How about them Dragons? Back then when I first started playing Splinterlands, I really loved Dragons. In the Untamed days, they were my favorite colors for 35+ mana battles because they just add so much versatility to any color. The dragons cards are huge and powerful so they are more usable in high mana battles.
In the current state of the game, I think Dragon is much stronger in Wild than Modern. In Wild, you get all the various dragon cards with all kind of different abilities to add to your team. The modern dragons are okay but not as impressive as they used to be. I feel like that's partially due to the quality of the newer cards in all other colors now compare to the time before Chaos Legion. The new reward, Chaos Legion, and Riftwatcher cards are so strong that you don't really need to have dragons to aid you in Modern.
Somehow, I find the cheaper Dragon cards more useful in Modern:
- Dhampir Infiltrator is a 4 mana card that can help any sneak team do a lot of work.
- Whelp Herder is like a Dragon's Serpentine Spy. Serpentine Spy is one of the most used 3 mana melee cards for Fire for a reason. Opportunity is just a very strong ability overall, especially in the lower ranks. Some of the strong backline cards have low HP and you can just take them out in 2 rounds with Opportunity. Herder makes every color have a Serpentine Spy -- and if you play Fire, you have two of them!
- Naga Assassin is less used, but it is the fastest 2 mana ranged attacker with 5 speed.
Meanwhile, the high mana cost cards are less useful or they are kind of serving the same purpose. My go-to combo is either Agor Darktail + Carnage Titan OR Robo-Dragon Knight + Carnage Titan. This is the most useful combo I have found among the 10+ mana dragons.
A big reason why Dragon is less used in Modern is partially due to the new summoners. They all have situationally useful abilities that might not be useful in some rules set. This makes Dragon less usable in general and takes away from their identity of versatility in my opinion.
When it comes to Wild though, I really love the Dragon summoners there. The three summoners with +1 to each specific attack type are just much easier to use in most situations.
I will be reviewing a Wild match and a Modern match in this post just to show how Dragon can do work in both formats.
First, we have a Wild format match. The rules are 56 mana with magic monsters banned and Opportunity enabled for every card.
This is our lineup for the match.
I go with Quix the Devious as it limits one of the two possible attack types that can be used in this match. Even if I am incorrect - and I did predict wrong as my opponent went with all melee - I can still cut down my opponent's speed.
I am going with a full Dragon lineup for this match and Djinn Chwala is just the best tank under 10 mana for Dragon. It packs a lot of health for survivability and it has Thorn. As my summoner is already limiting ranged monster, I put this up at front to punish melee monsters. This way, all the possible lineups my opponent can put up will be covered.
Carnage Titan is one of my favorite card with Reach in the Modern format. I think it's the best reach attacker out there with double strike and a relatively big body. With the opportunity rules set in play, I can put this at behind to let it survive longer. I decided against it and keep it in the second slot because I want it to tank for me after the main tank goes down. Do note that opportunity makes this card attacks the lowest HP monster even when it is at the second slot and can attack the front with reach.
I don't have the budget to rent level 2 but this card is already strong at level 1. It's huge and it's fast, enable it to take out opponent's low HP monsters before they can react.
I absolutely love the stun from this card but that's not why I play this card here. I play it because it has 6 speed. In the opportunity rules set, I want to take out my opponent before they can move to cut down my damage received per turn, so having all the fastest cards I can find is important to my strategy.
The Vigilator is not a card I used very often nowadays. I remember using it much more in the past but the newer cards is just much stronger than this card right now. This car is too soft to put up front for melee attack and 1 ranged damage is too low for backline. However, with the opportunity rules set, this monster is an all-out attacker who put out 4 attacks per turn.
The reason why I put this card at the very back is to prevent sneak attacks from going to my bigger monsters on turn 1. I love that this card has 5 HP at 3 mana cost. It can take a few hits before going down and it can hit well too.
The key factor of this battle is my speed advantage. My summoner neutralizes the opponent's speed boost and my whole team is faster than his. This is the situation on the battlefield after my opponent's first attack. I had already taken down two monsters in round 1 before that and have clear advantage over him.
They can only take out my weakest monster with all their attacks. My Dragon Jumper would be down to 2 HP but the attack missed it. It didn't matter a lot though because I would still move first with 2 HP.
My opponent is already done by now. I have clear speed and monster advantage by now and there's no coming back from this.
For a bonus battle, I want to showcase a skillful win in a Modern CL & RW only tournament.
I am not going to bother you with a full explanation this time but this is how I go into this match. I predict that my opponent is going for a magic team because Fire is not going to win over an Earth team running full magic in this format and rules set. So, the only way to win is to figure out how to put up a better magic team. I use Sthispa as summoner so I can dodge magic attack and have both Chaos Agent and Void Dragon up front to try to tank as much as possible. Sthispa giving Phase to my team makes Chaos Agent able to dodge magic attack. This is key to my strategy. Void Dragon is far from the most usable card normally, but in this game, it is the ultimate magic tank at 5 mana cost with flying, phase, void and 5 speed. Other monsters are all there to do damage.
My Chaos Agent didn't get the lucky roll and went down after the first hit and it's all up to my Void Dragon to tank.
Round 2, my Void Dragon only take one hit and then got healed back up to max HP.
My Sundae Shaman put the enemy's taunter down for good and my Void Dragon survived the huge Shaman hit thanks to void.
It is then healed back up to 3. If hit, opponent's Goblin Psychic can only put it down to 1 and it will still survive. The attack missed so my Void Dragon has 3 HP and can continue to tank more.
And the match is over by now. Void Dragon just keeps on dodging and surviving and there's no way for my opponent to come back from here.
In conclusion, I think Dragon is very strong in Wild and you can just ride them hard to win a lot of matches. In Modern, you need to be picky on when to use them, but if you can figure out some synergies and utilize them creatively, you can pull out some incredible wins.
That's all from me today. I hope this post helps a lot of the newer players and thanks for the read. I will see you again in the next Weekly Battle Challenge.
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