Summoner Wars 2nd Edition Review - It's a Kind of Magic

what if i told you i could summon uh whoa i can't actually yeah matt's got a copy of someone awards and it's not here yet i was just trying to manifest what if i invited you to summon wars how many wars someone awards seriously take a closer look at this box how many cool wizards do you see one two three four five six some of them are upside down are they gonna be okay of course they are they're wizards summoners i don't know what i do know is that this is the brand new summon awards second edition a two-player game shut up and sit down first reviewed back in 2011. before the invention of shaving i'm thrilled to see this game return in a new more beautiful slightly more complex second edition because it is a dead good game of wizards dueling to the death imagine something like magic the gathering if magic had spent more time attending parties at school and less mathematical olympiads now you and your [Music] opponents ah that's creepy uh you and your opponent are gonna pick a deck that is your summoner you're gonna set that summoner up in their starting formation and then you're good to go because that's set up complete and you are ready to sink into a tactics game as colorful and kinetic as a ball pit like madcap dueling game unmatched which i gave a positive review to last year summon awards wants to be collectible without being demanding so here's how you play going back and forth between your opponent each of you are going to take a turn that goes start a turn summon move build attack magic draw repeat back and forth until someone summoner is dead at which point you presumably bury them or what's left of them and then you're the winner let's look at that turn structure in a little more detail at the start of your turn you're gonna be holding five cards first you can summon any soldiers you're holding next to your gates paying their cost in magical energy next you can move up to three people two squares each but they cannot move through one another which is where you learn that one of summoner wars ancestors is the humble sliding block puzzle in the build phase you can build any of the extra gates contained in your deck and then in the attack phase up to three units can attack with this many dice units with the sword symbol can clobber adjacent enemies roll this many dice and do one damage for each sword you roll which are on five sides of the dice which is juicy and generous while units with the bow symbol can fire in a straight line up to three spaces away but bows are only on four sides of the dice during all of this carnage every enemy card you kill you get one magical energy finally in the magic phase you may discard any number of cards from your hand for one magikarp energy a piece and then you end your turn by drawing back up to five cards there's nothing too sexy about any of this yet so allow me to introduce two rather juicy and delicious additional elements of summon awards that you and your opponent are going to be trying to display dominance this was the bit in the script where i was going to take out two strawberries and then when i said the word display dominance i was going to crush the strawberries with my hands i found out just now my wife has eaten those strawberries so these are potato gnocchi [Music] the first wrinkle of summon awards is that your summoner is actually the best unit in the game with pots of health decent attack and a cool special power and this immediately makes summoner wars a tense an interesting game of how dare you deep probe your summoner into enemy territory to best make use of them and maintain momentum think of it as if your king in chess was also your queen and she could take an absolute lettering before passing out and the second wrinkle is even better this trim little 30 card deck you start the game with is all the magic you get ever so if you've got no cards left to draw you stop drawing if you've got no units left to summon you stop summoning and your summoner can burn through this deck in just six turns if you're really pushing them to the max you know how most cinematic fights end with one character looking inside themselves and discovering the strength they have deep in there some of the wars tends to end with one summoner or both of you looking inside themselves and discovering that they are now friendless and spiritually destitute all of which makes summon awards like the jet ski of tactics games it is so easy to just get on board and start thrashing about and having fun but there are oh so many ways to end up flung out of the vehicle and end up drowning in the ocean of your own bottomless idiocy your first games of summon awards will if you're like me see you accidentally blocking your own summoning spots and attack paths with your own units reducing your advance to that of a moderately tactical toddler tripping over their own shoes and soon you'll start to realize that every single soldier's special ability isn't just keeping the game fresh it's offering the opportunity for you to get really really clever but no matter your skill level someone always tends to remain exciting partially because the turns are so big that who's in control will often change from moment to moment one minute you'll be in control then your opponent will take their turn and they'll be in control but also because no matter how smart you are you still get to roll these fat handfuls of d6 well that was awesome um summon awards is not a beer and pretzels game it's more like a tactics game that has had exactly one beer where the dice rolls tend to be quite predictable but every so often they surprise you and have one of you or the other going ah where for example you might think you're definitely gonna kill a unit and this time oh you don't and now it's still active or you take a shot at a summoner and you do just a little bit more damage than you were expecting which causes your opponent to retreat a little bit faster than they were planning to now lots of dueling games have good moment-to-moment tactical gameplay what makes a great dueling game and what summon awards has in spades is this idea that you're on a journey together with multiple acts in each game by burning through your deck and playing big bruises you have a hope of taking the fight to your opponent ripping down their gates compressing the geography that they have to play with so summoning and moving is harder and you might have 10 15 minutes of really bringing the fight to your opponent followed by another 10 or 15 minutes of them just keeping you at bay using the fact that you're on their side of the board to play more efficiently to only summon units when they need them only play events when they have to and at that moment at the game you might