Hello Battlemages!
This week we go with Dragons, and I want particularly to honor my first Legendary pulled from a pack, not longer than 2 weeks ago! The Carnage Titan!
The card
The Carnage Titan is a big monster costing 11 mana.
For that cost, he comes with a massive 7 Armor and 8 Health, a decent speed of 3 and 2 Melee Damages even more valuable due to his ability. Reach, that is he can attack while in second position and most of all: Double Strike, that is he strikes twice!
The Double Strike allows him to waste less damages on armor, compared to one attack of 4 damages.
Moreover, he gets a third point of damage at level 2, that is 6 damages per turn.
At final level 4, it is 8 points of damage per turn, plus he gets the Shield ability, taking only half physical damages.
All in one, he's probably the best off-tank in the game! Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!
The battle
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_9f67f0f4101aeea757648a2c29859d54&ref=engilhramn
The battle is played in Modern Silver. It is opened to any splinter except Life, has a 54 mana cap and has the Close Range ruleset: ranged units can still attack in first position.
The line up
With such a high mana cap, it's time to make use of the big dragons! And with the Close Range ruleset, it's more likely that we will find ranged units on the field. The perfect summoner for the job is then...
Quix the Devious! The malus to speed will help attack first and hopefully kill first. And the malus to range attacks should prove handy with this ruleset.
I then went with the Water splinter, because yeah, Water monsters are good, specially with a high mana cap.
So I went with:
First position: Djinn Chwala: high armor, high health, and nasty Thorns, everything to make a good nasty tank
Second position: Carnage Titan: Reach and Double Strike, what to ask more to an off-tank? And then, when he goes to first position, he has a massive 7 points of armor and can tank just as well!
Third position: Djinn Oshannus: another big boy, the magic attack is specially important to go through armor
Fourth position: Deeplurker: everyone's favorite I guess. The Opportunity ability allows to get a kill (and so reduce the attacking power of the opponent) as fast as possible.
Fifth position: Nerissa Tridawn: a big magic attack of 3 damages, again, we will surely face big tanks, we need to hit under the armor
Last position: Wave Brood: because of the Taunt, I want to preserve my tank (and so the use of its Thorns) as long as possible
My opponent went with a Water team.
Kelya Frendul as summoner
Diemonshark and Flying Squid, as the classical Water front
Djinn Oshannus and Deeplurker, for the same reasons than me I guess
Then River Hellondale, with Resurrect, that will make me waste a few attacks
And finally Axemaster, that's nasty with the Close Range ruleset!
Round 1
My Taunting Wave Brood took all the attacks and is barely left alive, while in face Diemonshark has still some Armor on. My Djinn Chwala and Carnage Titan both missed one attack, that's not the greatest start...
Round 2
My Wave Brood died at the first strike of the Axemaster, while Diemonshark is ressurected by Hellondale, with full armor of course, and my Deeplurker targeted it, of course! That Opportunity is so annoying sometimes!
Djinn Chawala is killed by the Flying Squid with, well, not so much success with its Thorns. So the Carnage Titan takes its place and receive its first hit. Hopefully my Nerissa finally kills Diemonshark. We are both down our tank, but I lost my Taunt also...
Round 3
Ha! The Flying Squid is taken down by the Double Strike of the Carnage Titan, although the combined magic attacks of the opponent left him barely alive, and with the speed of Djinn Oshannus, he will be dead first thing on the next round.
Round 4
The Titan is down and it starts to smell bad for my team. My Deeplurker managed to kill Hellondale before he could attack though, so it's not so bad.
Round 5
I don't like my odds. My Deeplurker will die first and that's a serious damage power that will be lost, while the opponent's one will be free to hit.
And to add to that, the last strike of my Deeplurker will be against armor!
Round 6
We all can see here than my Deeplurker will die, and I need my 2 magic attacks to get rid of Oshannus.
Round 7
I don't like that. My Djinn will die and I will be left with one monster against two. Even though Nerissa has some nice Health and Attack, not sure it will be enough.
Oh! Deeplurker missed! That's game changing!
Round 8
Ok, now the victory is ensured!
Takeaway
That was close!
Let's calculate if the opponent's Deeplurker hadn't missed. Nerissa to 4 Health and kills Deeplurker. Then Nerisa to 2 Health and Axemaster to 2 Health. I would have lost.
And that is, with the -1 to Range attack from Quix! It spared me 2 points of damage per round!
I have to recognize, MVP here is Djinn Oshannus, his speed saved me. But the opponent put a really hard team to crack, my Dragons couldn't shine here but I still really like this duo Djinn Chwala-Carnage Titan. So happy I found one!