty much do the opposite. I've got no idea yet if that is the correct play, but...

I play lots of event cards, and try to keep myself relatively even on the number of troops I've got out there- I try to keep just 3-5 units around at a time, including my summoner, unless I really hammer them and I'm going in for the kill. Especially if I'm facing Goblins, I let my numbers dwindle so I can use magic drain or reinforcements to try to swing things back.

In my last win with the Tundra Orcs (against goblins), I played all six [ice] walls, building a barrier across the whole board! I was tossing excess fighters and shamans to get out my champions (Ragnar, and later Krung, just to show off) and a few smashers. It worked out, but it was also my friend's first time with the goblins- I think they're a little tricky at first.

[Truth]

It all depends on the game for me. A lot of times when I'm playing against Prince Elien I have no problem dropping lots of cards to keep up the attack and go for his throat.

[jsmkd]

I build my magic with event cards if they are not needed at that time and 2 point commons most of the time. Sometimes a throw a champion away like the Krung and the eater. It depends on the game.

[Hogg]

I burn lots of Events and commons. The events can sometimes be useless, like magic drain when you have overwhelming numbers. The commons will get drawn again because there are so many of them. I haven't figured out the use of engineers yet so I burn them all the time. I burn walls if I already have two. and I burn expensive champions unless the magic pile is looking good already.

I hadn't thought of the disadvantage of 'building for the opponent.' That's a new level of strategy I need to incorporate.

[Jim]

I haven't figured out the use of engineers yet so I burn them all the time.

So you haven't tried to take out the enemy's walls ASAP so they can't summon anything? :D

[Hogg]

So you haven't tried to take out the enemy's walls ASAP so they can't summon anything? :D

9 life is a lot to go through, and they seem to have summoned another wall by the time I do destroy one.

[Jim]

9 life is a lot to go through, and they seem to have summoned another wall by the time I do destroy one.

Beseige the Walls event puts three wounds on each wall of an opponant, and each Engineer rolls three dice while attacking a wall. It won't happen every time, but when it does it is a thing of beauty. Unless you're the opponant. :D

[Hogg]

Beseige the Walls event puts three wounds on each wall of an opponant, and each Engineer rolls three dice while attacking a wall. It won't happen every time, but when it does it is a thing of beauty. Unless you're the opponant. :D

Yeah, I can see it happening with the dwarves. I haven't gotten the beseige the walls event at the right time yet.

[Pickledpie]

Typically I just waste some commons I know I'll definately get the next turn, or some champions I know I'll never want to summon.

[rym]

It seems to me that the more I read on these boards, the more "strategy" and analysis I see, the more difficult this game (can) potentially becomes. And I mean that in terms of making decisions regarding playing which units, magic building, etc. Not in terms of actual gameplay, because that is pretty straightforward.

Sheesh, the bottom line is I need to get in more games. ;)

Set up a SW tournament, Grungebob. Please? :D

I guess it's the fact I've only been able to play 2 games so far, and I haven't had the chance to see some of this stuff in action, but the deck building seems to change from game to game, and really, from turn to turn.

In my first game against DrLivingston, I pulled an expensive Orc champion and held on to him for several rounds, wanting to put him on the board. I sacrificed putting up my fodder units to (hopefully) field this guy. I realized too late that that strategy wouldn't - wasn't - working and promptly threw the champion into the magic pile to gain some magic points.

I think the best strategy is to play the game openminded and be prepared to go in which ever direction the game takes you. Play an expensive champion if you've got 'em, or throw the champion away to field the cheap units if you have to. Build walls or throw them away. I think it just depends.

I do know it sure is fun to speculate about it all, and I feel like I'm that same "giddy" kid that just discovered HeroScape for the first time again...

[Jexik]

There are some Champions that I can't see myself throwing away though. I've played the Orcs and Goblins the most, and I don't think I've tossed Ragnor or Mook yet. Those guys rock!

