High Elves

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The High Elves Resolve / Divine deck focuses on three commons with powerful auras (called laws) that affect other commons (including enemies), making it very important to consider where every common is on the battlefield.  This is a faction with a high focus on controlling space, keeping your laws around and taking advantage of them while denying your opponent the opportunity to do so. 

High Elves is a versatile faction with mid-range focus, yet capable of both long-range fighting and brawling at melee range, but preferring to keep the flexibility to adjust and readjust the space between units to shape the battlefield with their laws.
Arbiter of Peace and Arbiter of War create a defensive and offensive law respectively, and friendly units covered by both become very unfairly efficient units, even more unfair when you heal them with the Attendant Priest and Cassia the Gentle. 
These units can be boosted yet more with two events, Law of Loyalty and Law of Liberty. This is how High Elves win the economy war, by creating unfairly strong commons through their laws and positioning that favors them more than the opponent.

The High Elves are an extremely tactical faction with a hyperfocus on unit positioning.  They have very specific tools for each job with a main plan based on Arbiter of Peace and Arbiter of War working together to generate overwhelming value.  High Elves as a faction can fight at long range or close range as the game requires, but they need to be fighting at all times as they lack big combos to set up or economic tools to exploit. If your opponent is not suffering the war of attrition, some factions can set up big combos or an economy that will overwhelm the High Elves.
Valeria the Just
Valeria is both a support and combat summoner. While most of the time she will act as a support summoner, she can do combat well against enemy commons when the situation calls for it.

As a support she can help reposition units after she moves, especially allowing some friendly units to move one extra space giving High Elves some needed reach, something you often want particularly with Arbiter of Justice. She can do it again when attacking, even attacking a friendly gate if necessary to get this effect.

She is also the best tool High Elves have against over-aggression, her combat ability against commons allows her to do a lot of damage to them, often being able to kill a common unit by just moving next to it.  This makes it very hard to rush the High Elves, something many factions want to do to take advantage of the Arbiter of Peace and Arbiter of War auras. 

Arbiter of Peace
While High Elves are a very cohesive faction, it is this unit that drives their strategy more than any other. Law of Fortitude is very powerful and because it’s a ranged unit it’s easier to help only your own units and still be an active participant in combat. If only your units are affected by the aura, no unit can match the amount of value this unit brings to its faction. To give some perspective, without affecting the opponent it’s a 2/4 ranged unit that gives +1 life to all friendly units in its range every turn!
This unit is the reason that the High Elves ranged game is very strong. Your opponent is kind of forced to position their units in a way that is not easy for the High Elves player to have a unilateral advantage of the law. 
Try to have at least one of these units out and don’t be afraid to have several of them out. The law they bring is the core to this faction’s strength.
Arbiter of War
Like Arbiter of Peace, Arbiter of War is also key to the faction’s performance. Without the aura they bring, High Elves struggle to do a high amount of damage. While this is a melee unit it is actually a predominantly support unit that should be hidden most of the game. Unlike the aura from Arbiter of Peace, it is very easy for the opponent to take advantage of this one if they manage to place units into range and for that reason one should be careful to not give good options to the opponent, even if sometimes it will be inevitable.
Ironically for their names, the Arbiters of Peace will often be attacking round after round, but Arbiters of War are generally hidden behind lines just supporting the Arbiters of Peace, since as mentioned, allowing the opponent to take advantage of this aura is too powerful and should be minimized whenever possible.
Arbiter of Justice
The only true melee combatant in the deck has a very interesting role of disrupting enemy units. Arbiter of Justice is happy to stand in key positions to make it hard for the opponent to attack without suffering damage. On its own it’s already a decent unit, but that becomes very good when supported with healing and auras of this faction.

