Isle Vekkid

Rokomoko has one of the highest potentials for any summoner in this game, because they can have upwards of eight abilities! Eight! This is why the whole deck basically revolves around having him attack as much as possible. 

Notably, Rokomoko is also your only independently good ranged unit. As a matter of fact, outside of seashard snipers, he’s your only ranged unit. This means you really need to be careful about leaving your units exposed to being shot from afar, because you don’t want them just running at the unit shooting them to hit them once and die the next turn.

The main way to prevent your units from being chipped to death like this is by getting them a babysitter in the form of Roko! While shooting a dancer with a 2/2 ranged 0 cost common might seem enticing to the opponent, if Roko sees them, they will die to their attack and Roko will use that dancer to hide afterwards too.

It is also important to note that keeping up the health of Roko should be your top priority whenever possible. At 13 health, Roko’s decently bulky, but that’s not the main part. Roko can get the ability Tough from your Crab Knights, making him effectively have around 17 health in a game! If you can keep him up on health, if there’s a Crab Knight to follow him, you will win the endgame 90% of the time.

So, just to recap, your summoner is your main damage dealer, best ranged unit, integral part of your formations, tankiest unit, and a babysitter.

Fleetfoot Fighters have 3 main uses:
1. They can be used to give Roko extra movement, letting him keep an eye on multiple lines of attack more easily.

2. They can be attacked through! This, together with Roko and a sniper, can let you attack 3 times through a single flank. It’s important to note that battle dancers usually do this better since they allow you to hide after attacking too, but fighters are a cheaper option and easier to set up because of the mobility.

3. They can be used as leverage for your Plunge plays to put something more threatening in your opponent’s face.

That being said, they’re still a good discard. Their statline is subpar, so they aren’t too good of an economic proposition. Summoning one and keeping them back is rarely bad though.

As mentioned a few times earlier, snipers can be a part of some scary formations allowing Isle Vekkid to attack 3 times in a single flank. However, it’s worth to note that these formations work without a sniper too, you can attack something twice with just Roko + dancer/fighter. However, snipers add a lot by being there, not just by being the third attack, but by buffing up Roko too. But also, they don’t need to actually be in your hand for your opponent to play around them.

If your opponent knows that, with a sniper and a dancer, you could throw 9 dice on their overexposed summoner, they will probably not overexpose them just for the worry. No matter if you have it or not. So feel free to discard a lot of them, they aren’t crucial to have but you will find some great uses for them.

Battle Dancers might be the most unique common in Summoner Wars. Their ability to run away from danger is really strong and works perfectly in this deck, especially with a ranged unit like Roko. They allow you to not just double or triple attack a unit, but also hide afterwards. This makes just the formation of a Battle Dancer in front, Roko behind extremely dangerous because, if your opponent dares come close, you’ll double attack whatever it is that came close and hide afterwards!

Do look out however, while running back with your summoner might seem enticing, this can easily lead to your summoner retreating so much that they become fully out of the action! Using Tempo to jump backwards is great, but dangerous, so look out for any opportunity to jump to the side. It might sometimes be as safe, yet still keep Roko in the action.

The mighty Crab Knights are an extremely important unit for this deck, they can win you some matchups singlehandedly. The main way to use these guys is by summoning one to be the summoner’s steward, following them around and making Roko from a 3/13 into a 4/14+, which is very strong just by itself. The other use for them, however, is that they’re just a really strong unit by themself! Other commons in this deck require other units to utilize their abilities, while Crab Knights can just serve as a 3/4 with Tough by themself.

That being said, positioning for Crab Knights is really important! If you can get them to only be able to be attacked once per turn, you are guaranteed to get a lot of value out of them as every turn they’re attacked, but not killed, they get an extra activation of their Tough ability. This means that, while Isle Vekkid usually want an open board to be able to dance around, they are very scary in close quarters fighting too just because of the Crab Knights! To the point that, against some opponents, going for a more closed board is favorable for you.

Saka Uwa is an extremely fun champion first, and a strong one second. Her abundance of mobility (and even more mobility with Island’s Might) makes it hard to not find uses for her in most situations, so I’ll just name some common ones.

 - She can be used as a bulky replacement for a dancer or fighter. One of the main reasons to play a dancer/fighter is to attack multiple times in a single flank, and with Saka, you can easily do that. The difference being, dancers can hide after attacking and fighters are more expandable costing 1, while Saka needs to stay there. The pluses that Saka has is that she hits harder with 3 dice, and has 5 health, so she lets you stay your ground and there are multiple scenarios where your opponent has to decide if they wanna do that 5 damage or focus on a crab knight wrecking havoc on the other side of the board.

 - Her assasination potential is something your opponents need to worry about constantly. With Island’s Might, she can move 5 spaces in 1 turn, but that’s not even the scariest part! The scariest part is that 2 of those spaces can be in the attack phase, allowing her to go through blockers. This means that your opponent can basically never afford to go to 3 health on their summoner if Saka is still a possibility.

 - Do you remember how I mentioned that Roko needs to babysit your units so they don’t get kited at range? Well, Saka is an exception to this rule! Her ability makes it so if she gets attacked at range, she can just hit whoever hit her, and shimmy backward or to the side to make it hard for her to get hit back. Funnily enough, this makes her a great unit at a ranged game because she can just reach virtually anything!

