Summoner Wars 2e!

The Vargath are slated to return, but it might be like a year out. So far they’ve been doing a mix of new and old factions and the deckbuilding symbols kinda dictate release order. Glad you’re digging it. Either of your kids latch onto it? My nephew used to love the Tundra Orcs in 1e. Now he’s absorbed in PC gaming.

I feel like the bird faction is the new Vargath. They have greater mobility but like the same tight formations and passive buffs. The peacock unit looks cool, but they lack a Canada goose to really terrify the enemy.

I wrote a short article on my favorite new deck.

sw-zone.com/articles/8

Still playing this. They added a ranked mode this week, so it has been very cool to see the community get more active and have stuff to talk about.

Game is still excellent if you enjoy tactical 2p games. I honestly can't think of a better one.

“Impress your friends! Upgrade your Summoner Wars 2nd Edition collection with this neoprene play mat with slip resisitant bottom! No longer will you exhaust yourself by having to unfold a standard game board, simply roll the mat onto the table and you're ready to play.‘.

Heh.

Played once against my gf this week and then 5 other live games against a local guy I met from the discord.

And there's a big deck-built tournament with signups starting this week. www.plaidhatgames.com/swo/tournament-signup/custom1/

And I just wrote another article: sw-zone.com/articles/10

Game's still amazing.

Zee Garcia once said "it has the juice."

Like I mentioned in another thread, started a podcast with someone else from the summoner wars community. It’s called Discard for Magic, and is currently on Spotify and will populate elsewhere soon. First episode features Colby Dauch, the designer of the game.

Oh, and the Vargath are back. They were just released alongside the Crimson Order, a vampire cult.

Vargath forever!

Much like the Cave Goblins, Mountain Vargath were one of the least changed factions in second edition.

While we didn't get to play the 1E nearly as much as I would have liked, I always gravitated to Mountain Vargath. I've played them more than any faction (aside from Phoenix Elves, I played them a lot before I started buying expansions).

I've been considering offloading 1E and perhaps picking up 2E, but I think I'd probably end up in the same place of not actually getting it to the table.

I've got your show subbed on Spotify, maybe it's what I need to push harder for it to hit the table.

Yeah, if it weren’t for the online client, I’d be getting 0-10 games in per month. As is, it’s that many/ day now.

Discard for Magic is up to 9 episodes now. Just got done with a great recording with Colby and Joe to kick off the New Year. Episode probably won't drop until late in the month though. Pretty stoked to get some bigger name guests this year too.

Hey, Jexik. Finally found you guys on the app that I use for podcasts and I've listened to the first three (Colby interview, deckbuilding tournament aftermath, High Elves) and am halfway through the interview with Joe Ellis. Couple things:

Is this intended to be just for the (as you guys frequently cite) "niche" audience of SW players or are you looking to expand the game's audience, as well? If the former, all good. If the latter, my primary suggestion would be to talk about cards and decks as if your audience is familiar, but not a hardcore player. I'm familiar with the game (I've never played) just from watching Rodney Smith's video and from reading SW-Zone for an hour or so, so I have an idea of both general strategy and can turn to that site later (I usually listen in the morning when I'm exercising) when you and/or your guests start talking about specific cards (like Blub, for example, who comes up quite a bit in those first four episodes...) But when you interviewed Profit about High Elves, I was completely lost as to the detail of his strategy and/or tactics against certain decks and so on, largely because he mentioned about a dozen cards and no one stopped to point out what things like "Peace" (Arbiter of Peace) or "War" (Arbiter of War) actually do. I realize that's inherent knowledge to you and Aaron and anyone you bring on the podcast, but if you are trying to grow the audience, you might want to try dropping in a little note when someone says: "I use Peace out front because of X and so" and respond: "Right, because Arbiter of Peace's Tough ability makes it harder to kill the rest of your Commons" or something like that. But, again, if you're aiming this just at the people that are already in the know, all good.