This unit is a great front-liner and gate-blocker that your opponent needs to focus fire down so that their commons don’t damage themselves too much. Try to have one right up in the enemy lines most of the time to make it very hard for the opponent to attack efficiently with their commons.
Attendant Priest
A unit that can seem innocuous and probably would be in other factions, is a very useful unit in the High Elves faction.
A cheap body that can be summoned anywhere proves to be great in a deck that can easily buff its units and where common positioning is very important. Its healing also proves great in combination with Arbiter of Peace as a healing unit with a Law of Fortitude is a powerful effect.
Oblige
The epic event of Valeria and extremely versatile, it will be hard to not find a use and thus generally worth keeping in hand whenever drawn. The list of uses is extensive but being able to reposition units on the attack phase is a proven potent effect in Summoner Wars and this is just a great iteration of it.
The most powerful use is the most obvious one: take the best common of the opponent and bring it next to Valeria for the team to decimate the poor soul.
Law of Liberty
A symmetrical effect that must be used with caution, this event can be very strong at the right time but can also be very dangerous / risky. The ability of an Attendant Priest to be summoned in many places can often be key to maximizing this event’s potential.  You can also move Valeria to reposition a common to be able to attack and thus use the advantage of Law of Liberty maximally.
Using this event often is a matter of finding the right moment where at least 2 of your commons don’t need to move and you can transform those moves into attacks. Being able to transform the attacks into movement has its uses too. But always be mindful of the likelihood of your opponent utilizing this event to their advantage.
Law of Loyalty
While this effect is not that powerful and is symmetrical, it will last 2 turns. Keep in mind it works for your commons also when they are adjacent to your opponent’s summoner which makes it a usual finisher of games when you want your commons attacking the enemy summoner.
The most frequent use of this event is to punish a player who has their summoner hidden and / or doesn’t have commons and then you can use this event two turns with relative impunity as long as you position Valeria correctly.
Both Law of Liberty and Loyalty require commons for your opponent to take advantage of, but commons are something for which High Elves have great tools to punish with Valeria, Oblige and Arbiter of Justice. So if your opponent is not using many commons which makes those key cards not as effective, try to use both of these laws to take advantage of that.
Law of Sanctity
A very powerful symmetrical event that is great to punish an opponent summoner that does not want to participate. If that is the case, Valeria can jump in the fray of battle with a high level of impunity, decimating enemy commons and your opponent won’t be able to take advantage of this event.
Even if the opponent summoner is in the fray of battle you may want to use this event to be able to get Valeria in and kill enemy commons, but beware as some summoners are just as or even more scary than Valeria when they are protected!
If you need Valeria to jump in to clear out enemy commons, often this event will give her the protection she needs to not worry about the counterattacks. 
Albus the Wise
This is going to be your most often summoned champion, not only because of his versatility both as a support and combat unit, but because his cheap cost works great with the High Elves plan of having a lot of commons on the battlefield.

Don’t be afraid of having Albus just sitting back supporting your units where he is more comfortable. He has many situational uses, especially disabling opponent abilities during your turn, but his core use is to deactivate either the Law of Fortitude on an enemy common or Law of Atonement on one of your units. While it may not seem a great effect, the fact that you can do it every turn without really risking Albus accumulates a lot of value for a cheap cost. Albus will generally prove extremely efficient over time.
Cassia the Gentle
A more difficult champion to set up, but also one possessed of a high potential. 
Cassia can be hard to use for risk of helping the enemy commons and thus she needs a lot of space and control of the board to get her best potential. She combines extremely well with both Law of Atonement and Law of Fortitude. Neutralizing the Law of Atonement can make the Arbiter of Justice very efficient, but healing units with Law of Fortitude every turn can prove to be a truly overwhelming advantage.
A line of ranged units with Law of Fortitude supported by Cassia the Gentle is often a game winning strategy.
Titus the Devout
Probably the least exciting of the champions because he doesn’t combine well with the common plan, especially because he is expensive. However, his role is to be a champion that is great against factions that try to overwhelm you with their commons. His expensive cost is not going to be that relevant in such a case and in combination with Valeria, the two can become a devastating meat grinder for enemy commons rushing at you trying to take advantage of your laws.
The first priority of the High Elves is to have at least one Arbiter of Peace and one Arbiter of War out and to keep them alive so the rest of your commons are very efficient. Most of your games will start bringing one of each out to create a ranged line of fire, and trying to have at least one Arbiter of Justice on the front line, thus making it very hard for the opponent commons to attack.

If the opponent comes at you with commons trying to take advantage of your auras, this is then where the summoner Valeria shines. A combat / support summoner that is especially strong at destroying commons, with the help of Oblige and Law of Sanctity, she can become the ultimate common killer.

One needs to be mindful when is the right time for Valeria to jump in and out to kill enemy commons. Until then, use Valeria as support as the extra movements she can give to friendly units is very valuable.

Even without Valeria, Arbiter of Justice can make it very hard for melee commons to sustain an offensive and the champion Titus the Devout can completely stall an overly aggressive enemy offensive.

While High Elves can be very aggressive when necessary and opportune using Valeria + Sanctity + gates and Arbiters of Justice supported by auras, they are not particularly fond of that strategy. As mentioned before they are a versatile faction which doesn’t have a particular tendency to aggression or defense, but rather a focus on managing and controlling space. The goal is to have their units in the perfect position to have friendly commons under positive auras and the enemy commons under their negative aura. If they manage that they can have significantly more efficient units than the other factions.

The High Elves' disadvantage is that if the game slows down, they don’t have a plan B. Their plan A is to fight and by that plan they will win or lose. 

While their approach to the game is kind of linear, they have the tools to face the different threats that the other factions of Summoner Wars have to offer.

When playing High Elves, the correct position of the units and understanding where to move them is what will define your game results. Also knowing when to bring out each of the tools is very important as most of their tools are powerful yet offset by a backfire potential.

Because High Elves lack tricks or economy tools and have a strong focus on the tactical placement of the pieces from both sides, controlling space becomes fundamental, very much as if one were playing chess.
You could indeed say that High Elves are the closest to playing chess that a faction in Summoner Wars feels so far.

If you greatly enjoy thinking thoroughly about where common units should end the turn and thinking about your opponent’s position as well as yours, then High Elves is a faction that will promise a lot of fun.
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