The tips and possible advises in this article are designed for Bronze League, in which I am in right now.
Commander Slade’s 5 melee damage is very strong especially for a tank that also have high speed, high health and good armor. This allows him to become a threat while still being hard to kill. His damage also scales well with modifiers like Explosive Weaponry, making every blast hit more dangerous.
Enfeeble is Commander Slade’s strongest ability because it directly lowers the enemy’s melee damage every time he attacks. This makes him much harder to take down over time. While the decrease is one damage each round, it's still a strong ability especially when the fight drags on.
Briar Patch |
All monsters on the board gains the Thorns ability that inflicts 2 melee damage to monster with melee damage attacking this monster: Commander Slade is not affected by Thorns because of Deflect which lets him attack safely despite the modifier being against melee monsters. This allows him to keep dealing damage without taking extra damage back. | |
Explosive Weaponry |
All monsters on the board gains the Blast ability that inflicts half the damage to the monsters beside the target: Deflect blocks Blast damage from the opponent's attacks keeping Commander Slade safe from indirect hits. His high melee damage also turns into strong Blast damage against opponent's teams. | |
Fog of War |
Removes the Snipe, Sneak and Opportuniy abilities for this battle.: When used as a tank enemies are forced to attack Commander Slade directly because Snipe, Sneak and Opportunity abilities will not work in this modifier. This gives Dodge and Backfire more chances to trigger and punish missed attacks. |
Flank: [Attack Modifier] Melee monsters next to this card gains Reach ability. This monster must be on 1st position to activate this effect. Tips: Flank adds another unit in front of Commander Slade giving him more time to work and deal damage. This makes him harder to remove from play and helps him survive longer. |
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Blind: [Stat Modifier] [Negative Status] As long as this monster is alive, all opponent monsters get Blinded status. Blinded monsters have reduced max hit chance of 15%. Tips: Blind lowers enemy accuracy, which works perfectly with Dodge. More missed attacks also mean Backfire triggers more often. |
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Resurrect: [Stat Modifier] The first time that another friendly monster dies from an attack, immediately restore its health by 1 with max armor. Tips: Resurrect brings Commander Slade back with 1 health but full armor even if he dies. This gives him another chance to tank and deal damage again. |
My usual main strategy for Back to Basics modifier is just use monsters with better stats. It's like fighting in Standard modifier but without abilities. Just make sure that the usual mechanics is always in check like melee monsters cannot attack while not in 1st position, range monsters cannot attack while in 1st position and monsters with magic damage can do whatever they wanted to do.
The opponent and I had a relatively similar amount of damage. I think they would've won if they had Marlai Singariel as their archon but fortunately they didn't. The battle went quite close though but I think they are playing on auto pilot and forgot about the modifier because they put their Shock Trooper in the middle when the safeest placement is on the last since there would be no Sneak or any shenanigans in this battle due to the Back to Basics modifier. Even so I chose this battle as an example to show that almost all players use Commander Slade as one of their tanks just because of how strong and useful he has as long as you can accomodate his relatively high mana cost.
Commander Slade works best as a front fighter tanking the enemy attacks. His abilities reward long fights and punish missed attacks but even without it, he's stats are strong enough to carry. This makes him very reliable in many modifiers.
The rest of the team supports him with magic damage as multiple walls are laid behind him. Together, they all create a balanced and steady lineup. Without any tricks, I would say that this team is very hard to break and lose.
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