Sneak attacks can be incredibly effective in any battle, no matter the mana set. Your opponent won't necessarily know it's coming either, adding to the effectiveness of the tactic. Often you will face well stacked front ranks with maybe a tank in position one followed by a strong monster with reach, and these can weather a lot of damage. Other times there may be a high speed front rank like Djinn Oshannus who will dodge most of your efforts to hit him whether you use conventional melee/range or magic attacks. When this is the case you will often generally find that their rear guard holds the support monsters, maybe with a small buffer right at the back to guard against the sneak attacks. The strength of this rear guard can be dependant upon the mana restrictions set, so this buffer isn't always that strong and could simply be a Fiend or Furious Chicken. Never-the-less, sneak can be a very effective tactic to use against your foe. Let's take a look at some battles...

You can see here that my opponent deployed a very strong tank in the form of Chain Golem. Not only does it have Shield to protect against melee/range attacks, it also has Void to protect against magic attack courtesy of their summoner, Mimosa Nightshade. A tough one to break through. But look at their rear guard, a Furious Chicken. It will soak up one attack but that's it. Then I can get through to that annoying Halfling who was going to half the attack damage of my own tank. Sneak was absolutely instrumental in my victory in this line up, taking out two out of the three monsters I was facing in the first round! (Video below)

When my opponent's line up was revealed for this battle, I thought that I would be done for. It was a magic heavy force with Alric Stormbringer adding another point of magic damage to each monster, not what I had prepared or planned for! However, once the battle got underway it became clear that my sneak attack monsters, Uraeus and Iza the Fanged were vital in me snatching the victory. Uraeus' poison attacks together with Iza's stun were deadly, quickly taking out the Venari Wavesmith and getting rid of the Protect ability that was boosting the armour of the other monsters. And once I'd taken out the Axemaster, the low health Ice Pixie and Merdaali Guardian were quickly disposed of, leaving Djinn Oshannus to fight it out alone. So a stronger rear guard in this battle, but still lacking once my forces started to knock on that back door! (Video below)

So Sneak attacks can be very effective and do some serious damage to your opponent if they haven't prepared adequately. There is also the Super Sneak ruleset where all melee attack monsters have the sneak ability. This is generally a fairly obvious clue as to what you might face and you can choose a summoner that increases or reduces melee attack or use Mylor that gives your monsters the Thorns ability. The Shield ability also works well in the rear guard with this ruleset. Beware though, as you prepare for this onslaught to your backline, you may find that they switch things around and come at your front ranks with a heavy magic barrage!