Dashing

Dashing is an optional move where you sacrifice two stones, and then make one regular move. This means that unless you are earning a material advantage, dashing puts you down a stone. You need to dash strategically and sparingly – but when used properly dashing is a powerful tool in your arsenal.

Most often when you dash you’ll be looking to trade for a neutral stone advantage. That is, your dash move recoups the stones you sacrificed. However, sometimes you’ll dash going down a stone to claim a strategic advantage.

Let’s look at the most common times that you dash in a game of Sigil and think through some of the strategic implications.

Dash to Crush

Since dashing put you down a stone, the most common reason to dash is when you can immediately recoup the loss. Often this will be when you can dash and crush an opposing stone in the same turn.

The most common opportunities to dash to crush is when fighting over a mana or a contested 3-node spell.

Red could dash to crush Blue’s stone in Meteor while taking control of the spell.

It is often correct to dash to crush, when fighting over a contested mana or spell. You remove your opponent’s claim on that part of the board, and it becomes harder for your opponent to reclaim the mana or spell.

However, when to dash to crush isn’t always an easy decision. If a stone is surrounded and doesn’t have an easy path to open territory and escape, it gives you the opportunity to earn a stone advantage on a later turn by crushing it with a regular move.

Not dashing to crush gives your opponent the opportunity to sacrifice the lost stone for a dash on their turn – which while putting them down a stone could recoup some of the loss.

You need to weigh all these factors against the worth of the stones that you’d be sacrificing.

Increasing Spell Efficacy

Dashing for neutral or a positive stone exchange is the best case scenario – and what you should be looking for most times you consider a dash move. Sometimes this will mean dashing to increase the effects of a spell.

This could mean claiming a mana, moving into contact with more stones for Fireblast, pushing your opponent into another spell for Hailstorm, earning a better position for Carnage, or even changing your opponent’s stone configuration to earn a 3-stone Starfall.

Surrendering a Pseudo Lost Stone

Sometimes your stones will be surrounded and not have a path to be freed. I like to think of these as pseudo lost stones. While they haven’t been crushed yet, your opponent can crush them with a regular move later for a stone advantage.

Red’s stone is surrounded, making it a perfect candidate to dash away.

When you have lost stones you should consider sacrificing them for a dash move. Since you’ll eventually go down the stone no matter what, it’s usually worth gaining a tempo advantage. There are exceptions when your opponent is pressured to fight over other contested territory – but they are less common.

Dash for Tempo

Tempo is the idea of how many moves each player needs to execute a plan. We covered it in depth in a previous article (Tempo Advantage). Dashing can gain you tempo by accelerating the turns it takes to execute a plan (cast a spell, surround your opponent, etc).

Blue could dash to fill & cast grow, accelerating their path towards the neutral mana (or Seal of Summer shenanigans).

A great example is when you have a single stone in a 3-node spell. Assuming you have the stones to spare, you can threaten a dash into casting the spell.

Dash to Deny a Spell

3-node spells hold an interesting role in Sigil as having a single stone on them allows you to cast them on a turn. That is, you can place a stone, and then dash to fill the spell.

Blue has a single stone in Fireblast, Red could dash to push Blue off of Fireblast. While the move would put Red down a stone, it may be worth it to deny Blue a tactical advantage.

Sometimes sacrificing a stone to dash and fully push your opponent out of a spell is advantageous compared to leaving your opponent access to the spell. This often also leaves you with two or three stones on the spell allowing you to threaten the spell.

What Stone to Sacrifice

Sigil is a battle over territory, and intrinsically different nodes are more or less valuable. While these values aren’t immutable, we can make a few generalizations.

Void nodes are nodes that aren’t part of spells or mana. These are generally the least valuable nodes. You should be looking to push your opponent’s stones into these nodes, and they should be your first choice for stones to sacrifice to a dash.

After void nodes, the most common stones you’ll be looking to sacrifice are stones in spells that you don’t expect to cast. They might be locked spells that you are far from filling, or static spells (like Seal of Wind) that in a given board state are similar to void nodes.

Whenever looking at which stones to sacrifice be aware of your and your opponents’ overall plan. If you are building towards a Fireblast, a stone near your opponent’s territory is much more valuable than a stone in your backfield. If your opponent has access to Hail Storm you are incentivized to remove your last stone in unimportant spells.

Dashing Simplifies the Board State

An interesting effect of dashing, especially when it is for a neutral stone advantage (i.e. dashing to crush) is that it simplifies the board state. Denying both players resources tends to favor the player who is already ahead on tempo and stones.

You should be more inclined to dash for Neutral stones when ahead, and less inclined to offer your opponent the same opportunity when you are behind.

Seal of Lightning

It’s hard to talk about dashing without talking about Seal of Lightning.

Seal of Lightning is one of the most interesting spells in the base game. It offers a completely different strategy compared to the other spells. The spell heavily favors racing your stones into your opponent’s territory and disrupting their spells.

Being able to dash for free every turn gives you a huge amount of tempo in a positioning fight over spells and mana. While your opponent has to go down a stone for a tempo advantage, you get to push in two stones a turn without a loss of stones on the board.

Of course, the ability to do so comes with the cost of having spent 5-turns filling Seal of Lightning instead of a spell with a more immediate impact.

It’s worth noting that Seal of Lightning doesn’t preclude you from casting other spells. When using Seal of Lighting, be on the lookout for opportunities pivot and fill and cast other spells instead of continuing to push into your opponents’ territory.

Slash & Surge

It’s important to always keep in mind the 1-Node spells that you and your opponent have access to – especially which spells are being backfilled when pushing into each other’s territory. Slash & Surge are especially important when considering dashing as they can turn a dash that puts you down a stone into a dash for neutral stones, or an advantage.

Problem of the Week

You are blue, it is your turn. What’s your play?

Blue has a commanding position in this game with a solid hold on two mana and access to a couple of high power spells with Starfall and Bewitch. On this turn you have a couple of options, first is to dash to fill and cast Bewitch for a neutral stone advantage. In this case you would most likely claim X1 & X3 (taking your opponent off Meteor). M3 & C1 (claiming the red mana) is somewhat viable, but leaves that mana vulnerable (although your follow up Starfall would likely seal the game). In this scenario, I believe that claiming Meteor would be a better move, as you retain a mana advantage and are close to casting another spell. Your other option is to not dash and instead cast Starfall for a two stone advantage. In this scenario you would drop your stones into X2 & V2, taking your opponent off of Meteor and setting yourself up for additional advantaged spells while gaining tempo against your opponent attacking Bewitch. In game I opted to Starfall into X2 and V2 (the bottom right node in Fireblast, and the empty node adjacent to Flourish). However, I think the optimal play would have been to Starfall into X3 and S1 (the bottom left node of Fireblast and onto Comet).

Let us know your plans in the comments or the Discord.