Fungal Dwarves Dark / Earth is a faction focused on farming boosts and creating beasts through the death of it's own units.
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A heavy economic faction about a cycle of reap and sow that is happy to spend time summoning units only to sacrifice them to produce boosts that are used to produce Fungal Beasts.
A faction that is happy to take its time doing it's farming that will inevitably out-value every other faction out there. However often can also be played aggressively, pushing it's summoner and the farm of fungus into enemy territory to put pressure.
It's summon Kuldak is a support summoner with a very powerful economy ability. It needs to be the center of what is called "The diamond of fungus" A diamond shape defined by the range of 2 of it's ability, where all friendly units that die there will generate boosts to all other units in that diamond.
Fungal Dwarves power comes from triggering Kuldak ability as many times a possible. They have a lot of ways to chain deaths into boosts that produce more deaths and more boosts. Creating a chain of boost explosions to permeate their colony. If the engine starts, the amount of economic advantage they can gain can seem insurmountable.
Games of the Fungal dwarves are often a slow and long war with an opponent trying to tear through the beasts and fungus just for more to come.
If Kuldak keeps its engine going, the Fungal Dwarves will overwhelm any opposition, but if it doesn’t happen, Fungal Dwarves will fall apart.
A faction that is happy to take its time doing it's farming that will inevitably out-value every other faction out there. However often can also be played aggressively, pushing it's summoner and the farm of fungus into enemy territory to put pressure.
It's summon Kuldak is a support summoner with a very powerful economy ability. It needs to be the center of what is called "The diamond of fungus" A diamond shape defined by the range of 2 of it's ability, where all friendly units that die there will generate boosts to all other units in that diamond.
Fungal Dwarves power comes from triggering Kuldak ability as many times a possible. They have a lot of ways to chain deaths into boosts that produce more deaths and more boosts. Creating a chain of boost explosions to permeate their colony. If the engine starts, the amount of economic advantage they can gain can seem insurmountable.
Games of the Fungal dwarves are often a slow and long war with an opponent trying to tear through the beasts and fungus just for more to come.
If Kuldak keeps its engine going, the Fungal Dwarves will overwhelm any opposition, but if it doesn’t happen, Fungal Dwarves will fall apart.
Kuldak has great stats, however he’s ultimately a support summoner. As mentioned, Blood Bloom is arguably the strongest ability the game has so far presented for a summoner.
A fungal colony needs to be formed around Kuldak, both to protect him as the king piece and to be able to trigger Blood Bloom.
The placement of Kuldak is crucial and will determine the flow of the game, knowing where to place Kuldak is without a doubt the hardest skill a Fungal Dwarf player needs to master to play effectively. “Where should I move Kuldak (or not at all)?” is the most important question a Fungal Dwarf player needs to answer every turn.
A fungal colony needs to be formed around Kuldak, both to protect him as the king piece and to be able to trigger Blood Bloom.
The placement of Kuldak is crucial and will determine the flow of the game, knowing where to place Kuldak is without a doubt the hardest skill a Fungal Dwarf player needs to master to play effectively. “Where should I move Kuldak (or not at all)?” is the most important question a Fungal Dwarf player needs to answer every turn.
The key unit of the Fungal Dwarves. Blood Bloom generates boosts, but you need to use them, and the main use of the boosts are the Spore Carriers, with 3 boosts making these inexpensive 0 cost units into very efficient Fungal Beasts. Fungal Dwarves want to quickly populate the board with these cheap units to both have a use for the boost and have a cheap way to trigger it. Try to summon as many as these as possible, they are good to trigger deaths, good to use boosts, and very efficient on their own as 0 cost 2/2 is great stats.
Don’t be afraid to kill them yourself with your own attacks to trigger Blood Bloom.
Don’t be afraid to kill them yourself with your own attacks to trigger Blood Bloom.
The inevitably linked-to-Spore Carriers-unit is the Fungal Beast. Spore Carriers turn into Fungal Beasts. Fungal Beasts are actually very good units on their own if they can get a kill when they are in play, which is not hard with their 3 melee attack strength. This is the core force of the Fungal Dwarves. Their only weakness is that in a passive game they slowly start to decay but they shouldn’t decay much in an active battlefield.
Remember you can attack a Spore Carrier with a Fungal Beast, creating a fresh Carrier AND triggering Blood Bloom! This is the main way Fungal Dwarves can use their free attacks in a more passive game. But also in an active game you can do the following trick:
Attack with a Spore Carrier, kill that Carrier with your own Fungal Beast, then attack again with the fresh Carrier. This allows the faction to use all 3 attacks even having only access to a single flank of attack.
Tricks like this is what makes Fungal Dwarves the master of slow paced games.
Remember you can attack a Spore Carrier with a Fungal Beast, creating a fresh Carrier AND triggering Blood Bloom! This is the main way Fungal Dwarves can use their free attacks in a more passive game. But also in an active game you can do the following trick:
Attack with a Spore Carrier, kill that Carrier with your own Fungal Beast, then attack again with the fresh Carrier. This allows the faction to use all 3 attacks even having only access to a single flank of attack.
Tricks like this is what makes Fungal Dwarves the master of slow paced games.
A support unit that is actually pretty good in combat. Try to have one Blood Shaman always active on the battlefield, even if you don’t use it’s ability, they are a capable combat unit, but having the option to move a bunch of boosts to a more optimal place is very powerful and needed to create new Fungal Beasts from Spore Carriers or put enough boosts on a Beast to be able to summon the Monstrosity.
Blight Mages are kind of like plan B, as they are not a key part of the Fungal Dwarves’ engine like the previous 3 units. They are however a very safe bet that offsets the faction’s weaknesses. Blight Mages give Fungal Dwarves a very powerful ranged unit that has great stats and does not depend on the engine to be valuable. Don’t think you need to use their ability to summon Blight Mages as they are extremely efficient combat units. Consider Blood Imbue just a bonus that comes in handy sometimes.