[KCU Master 2007]

I rarely, if ever use walls as magic. You never know when you amy need to use a wall to set up an offensive or as defensive barrier. Other than that I typically use certain cards as magic fodder for each faction:

Goblins: Eater or Blarf (I keep one because of how hard they can hit), Horde Attack, and some Berserkers.

Dwarves: Either Thorkur or Gror, a Hero is born, and usually some Engineers

Orcs: Krung, A Hero is Born, and Shamans

Elves: Fire Drake, A Hero is Born, some Archers and Guardians, and Spirit of the Phoenix if I have more than one in my hand.

[Grungebob]

In my first game against DrLivingston, I pulled an expensive Orc champion and held on to him for several rounds, wanting to put him on the board. I sacrificed putting up my fodder units to (hopefully) field this guy. I realized too late that that strategy wouldn't - wasn't - working and promptly threw the champion into the magic pile to gain some magic points.

.Waiting for your magic pile to build up high enough to bring out a Champion in my opinion is bad strategy. In order to get that kind of magic, you need to destroy enemies, but if you're destroying that many enemies, you might not even need a champion. If you waste opportunities to summon fodder, then you will quickly be overwhelmed by opposing forces. So I suggest building magic to get a champion out. This will empty your hand for more fodder units and events and gets your champion out quicker. The only real decision is what to sacrifice. Remember that you are always sacrificing something no matter what you do so be pro-active.

[cbs42]

Beseige the Walls event puts three wounds on each wall of an opponant, and each Engineer rolls three dice while attacking a wall. It won't happen every time, but when it does it is a thing of beauty. Unless you're the opponant. :D
I played a game last night where my opponent did exactly that.

He was using the Dwarves, and I was using the Orcs. I (initially) had no wall-destruction fears because the Orcs have 6 walls in their deck. Confident in my ability to produce a wall at will, I spent a couple of initial rounds dumping my hand during the Build Magic phase, in order to produce a quick Champion. Well, my opponent took advantage of my slow deployment to lay seige to my starting wall. I was pretty much screwed at this point, because I didn't take the wall threat seriously enough, yet I didn't have another one in my hand.

So I hit a point in the game where, for a couple of rounds, I needed to dump most of my hand in my Build Magic phase just to increase the odds of drawing a damn wall, with the frustrating knowledge that when I DID draw a wall, I wasn't going to be able to summon many units because I dumped them trying to draw a wall.

Mercifully, it never got to that point, because my opponent bagged my Summoner before I could even draw that next wall. My initial reaction was, "Bad luck! What the hell were the odds of me not drawing ONE of my other FIVE walls?" But luck really had little to do with it. I'd sealed my own fate by ignoring the early Dwarven threat against my wall, combined with my absence of early-game unit deployment from my overzealous urge for a quick champion.

Lesson learned.

[Truth]

I have a friend that plays the Tundra Orcs and he drops most of his cards every game in favor of bringing out as many champions as he can as quickly as he can. It is an all or nothing strategy, but I'll be darned if it doesn't work fairly often.

[rym]

Waiting for your magic pile to build up high enough to bring out a Champion in my opinion is bad strategy. In order to get that kind of magic, you need to destroy enemies, but if you're destroying that many enemies, you might not even need a champion. If you waste opportunities to summon fodder, then you will quickly be overwhelmed by opposing forces. So I suggest building magic to get a champion out. This will empty your hand for more fodder units and events and gets your champion out quicker. The only real decision is what to sacrifice. Remember that you are always sacrificing something no matter what you do so be pro-active.
You are correct, of course. But in my (our) defense, we were so excited to play that we just opened up the box, shuffled the cards, and went at it. Neither he nor I knew really what was in the deck, what we had left in the deck, how many common units we had, and, well, that game was a hard-earned lesson in what not to do. :D

Good times all around no matter what, though, because hey, not an hour later we both joined this forum and I can't seem to get enough of this game.

It's been said many times, but great, great game truth. Truly.