Only knowing of the game in a general sense, I'm intrigued because I like all kinds of factional stuff like that and how they compare to one another (It's why I still play Hearthstone and like most DoaMs that have varied factions) but I don't have a regular 2-player opponent that would encourage investing in the game because my one semi-regular 2-player person likes to play a lot of different games and SW seems like something that you really should commit to. With that in mind, I'm kind of interested in the online version, since it presumably will be easier to find games. However, the only entry point I see is the page from Plaid Hat that's over two years old. Is that still the way in (e.g. signing up for the subscription for $2.95) or is there a better way to go about it? Thx.

Jackwraith wrote: Hey, Jexik. Finally found you guys on the app that I use for podcasts and I've listened to the first three (Colby interview, deckbuilding tournament aftermath, High Elves) and am halfway through the interview with Joe Ellis. Couple things:

Thanks for listening!

Is this intended to be just for the (as you guys frequently cite) "niche" audience of SW players or are you looking to expand the game's audience, as well? If the former, all good. If the latter, my primary suggestion would be to talk about cards and decks as if your audience is familiar, but not a hardcore player.

Is it too much of a copout to say ideally both? I can see where you are coming from and it's something I wondered about. So far, the Profit episode is our most listened to episode, so I think catering to the experienced players and listeners isn't a bad thing. However, I think this is mostly determined by how the guest wants to talk about it. Ironically, Colby and Joe get less into the nitty gritty details of the design and those episodes are probably more approachable... but maybe not as I realize my definition of approachable is different than many. Later on with the Vexer episode talking about Swamp Orcs, he basically tells you what each card does before explaining its purpose in the overall strategy. That one might be more to your (and other newer player's) liking. There's also less chatter and back and forth in that one so it feels different than say the Shampoo (tourney recap) episode. I can try in the future to get people to explain stuff more if it won't break the flow too much.

The first person "outside" of our little discord community that we got was Dan Thurot, who I hope will help grow exposure for both the podcast and potentially the game itself. That episode probably won't drop until some time in February though. That episode is more about him and his experience writing about summoner wars and other games.

Only knowing of the game in a general sense, I'm intrigued because I like all kinds of factional stuff like that and how they compare to one another (It's why I still play Hearthstone and like most DoaMs that have varied factions) but I don't have a regular 2-player opponent that would encourage investing in the game because my one semi-regular 2-player person likes to play a lot of different games and SW seems like something that you really should commit to. With that in mind, I'm kind of interested in the online version, since it presumably will be easier to find games. However, the only entry point I see is the page from Plaid Hat that's over two years old. Is that still the way in (e.g. signing up for the subscription for $2.95) or is there a better way to go about it? Thx.

Currently with the online version, you get one faction for free when you link it to your google account or whatever, and then you can do that $3/mo subscription that you mentioned, which will unlock everything that's currently available, and give you permanent access to the decks that are released during your subscription, I believe. I do think the game could be up your alley; it's in the same general hemisphere as stuff like Neuroshima Hex. If it weren't for the online version I'd hardly play at all. Somewhere between 95-99% of my games are online.

Part of me wants to get this woman on the podcast at some point, to offer a different perspective and non-strategy talk:
rosepulp.wordpress.com/2022/07/21/every-...want-them-to-top-me/

Not a copout at all. I get it. You want to have a normal conversation among regular players of the game who don't need to have anything explained to them, but at the same time not confuse the newbs so much that they stop listening. It's always tough to find the right line to straddle there. When I write about football, I'm often focusing on things like xG (expected goals) or PPDA (passes per defensive action) and sometimes I'll just barrel through it, but I usually try to take a moment in every couple posts to explain a but of the fancystats that I'm talking about. The difference, of course, is that you're there talking to people in real time and I'm writing so my readers have more time to Google what xG means, where your listeners might not be in a position (driving, say) to look up what Sneeks does. But that's just part of putting the puzzle together, so no big deal. I'm definitely looking forward to your talk with Dan, as I love what he does on his blog. And, yes, that woman sounds like an excellent guest.

So, that outdated page is still how to do the signup? If so, I'll take a look at it tonight and see about signing up for at least a couple months and trying things out. Despite the complexity levels presented by PHG, I have to say I'm most interested in the Fungal Dwarves for thematic reasons. It's interesting, too, to note that the Strategy forum on BGG mostly had complaints a year ago that they were trash and now they seem like one of the bullies of the meta.