If the most important unit is the Spore Carrier, then it’s reasonable that the Epic Event is … well more Spore Carriers! You definitely want to play both copies every game. The problem is sometimes finding 2 Spore Carriers to put in the discard pile early game, but other than that, play this card without care, 2 Spore Carriers for the price of 1 card is just too good. Of course it also functions to protect Kuldak, especially after he killed a unit, but again you don’t need to do that to want 2 carriers for the price of 1 card.
Perhaps everybody's favorite event, and yes, it’s very powerful. Extra attacks are always great, extra from the same unit, are even more so. It’s negative - losing the unit, can be a bonus for the Fungal Dwarves which like to see their own units dying, even more so if it’s to make a Spore Carrier die before the end of turn to become a Fungal Beast.
Remember you don’t need to choose a unit that already attacked, so it can allow you to attack with 4 different units.
Remember you don’t need to choose a unit that already attacked, so it can allow you to attack with 4 different units.
A very situational card. The reason is that it is hard to have multiple units that are damaged. But with just 2 targets it’s already good enough, and even with 1 target it’s still playable. You don’t need to find that dream of choosing 4 targets. It also can allow you to trigger Blight Mages without care that turn just for extra boosts.
Though Fungal Dwarves are not happy to spread out typically nor really want reach most of the time, Stimshrooms provide an undeniable threat in their deck. The opponent must be ever mindful that a Stimshroom-empowered unit does not have reach to where they were not expecting.
You don’t need much from this event to be worth it. If thanks to Stimshrooms your Fungal Beast can reach a target that will become a Spore Carrier, often that is all that is needed to justify playing this card.
You don’t need much from this event to be worth it. If thanks to Stimshrooms your Fungal Beast can reach a target that will become a Spore Carrier, often that is all that is needed to justify playing this card.
While Maldar is not the most powerful champion, it is definitely the most versatile and you will probably play it every game. It's cheap cost and good stats make it almost a must play. Its ability though is VERY powerful. Yes it requires a lot of positioning finesse but you don’t need to trigger it too many times to gain great value. Summon Maldar for cost and stats, then if you can put 2 boosts on a couple of Spore Carriers, all the better. Don’t be afraid to use it mostly as a boost production tool either, putting out 16 boosts for 4 magic is more than good enough if that is what you want to do and you are able to.
The big payoff of the Fungal Dwarves. It can be hard to pull it off, Monstrosity requires a lot of work, but the end result is worth it. Generally these guides don’t feature “current opinions of the playerbase”, but an exception is being made here because Monstrosity is quite possibly the most divisive Champion released so far. Some players worship Monstrosity as a key unit of Fungal Dwarves and play every game with the goal of getting it out, and then other players consider it a great but very situational - optional card.
It’s up to you to decide the right path on this one for yourself. But regardless if it’s worth pushing for it or just spotting the right time for using it situationally, it’s undeniably a game-winning condition of the Fungal Dwarves.
It’s up to you to decide the right path on this one for yourself. But regardless if it’s worth pushing for it or just spotting the right time for using it situationally, it’s undeniably a game-winning condition of the Fungal Dwarves.
Thoon is a “self-centered” champion. This is a champion that can win the game by himself but needs a lot of support. The key to making Thoon a star is to bring him into play, and use Blood Shamans to instantly give him lots of boosts, so that you can keep a 7 strength ranged attack. If you have that support and the magic, then summoning Thoon can be game winning. But if you don’t have the Shaman + boost to spare at the moment Thoon is in your hand, then you should probably pass on him.
The first thing to think about is where you ideally want kuldak to be, depending on the matchup. In general you want to be in the center where you can decide to push more or retreat on how the game goes. But if the opponent faction has a strong range and economy play you may want to push more aggressive. Against factions with more weak ranged game sitting back may be better as Fungal dwarves have a decent ranged game and a strong economy to force the opponent to attack.
Is important to have lots of units around Kuldak, which sometimes it's not easy early on. Need to burn very aggressive and spam units around it.
Don't be tempted to overextend, which is what smart opponents will try to do. Accept you will have to move slowly and use your Blood mages to keep fighting at range while you reposition. Also even if you are getting attacked, if you are summoning spore carriers and are farming boosts, you may generate more health than you are reciving damage. Specially with the help of Maldar.
A lot of the decisions Involving fungal dwarves is in what direction to move the Diamond, after that most decisions are tactical and depends on how the game flow.
Fungal dwarves need to play slow and with patience most of the time, even if sometimes can find good situations and matchups to pressure. Often sitting back and calmly farm your beats while you attack with blood shamans from range.
If this appeals to you, Fungal Dwarves provide one of the most unique experiences by far in Summoner Wars to date.
Is important to have lots of units around Kuldak, which sometimes it's not easy early on. Need to burn very aggressive and spam units around it.
Don't be tempted to overextend, which is what smart opponents will try to do. Accept you will have to move slowly and use your Blood mages to keep fighting at range while you reposition. Also even if you are getting attacked, if you are summoning spore carriers and are farming boosts, you may generate more health than you are reciving damage. Specially with the help of Maldar.
A lot of the decisions Involving fungal dwarves is in what direction to move the Diamond, after that most decisions are tactical and depends on how the game flow.
Fungal dwarves need to play slow and with patience most of the time, even if sometimes can find good situations and matchups to pressure. Often sitting back and calmly farm your beats while you attack with blood shamans from range.
If this appeals to you, Fungal Dwarves provide one of the most unique experiences by far in Summoner Wars to date.
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