Honestly, Saka Uwa could get a guide of her own with how versatile her ability is, but these are just common pointers and main things that make her an excellent champion! Especially with how easy she is to summon at only 3 magic.

While the other two champions of the deck have a plethora of uses that make the opponent worry about them constantly, Turanga is a little more of a specialist. He can’t take over a game as much as Waitui can and is not as versatile as Saka, but can still be a beast! I find that the main way to play him is as a giant Crab Knight. Much like Crab Knights, Turanga wants to be attacked only once per turn so they can activate their ability as much as possible.

It might seem like a big investment to spend 5 magic on him and then keep spending magic on his ability to keep him alive, but that’s because it is! However, very often this is a worthwhile investment. Being a champion has its advantages over Crab Knights, but being bulkier than them also means he can occupy important positions more easily, such as front gate spots from your opponent. This allows for a playstyle where Roko is off doing his own thing while Turanga leads an army of Crab Knights on the other side of the board, which is extremely fun!

Still, overall, Turanga is a great champion if the situation calls for it, but hard to force out if the situation doesn’t call for him. Do not be deceived however, there are matchups that Turanga wins by himself and in those matchups, you can easily force him out and watch your opponent pull their hair out trying to kill them

The big guy! The kraken! Waitui! As an 8 cost 8/8 that hit 8 spaces, Waitui is the heavy hitter, not just in this deck, but in Summoner Wars in general. He’s a force to be reckoned with, and one that you (and your opponent) need to keep in mind you have in your kit. Overall, there’s 3 main ways to play Waitui:

1. Is your opponent being extremely aggressive? Worry not, Waitui is here! While you’re discarding super fast to find your gates and keep up with your opponent, you will usually be able to get up to 8 magic. Once you do, if your opponent decides to keep advancing, they will get hit with a casual 8 dice to their face and all of a sudden, start losing the game! Badly!

2. Waitui is such a strong champion, your opponent will need to get rid of them in one turn. But what if you don’t let them? With how many cards want to be attacked only once per turn in this deck, you can just add Waitui to that list! It’s very effective to just summon him to kill some random 3/4/5 health unit while not allowing the opponent to kill him afterwards. Now you’ll get to do it again the next turn! And the best part? Once he gets to 2 or 3 health, you just hide him. Now your opponent has to worry about you using Plunge to get them back into the action!

3. Ranged game Waitui! Have you ever wanted to play a ballistic missile in Summoner Wars? This is as close as you will get! If you sit at 9 magic, you are able to play a Fleetfoot Fighter, Waitui, and Plunge in a single turn, letting Waitui travel upwards of 4 spaces the turn he’s summoned! If your opponent dares not play around this combo and leaves a spot open for Waitui to hit 4 or more units, they will regret it dearly as you’ll get really ahead after that turn. And god forbid they don’t kill Waitui the following turn. This is, in my opinion, by far the most fun way to play Waitui!

4. Wait, didn’t I say there’s 3 main ways to play Waitui? Well, the fourth one is to not play him at all. Waitui is such a big threat that your opponent will sometimes just decide to make really suboptimal plays, just because you’re at 8 magic. Just try it, discard Waitui to get to 8 and see your opponent go insane, trust me.

By design, Plunge is a card that requires a very specific board state to be useful. Its main focus is to make your life as Isle Vekkid easier, while also allowing assassination play out of nowhere. The main reason to play Plunge is to set up a line of 3 attacks in a single flank, killing units your opponent might’ve really been relying on staying alive. Plus, as stated earlier, Plunge is extremely good with Waitui, so just keep that in mind if you want to shove Waitui in your opponent’s face.

Pound for pound, Waveborn Relic is a really really good event. Just allowing you to force around units is really strong in this game, but also adding 1 strength on top of it makes it a card that your opponent will really need to deal with. This allows you to not just hide after attacking, but also push the thing that would normally attack you anyway! And this is on top of the assassination plays that it allows anyways. I have multiple times played one on my sniper and just started ping-ponging around the enemy summoner, allowing multiple snipers in a line to all get a hit in. But, do not be afraid to just play it for value too. Playing one on a Crab Knight is basically a sure-fire way of getting multiple attacks in with it.

Spiteskin Armor is a situational card that is good in general too. Doing 1 damage might not seem too significant, but that damage adds up! If you’re fighting a faction that has a hard time killing your bulky units already, they sure won’t have an easier time if you give your unit an extra health and make them just passively kill things around them!

However, this isn’t the main reason to use Spiteskin. The main reason is to annoy your opponents! There’s a lot of factions that rely on one health units and those factions will just not be able to deal with Spireskin when positioned properly. Just look at your opponent’s deck and think about how useful denying their 1 health unit is gonna be. Still, this is one of those cards where it’s hard to know how much value it got because it can deny a lot of plays, but you’ll never know how many plays it actually denied.

So, you remember every time I mentioned that Isle Vekkind can attack you 3 times in a single flank? Forget about it, they can attack you 4 times! Island’s Might’s main use is to just add extra damage to a unit that you really want to die (preferably the opponent’s summoner), but being able to attack in any phase gives it some really strong versatility.

Island’s Might can: Kill a unit blocking your gate in the summon phase, give an extra move to Saka Uwa, get an extra force with Waveborn Relic, give you an extra magic during your summon phase, and (my favorite) be a movement tool with a Battle Dancer! Plus, most importantly, it can allow you to kill your opponent in the magic phase, which is an amazing title to hold!