[Creationist]

I have a friend that plays the Tundra Orcs and he drops most of his cards every game in favor of bringing out as many champions as he can as quickly as he can. It is an all or nothing strategy, but I'll be darned if it doesn't work fairly often.

Agreed. Krung may take 3-5 turns to summon, but he wont be going anywhere for a long while due to wall-like defenses.

[ultimobean]

yes but truth you always fall to short when you play against me haha.

[Tidus]

I usually get rid of commons all the time if i know im running out i will start keeping some. I also get rid of a hero is born a lot, because half the time it just wastes hand space.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

it has probably been mentioned before, but a hero is born is a lot more useful in 2v2 games.

[Dromar]

Loosely, my strategy for the build phase is something like this: First I come up with a game-plan, what I want to do that game. Admittedly, I'm still at the stage of "just trying things out," so I could go wrong here. For example one game I chose to Krung-rush, another game I decided to try playing defense early and outlasting, etc.

Then I decide "how much magic am I going to have to discard for this strategy, and what cards are the least useful for this strategy?" Then I plan on discarding those cards.

I'm definitely open to other ideas on the subject, but that's what I've been doing so far.

[darkbladecb]

I have found that I probably drop fewer cards as magic than most players. I also find that I play cards less often than most players. If I am fairly certain--based on my cards in hand and my cards on the table--that I will make three attacks next turn, I will often save cards. There are some exceptions (A Hero is Born for instance, which I have actually played once), or if I have a duplicate of a Goblin event card that grants a special power (two Goblin Horde Attacks, for instance), I will drop those pretty regularly, but often times in the back and forth if I am conservative with dropping units, I can often avoid finding myself too far behind in magic count. Doing so makes it less necessary to drop cards just for magic and with so few cards in a deck, often times having more cards at the end of the game can be extremely beneficial.

[Dromar]

I've found myself trying to slow down a bit too recently, both in discarding for magic, and also for playing units. Still having 6 or so cards to go through yet after your opponent is exhausted is very helpful. Also, in the last couple games I played, I found myself with no more cards to play, and something like 4 magic left, which is telling me that I should probably slow down and try to play more cards.

[Lord_AndraK]

I too love knocking the walls down with the dwarves.
There is nothing quite like the face of an opponent when the wall their summoner has been hiding behind turns to ruble, a quick rush in to the space and the game can be over.
Heroic Feat helps.

With this in mind i never chuck Heroic Feats and rarely BTW and hero is born is a situational one.
Im sure some one has said this before but Dwarves vs Elves =

Turn Baldar into magic.

Use Thorkur (eat that precise!) and make sure you have enough magic pts, and you can have a expensive but deadly champ running after princey boy.

Make sure you have an agressively placed wall such that an unit can pop out on their side so always keep one spearman.

[rym]

[QUOTE=KCU Master 2007;367]I rarely, if ever use walls as magic. You never know when you amy need to use a wall to set up an offensive or as defensive barrier. [QUOTE]:

I know this is necroing a 'somewhat' older thread, but as I was perusing the various strategy threads and reading through them all, I came across this comment, which leads me to why I necro'ed this in the first place.

Just last night, in teaching my friend Paul to play, as we were reaching the bottom third of our decks, I drew both of my walls (I played the Guild Dwarves against his Fallen Kingdom) and promptly threw them into the Magic Pile so I could bring in a powerful Champion on the next turn.

Lo and behold, Paul moves his Champion adjacent to my wall (which already had 4 wounds due to Thorkur(?) (the Thunder Quake one, or whatever it's called), and put 4 more wounds on it.

I had to laugh because I very rarely throw the Walls away, but the one time I did, it had damn near disastrous consequences.

And to add insult to injury, Paul Magic Drained me and stole my two discarded walls to add to his Magic Pile on his very next turn. :(

[jschild]

Regarding Walls, I typically would never sacrifice more than one, tops.