realize you're burning through this deck too quickly if this game is like fencing this deck is like your fence's stamina and when you start burning through it too fast if you're not really bringing pain to your opponent you've got to ask yourself oh should i keep up this pressure is that how i win or do i back off and try and take a breath before i pancake into the end game of summer wars with no cards but maybe i shouldn't get too deep into the strategic weeds here when the real core thrill of summon awards is maybe not the game but simply all the different summoners and decks and play styles there are to try all the different match-ups there are to explore it strikes me as so weird that the tabletop scene in general is obsessed with asymmetry like the recent game merchants cove which we talked about on episode 140 of the shut up sit down podcast a game where everyone runs different shots i get it asymmetry and tabletop games is absolutely awesome it's so much fun playing a slightly different game to your opponent but so many of the people who want asymmetry and board games seem to have forgotten or willfully ignore the fact that card games are a supernaturally successful example of asymmetry and summoner second edition is no different take svara of the polar dwarfs she's looking for a partner for a cozy night in she turns summon awards into a more literal sliding block puzzle because she doesn't just have gates as structures she has living gates and also parapets all of which can be slid around by her moved on ice flows or even turned into high velocity battering rams sarah is a little more my type she's looking for a close friendship her vanguards play the long game with all sorts of healing and protective spells that mean they play a bit like the spartans at thermopylae they just need to hold on to that end game even more my style is rhett talus the necromancer with the cool hat and the big mouth who's looking for unflinching loyalty he plays fast and loose with cultists to explode when they die spells that let you hurt soldiers to bring in fresh soldiers and units and events that get better the more death occurs basically you're ruining yourself with an eye to becoming even more ruinous the opposite of rhett alice's explosive style is abuashi of the savannah elves abward plays around with an obnoxious secondary economy of boosts units boost themselves they boost one another these old dudes shunt boosts around and these boosts all do different things what's happening i don't know but about just cast the spell that gives two units one another's boosted abilities so it's probably gonna suck even more annoying than this is takulu of the breakers who's looking for a weak mind to dominate she can mimic move stupefy and even take control of her opponent's units and finally we have sneaks sneaks is probably just looking for a hot meal since almost all of sneak's goblins cost zero you're gonna have to fight basically all of them on your way to the bottom of sneaks deck and sneaks can swap position with any of them also sneaks has a champion called smeg and i've decided not to comment on that at all get out of town it's just really good it's good looking it plays great it's simple to learn it's hard to master this is the point in the video where i'd name criticisms but i i don't know what do you want from me um if i'm being super picky it feels a bit old-fashioned to have a turn structure where first one player does all the thinking and summons and moves and attacks and cast spells while their opponents it's twiddling their nips for minutes on end but also i couldn't get the most out of this game because i i kept beating people it really kind of demands players who are of similar skill levels so unless you have an opponent who's like your exact match [Music] um well where was i um the good news is that if you want to try someone was second edition you have so many options there is right now a free online demo on plan hats web implementation of summon awards you can also kick them a few dollars for an account on that website so you can just play the game online with strangers or your friends that's mostly how i've been playtesting this game it's great also while in this review i've been talking about the summoner wars master set which comes with six summoners um you don't have to absorb the hog in its totality with this box in this what that what sentence was that that was weird stayed in the review um this summer planet are releasing the first of summon awards new starter sets which contain just two summoners at a lower price point i think we can look forward to the swamp orcs and the phoenix elves in that set which i've played online they're both really good they're as good as any other factors in this game but obviously it's a starter set they're not those more advanced or more difficult summoners that i personally was hoping for also i sincerely hope that we will see some of the absolutely mad summoners that were in summoner was first edition there were some super weird dwarves and a chaos faction i seem to remember so that's good you know um so i'm gonna i mean uh shut up and sit down oh recommend zaya i guess silly quinns he's forgotten to do the alternative recommendations he mentioned it already what a pro but unmatched is another terrific looking and collectible two-player dueling game although it plays with three and four as well but it's a whole lot quicker simpler and sillier look i set up a three-way match between little red riding hood buffy and beowulf does everyone remember that episode of angel where angel was a puppet super problematic but if you want a two-player game that's less simple less accessible more expensive more long and uh actually just as silly as summoner wars definitely take a look at mage wars a deeply over-the-top game where players cast their spells from a profoundly plastic yet still somehow cool spell book very cool game there and um oh sorry that was um we have other videos you can watch um sorry uh bear with me hi matt amazing puppet really nice craftsmanship thing is i don't know if i have room for it in my flat so i was wondering if i could send it back to you no i do like it i do like it i just okay yeah thanks okay sorry bye bye

Channel: Shut Up & Sit Down

Views: 160,010

Rating: 4.9573469 out of 5

Keywords: Shut Up and Sit Down, SUSD, SU&SD, Board Game Review, Review, Board Games, Board Gaming, Boardgame, Board Game, Gaming, Tabletop, Fun Games, Quintin Smith, Summoner Wars, Plaid Hat Games

Id: o9Trlf3x8I0

Length: 14min 0sec (840 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 02 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/theuntamedmaverick]

Much love for Summoner Wars! We’ve played the new edition a couple of times and it’s awesome.