Card Highlights #18: Soul Fiend

“Every war in history was fought by the cannon fodder. All for the benefit of someone who stayed safe and above it all. They get you into the fight with high-flown rhetoric, and then they blood you, don't they? They make sure you've seen a friend's blood and drawn blood from an enemy. You're pushed into their fight, but now you've lost people, so now it's personal. Now it's too late to get out because you've done things ... unimaginable things." — Michael Grant
Cannon fodders, in games, refer to monsters or defense who are meant to die. They are there to mostly defend but have little to no value allowing you to mass produce them while losing almost no resources. In Splinterlands, they are normally those 0 and 1 mana cost monsters with little to almost no stats that is used to delay the game by absorbing damage. You can think of them as if you combine them all together, they make one whole defense of a tank.

Lore

Within the Realm of Chaos resides Uul, an eldritch dark god that has consumed countless realities.
It is this ancient entity of madness and despair that Silus of the Rift called upon to fulfill his plans of conquest. What Silus offered was of great interest to Uul: to feed upon The Source. To taste mana from the Well which had been forever beyond its enormous reach.
And so the elder god of a thousand screaming worlds gazed upon a single point of pure, primal energy, its power a familiar echo of the creation of All. When Silus opened the Gateway, Uul knew that its enormity could never pass through the revealed portal; however, that did not mean it could not make its presence known in the world beyond.
The Shade of Uul took shape within the Splinterlands and gave unto Silus a horrific gift. By twisting and corrupting the six primary elements of magic, a brood of Fiends was created, each a grotesque representation of a different form of magic. Fueled by the power of Uul, the Fiends are a nightmare to behold.
It is said to gaze upon a Fiend is to stare into the face of utter Hopelessness and know that the End has come.
Soul Fiend is far trickier than the other Fiends. It has an alabaster appearance wreathed in light, making the unsuspecting believe it is some angelic being. The Soul Fiend takes advantage of this, luring people in before it attacks. As it fights with savagery and light magic, it saps the physical strength from its enemies.
The Chaos Legion sends the Soul Fiend out into populated environments. It will appear to a single person or small group of people in the middle of the night, glowing within the shadows like some sort of celestial spirit. And after the attack is finished, the only thing left is a mess of blood.

Rental Cost

The rental price is quite low and a good way to test if Soul Fiend is to your liking. The lowest rent for Soul Fiend right now is 1.66 DEC per day and if you have funds, it would be wise to rent this guy while you're in leagues silver and below.

Buy/Sell Cost

With 0 mana and a legendary, there's no surprise that Soul Fiend's price is high. There's a research that those people who used Furious Chicken, another 0 mana card, in battle had an additional 54% increased win rate in Silver and below. This makes you see how useful this card is for being able to be used in every light battles.

Card Stats

Soul Fiend's stats are very low. This is the light version of Furious Chicken in which used as a soft blocker and cannon fodder. His job in battle is not to do damage but to take a shot or two for your team.

Card Effect

Swiftness || All friendly Monsters have increased Speed.
Swiftness is a good bonus ability for Soul Fiend. This allows your team to have better dodge chance and probably act first which is one of the major advantages of Light element. Light Element has probably the best snipers and range units in the game. Allowing them to act first reduces your opponent's overall damage, which also converts mostly into wins.

When to use

|| Monsters get +2 added to their armor stat.
With Armored up, Soul Fiend would now have extra 2 armor. That means instead of dying in 1 hit, he may survive for 2 or more hits as long as it's not magic damage. The extra 2 armor might be what you need to delay fight and win games.

|| The initial Health of all Monsters is equal to that of the Monster on either team with the highest base Health.

0 mana cards and Equaliser goes hand in hand. It means that you technically get a free blocker for the game when this rule set is on board. I don't need to highlight or explain how a 0 mana cost, with or without damage but with 10 health can increase your chance of winning.

|| All monsters get the Divine Shield ability. The first time the Monster takes damage from a monster it is ignored. It works in Earthquake but NOT Noxious Fumes.

The same with Armored Up Rule Set but with some few changes. Holy Protection gives you Divine Shield buff that allows Soul Fiend to survive any damage for 1 turn. This assures your Soul Fiend to take at least 2 turns or 2 attacks before he dies.

When not to use

|| All monsters start the game poisoned and will take 2 damage each turn unless cleansed. Big HP and cleanse are going to be your best bet here. However there may be some cases where you ignore and go for a big offensive attack and wipe out your opponent before the poison becomes a factor. Noxious Fumes || All monsters start the game poisoned and will take 2 damage each turn unless cleansed. Big HP and cleanse are going to be your best bet here. However there may be some cases where you ignore and go for a big offensive attack and wipe out your opponent before the poison becomes a factor.
I always use Truthseeker alongside Soul Fiend for that extra 2 armor. The reasoning is the same as what I indicated above for Armored Up. However, Noxious Fumes passes through armor and regardless of if Soul Fiend gets hit or not, he would die in 1 round with Noxious Fumes.

|| Monsters with Melee attack type can't be used.

Being a melee monster, Keep your distance prohibits your Soul Fiend to be used. It's not a big deal but not being able to use an extra monster for free hurts in some battles.

|| Slower monsters attack first. Try to pick monsters with speeds of 1. Speed effects how soon your monster will attack in battle and how effective it is at evading attacks. So a monster with a speed of 1 would normally attack last now will attack first. A speed of 1 will also have the best chance of dodging if paired with evade and flying as well. || Slower monsters attack first. Try to pick monsters with speeds of 1. Speed effects how soon your monster will attack in battle and how effective it is at evading attacks. So a monster with a speed of 1 would normally attack last now will attack first. A speed of 1 will also have the best chance of dodging if paired with evade and flying as well.

This is a disadvantage for higher league. A free monster is a free monster. With his Swiftness ability increasing speed, it becomes a debuff when there's Reverse Speed Rule Set allowing your team to hit less opponents, and act later in the game than your opposing player.

Battle

Click here to view the replay

This is the positioning I used for this battle:

With this battle, I used what I and my friends call "Cannon Fodder Strategy," which we discovered last year. This strategy is very useful for low mana battles but can also be used in higher mana battles. This strategy revolves around using low mana monsters to swarm the field while your hitters, mostly Snipers, take care of everyone else. This is also a modified strategy adding Truthseeker for more defense than normal.

Round 1

With 3 to 4 layers of defense, this should be more solid than my opponent's Shieldbearer tank. By end of Round 1, Gargoya Scrapper dies allowing my Soul Fiend to now stand on the front line. Shieldbearer also absorbs damage going down to no armor but half health.

Round 2

By end of Round 2, Scavo Hireling was not able to keep the support making Shieldbearer die from high damage from Mantoid and Pelacor Arbalest. Soul Fiend's armor from Truthseeker's Protect ability also goes down along with his health making Chaos Agent stand in the front line.

Round 3

By end of Round 3, Chaos agent also falls but taking every opponent in the process with the damage from Mantoid and Pelacor Arbalest.

Disclaimer

• Battle photos are taken from Splinterlands in-game website. To view the full game, click on this link.

• I do not own any of the animated pictures. Visit Giphy to get more information.
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