Introduction
Today I would like to talk about one of the most effective modern reward cards: Commander Slade. This card has always been a fun card to play but after Chaos Legion left Modern League this card became one of the most effective cards in the game.
Commander Slade
Commander Slade is a Rebellion Reward card that for ten mana comes with the following base specifications: five melee damage, seven shield, six speed and ten health points.
It also comes with the following abilities:
Enfeeble - reduces opponent's melee power by one after each successful attack
Dodge - has a 25% chance of avoiding physical attacks
Deflect - Doesn't take damage from thorns, return fire, blast splash, magic reflect or corrosive ward.
Backfire - When enemy unit misses this ability deals 2 physical damage to the enemy
This is an impressive set of base specs as well as great abilities. In the next section I would like to explore what cards pair really well with Commander Slade and why.
Best Cards to Pair with Commander Slade
When it comes to cards that pair best with Commander Slade I believe that two summoners really stand out: Cryptic and Elias Max Pruitt.
Each of the summoners determines the best complimentary cards that you can play with Commander Slade to achieve the most effective use of this card. When you play Commander Slade you play it for his ability to avoid hits or for his ability to deliver major damage or for both.
If you are playing the un-hittable tank strategy you are more likely to go with the Cryptic summoner as this summoner reduces the speed of all opponents by one and also makes them blind.
I don't have a maxed out Cryptic, so I rarely play this strategy.
And if you are playing the maximum damage dealer strategy you should be picking Elias Max Pruitt as he add one melee damage to Commander Slade and more importantly gives Commander Slade Armored Strike and one extra armor that is good for an extra eight damage per turn.
Another key card that I like to play with Commander Slade is Daarg Deadblast this card has two very important abilities one is swiftness and the other one is weapons training that enables me to bring in a couple more speed control cards into the mix and weapons train them: Daigendark Surveyor and Yaba's Pickle.
Surveyor is a great small mana card which has stun, magic reflect and slow abilities which really help speed up Commander Slade relative to his opponents.
Yaba's Pickle is another great support card that slows the opponent as well as is a very resilient card as it has self heal, shield and evasiveness.
I was also lucky to get a black foil version of this card, so I get a very nice black foil and promo card bonus that is good for a 30% boost in SPS and Glint earnings.
And finally in battles where we can expect magic damage dealers on the other side Jicarilla the Rime is a great companion card to Commander Slade as it gives Commander Slade a Phase ability or ability to avoid magic attack as well as it has a tank heal ability so when Commander is hit she can heal him. This card is even more effective when played with the Cryptic summoner.
The Battle
Link to the Battle Featuring Commander Slade
The one card I have not mentioned above that I frequently play with Commander Slade is Coralforged. This card gives Commander Slade the ability to strike from the second position so it keeps this high damage monster in game longer and it definitely best used with the maximum damage strategy than with the un-hittable strategy.
Here in this battle against JunJun01 Scholar I am using a high damage strategy with Commander Slade.
In the first round our team did a lot of damage to their tank, but Doldrus and Grimbardun Smith are definitely keeping this tank in the game by healing it and repairing the armor.
At the same time their Grove Doomblade is doing a lot of damage to my backline taking out one of the blackline monsters already.
In the second round we finally get rid of their tank but lost another backline monster.
Third Round definitely showed the power of Commander Slade as we were able to get rid of Doldrus and another monster from their team.
In the third round we finally eliminated the last damage dealer on their team and now our victory is only a matter of time.
It was a nice win against a significantly higher ranked scholar that brought us almost twenty six SPS tokens!