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If this sounds familiar, then don’t fret, that’s a common experience. Understanding how the Summoner works reveals an important flaw to shore up and a vital advantage to exploit. The Summoner can beat the game with very few upgrades unlocked, so it’s a key class to first beating Tainted Grail: Conquest.
Select A Golem But Keep It Unleveled
There is a balance to the Summoner. They can have unlimited levels on their minions, but every hit on a minion also hurts the Summoner based on the level of the minion that was struck. This is supposed to scare gamers away from making a minion too strong, but there is a simple way around it.
Select a Golem as the starting minion, but leave it at the minimum level. That way, all damage is taken by a Golem that doesn’t give too much back to the Summoner. This immediately makes the SUmmoner one of the best character classes in the game.
Put Barriers On The Summoner
Of course, even with a minimum Golem, some damage will still be given to the Summoner, even if it is very small. And, of course, a minimum Golem is subject to instant death from tougher opponents, so when a Golem isn’t blocking, the Summoner will need to brace for impact.
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Thankfully, the class is given many barrier cards. Use all of these cards on the Summoner every turn they are in the hand and pick up runestones to supplement these. It beats getting whittled down while farming all of the currencies in the game. If the Summoner is regularly taking damage, something went wrong.
Bury Promotions Into An Abomination Or Wyrm
With the Golem established and the Summoner protected, the fun part of the class is seeing exactly how many promotions a given unit can get. By putting all of these promotions into a Wyrm or Abomination, the numbers have a higher ceiling than any of the summoning classes.
This isn’t hard to execute. Promotional cards are common in the starting deck and get more plentiful with time. The ultimate ability adds levels to minions. By using the Master-At-Arms upgrades, players can start with a promotion in the hand.
Level 10 - Glyphs Of Enhancing
Wyrm applies vulnerable at four marks instead of six.
Even if the Abomination is the player’s choice for damage, the Wyrm gets the nod on the first mastery. The Abomination mastery gives it a 200% damage boost that ends after one activation, which is absurdly weak. The other mastery increases the Golem’s retaliation, which is, once again, not great.
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The Wyrm adding vulnerable to targets more easily enhances the damage of all units, not just the Wyrm. It’s a benefit that eclipses the other options here and though it may require investing a handful of activation in the Wyrm, it will be worth it since even a level one Wyrm can apply the mark.
Level 20 - Glowing Runestones
One of the level twenty masteries can be ruled out immediately. Sigils applying to all minions means promotions for the Golem, which means more damage for the Summoner. Overcharged Runestones duplicates effects, but even that’s not as optimal as Glowing Runestones.
By reducing the cost of sigils by one and drawing a sigil card every time one is played, players can realistically play all of their sigils on every turn. That makes for a minion fit to rip the bosses in half after only a couple of rounds.
Tainted Grail: Conquest was released on May 27th, 2021, and is available for PC.
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