Conditions very though

Against Dwarves or Goblins - All walls go into play (due to ability to destroy or swarm the walls).

Playing Tundra Orcs - All walls go into play to create a minefield of sorts for anyone coming after my summoner.

Otherwise, I might sacrifice one but that's tops. Too risky to play with just one wall unless you get them at the very end of the game after everything's been summoned.

[Quelmotz]

IMO walls shouldn't ever be used as magic unless you're very sure you'll not need them. Many times a wall saved my summoner from certain destruction by an enemy champion. It's always good to have spare walls to put down defensively especially.

I think there are a few cards that are often dumped for magic...A Hero Is Born for most of the factions that have it, Guardians, Slingers to an extent, and Fighters/Shamans/Krung depending on your play style. And just about every unit for the FK except for the skeletal archers...zombies don't even work well unless you build them as magic.

[killercactus]

I've been thinking a lot about Reapers recently - probably just because everyone hates them.

I build every Reaper I see as magic immediately, and usually kill the first one with Dark Sacrifice or Elut-Bal as soon as I can. However, I think there's a lot to be said about using Greater Raise later in the game to put 3 of them on the board as Ret body guards.

Like Quemlotz said, the build magic phase is pretty darn paramount for the FK. They should build lots of magic fast, and probably only summon Champions, some Archers, and a Zombie or two as needed for protection. They can use Raise the Dead and Greater Raise for anything else, since they'll probably be using less attacks anyways due to more selective summoning.

[rym]

Too risky to play with just one wall unless you get them at the very end of the game after everything's been summoned.

Yeah, that's exactly what happened. Like I stated, I rarely use them as magic, oftentimes preferring to place them as strategic dumppoints for future units.

It was just funny that the one time I did burn them, I almost got burned in my own right.

As far as putting this thread back on its rails, it depends from game to game, and even round to round, as to what I may burn for magic to be able to summon on the next turn(s). I agree with the strategy to throw a 2-cost unit away to summon a 1-cost unit in its place.

And as far as events go, if I cannot use it that turn, or even the next turn, and it doesn't benefit me in much way even if I did use it, then I will typically throw those event cards away. Of course, that kind of thinking sometimes backfires, and I end up wanting or needing the very card I just tossed.

I love this game. :)

[Killer Lawnmower]

I find myself burning way too much from my hand. I through a card here and two there thinking more will come, but I get to the end of the deck and only have 4 commons and dont know what to do because my opponent still has 10 cards left.

I need to get it in my head that my deck isnt endless.

[darkbladecb]

Playing Tundra Orcs - All walls go into play to create a minefield of sorts for anyone coming after my summoner.

I've actually been doing this less and less lately, particularly against factions that are really good at breaking walls--like the GD and the VG. Well, lemme rephrase, I've been dropping Ice Walls a lot more lately against these factions.


I find myself burning way too much from my hand. I through a card here and two there thinking more will come, but I get to the end of the deck and only have 4 commons and dont know what to do because my opponent still has 10 cards left.

I need to get it in my head that my deck isnt endless.

Building isn't bad. You just have to build with a purpose. Hitting target build numbers--like 5 with the PE or 7 with the VG--is really useful and helps you get cards that are coming down the line.

[killercactus]

Building isn't bad. You just have to build with a purpose. Hitting target build numbers--like 5 with the PE or 7 with the VG--is really useful and helps you get cards that are coming down the line.

Yes - this is a big deal. If you build before you draw the champion rather than after, it can make a big difference.

[Sera Eldwyn's boyfriend]

I dump whatever I deem worthless at the time. I don't find it necessary to summon every turn if I already have an advantage. Plus I like to fool my opponent by not summoning, they think I have nothing left so they charge me. Then I summon and blow them away. It also depends on the deck for me also, each deck requires a different method to their build phase.

[I LIKE TAU!]

I don't build enough magic, but when I do I usually get rid of the commons for a champion. I never discard the walls, but I think that was only because I was always up against Dwarves.