This week's theme is Goblin Shaman! My fire card pool is extremely limited, but hey lookie-here it's one card that I actually have leveled and it's a good one! Goblin Shaman is a card with two very good abilities when maxed. It's basically the fire version of Undead Priest for the death splinter (trades 2 speed for 1 mana cost). The abilities are Slow (reduce all enemies by 1 speed) and Weaken (lowers max HP of all enemies by 1, is stackable). These 2 abilities are very nice in fire team compositions who generally rely on initiative and raw damage output to strike fast and
On to the battle!
The Ruleset
Back to basics and odd ones out. Boy this is a restrictive ruleset! this really reduces the number of options that I have, but basically there are going to be two ways to go about this. Rely on 1 big hitter (i.e. kron/robo-dragon/etc) or try to stall out with a mid mana tanker and try to squeeze out a small DPS in the back.
The Strategy
With the given ruleset, mana cost is a huge factor. 14 mana lends toward playing 2 ways. Go big with a solo frontliner (i.e. Kron the Undying, Hydra, etc.) or try to patch together a team of low cost cards and hope to out speed/dps the opponent. Paired together with back to basics and odd mana cost only, this really leaves limited strategy options. Since all abilities are stripped, this basically means many of the normally good cards are pretty lacking...it's all about base stats to cost here.
Given the cards I have at my disposal and the ruleset, I decided that I would try to put my best raw stat to cost monsters out front, then a HP soak, then a small mana damager in the back to hopefully clean up.
The Summoner
Malric Inferno is a 3 mana rare summoner that has the inspire ability (+1 to melee) ability. This card is a good match when you want to focus on melee monsters (or like me you just lack other fire summoner options). In reality, this is a pretty bad match up in back to basics since melee monsters can only attack from the 1st position without any ability to grant it ability to attack outside that position. But have to work with what I have!
1st Slot - Good stats for the cost
This bad boy is a beast in normal fire speed comps, but he's also actually pretty decent in back to basics because he just has really good stats for the cost. 7 HP is about average for 5 mana cards, but the 6 speed is a real standout as well as having 1 armor to potentially soak a big ranged attack. His normal role is a bit different but here I just used him because there really are few monsters who have better stats at 5 mana.
2nd Slot - The Stall
For this comp the goal here is to whittle down the opponent and while the Soldier up front can put in work, I really need to try and protect the back damager to live as long as possible here for as little mana as I can. Goblin Shaman plays this role really well, whether it has abilities or not. it has 6 health, decent speed, and 1 magic attack. Can't really ask for more at 3 mana. Other options are things like Dwarven Wizard with 5 hp and 1 more attack, but there really aren't too many monsters with good stats at 3 mana, as this often times is a utility slot.
3rd Slot Tiny DPS
Next up is the DPS. With such a small mana pool, you really only have 2 options, a 3 mana DPS or a 5 mana DPS. I preferred the speed associated with the Imp and the ability to bypass armor of the Imp here. Normally used for it's speed ability, it still works pretty well without any ability.
The Battle
The battle unfolds pretty much as expected. 1 tank, 1 HP stall, 1 DPS. A pretty mirror idea, although they chose to go more focused on the stall with Lord Aranthius (more HP, but no attack)...In this case, the Peaceful Giant (+7 hp vs LA) would have been the optimal choice, but I guess I got lucky they didn't have it.
Round 1:
Ok starting off, I have 7 damage, 15 hp. They have 6 damage 24 hp. It's not really looking good, but my advantage here is that they have a bad lineup arrangement. The DPS (Goblin Sorcerer) is in the 2nd slot, when in reality it should be 3rd. While Earth Elemental in the back is a ranged and will not attack in the front, it has so much more HP than the sorcerer who will die in 1 or 2 hits. Knowing that the opponent is under the same restrictions as you, they will probably have about the same amount of attackers/defenders as you, so you want that damage to last as long as possible. In his arrangement, he can take around 5 hits before doing 0 damage, versus me who will probably take around 9 before I do no damage. Well, let's see how this plays out....
At the end of Round 1, obviously with no abilities it's pretty easy to solve what's going to happen. I deal 7 damage to LA, I take 3 damage from Goblin Sorcerer (Earth Elemental just hits armor this turn). And indeed, this outcome happens (40% dodge chance from Earth Elemental hit did not matter here)
Round 2:
Speed advantage for the win here, as I kill his LA immediately to get more damage in on the Sorcerer this round.
Round 3:
I get the 40% dodge here, and my Soldier lives to fight another round. With that, it's over, the sorcerer goes down, and he folds.
Down goes the opponent!
And winner winner chicken dinner!
The Wrap
Overall, I think this battle highlights how you have to map out your win conditions in these super limited sets. My image is I needed damage, and using a straight tank up front for HP soaking wasn't efficient. If you were to replay that with a Peaceful Giant, I actually win with same attack RNG because of the Goblin Sorcerer being the 2nd slot instead of the 3rd. It would go:
Rd 1:
Giant - 17 -> 10 (-4,-1,-2)
Soldier - 7 -> 4 (-3, -0)
Rd 2:
Giant - 10 -> 3
Soldier - 4 -> 1 (-3, 0 (dodged))
Rd 3:
Giant - 3 -> 0 (soldier attacks)
Soldier - 1 -> 0 (Sorcerer attacks)
Sorcerer - 4 -> 1 (-2, -1)
Goblin Shaman - 6 -> 3 (-3)
Rd. 4:
Shaman 3 -> 0 (sorcerer kill)
Sorcerer 1 -> 0 (imp kill)
Rd 5-9:
Imp kills Earth Elemental
However, if you switch that around, the opponent wins because that 3 damage per turn adds up faster than the HP is going down. But alas, the opponent misplay is my gain. But it does show the importance of placement in your comp.
Chickens BBQ'd: 0 T_T