Nerissa Tridawn: Back to basic by default
Hello fellow Splinterlands players. Today we have a look at Nerissa Tridawn. This post is part of the weekly Battle Challenge.
No abilities
As you can see, Nerissa Tridawn brings no abilities to the battle.
Nevertheless she brings a heavy 3 magic punch right from the beginning, combined with 9 health it also makes her a useful alternative tank or sneak absorber at the rear.
Each new level brings an ability boost: health, speed and attack improve bit by bit.
Since she has no abilities, the "back to basics" rule set does not really bother her.
As an epic card she can be played during "lost legendaries" ruleset.
The Battle
Rules
We are fighting a 54 mana match in modern gold league. All splinters but Life are available, and the standard rule set applies. Quite exciting, since the chances for that are now 2% since the latest update.
Strategy
Next to Dragon, the Water splinter has become the defacto standard, which was boosted with the introduction of Lux Vega, who is basically a Kelya with health boost when combined with Water.
I needed a Water battle for this post, might be a mistake to force it this way but (prayer of of the fool coming) "maybe I'll get lucky". 😉
Kidding aside, Water splinter has some great cards for standard rule set and that is what we will count on.
Without any modifiers we will focus on dealing as much damage as possible with high health cards and put on some speed to hopefully strike first.
Lineup
As mentioned, Lux Vega is basically a Kelya with health boost.
We get some speed, which is good for the early strike and avoid getting hit.
Armor gives one free hit from melee and ranged attackers, as long as piercing is not involved.
The health boost is a nice bonus that secures the survival of a card more often than you might think.
As a tank Baakjira brings not only lots of health and self healing, it also slows down the opponent, applies +1 health boost to our own cards and with void can take a lot of magic hits.
Djinn Oshannus can be found in almost every Water lineup. It is fast, that helps to get missed when melee or ranged is attacking. Phase gives him the ability to do the same with magic attacks.
If magic should hit him, void will cut that in half and if the damage is 5 points or bigger, the forcefield will reduce that to one.
Runemancer Kye has life leech, which allows her to increase the maximum health points every time she damages her opponents health.
The armor protects against melee and ranged attackers, supported by flying ability. She will gain health and at the moment she takes tank position she should have gained an excellent boost that way.
With three magic attacks, if and when they go to health, life leech will boost her by two points every time.
Now we place Nerissa Tridawn into the mix.
Three magic attack will do considerable damage, 10 health make her last some hits while at tank position (if the need arises).
There will be two more monsters behind her so sneakers reaching her is not the major concern and with her high health and positioning the opportunists as well as the snipers will not target her.
Speaking of which, we need our own opportunity attacker.
Deeplurker should take care of those pesky little support units that heal and repair the tank or bring other little bonus abilities to the other team.
The poison is an excellent bonus if the melee has to go through armor first.
Our ranged attacker goes into last position. With 6 health and additional armor provided by Lux, the Axemaster brings a powerful 3 ranged double strike attack that should really do some damage to the other team's armor.
His natural speed of 4, boosted by Lux and supported by the slow ability of Baakjira does not only make him one of the first to strike but also helps to avoid being hit by (mostly melee) sneak attackers.
The Fight
Ok, Let us have a look at what we are facing and dive into the battle.
Round 1
My opponent went with Dragon splinter. Great choice, I almost did the same but I wanted that speed and armor boost.
Bringing in Agor Longtail as a taunt is a very good idea, the void armor is also a very good reason to bring in at least one card with resurrection.
Deeplurker is one of the best opportunists in modern right now, Carnage Titan the goto reacher for Dragons at the moment.
Legionaire Alvar can take some hits as a tank and reduces my melee attacks by one point with demoralize ability.
I guess Igor is just in there for the remaining two mana points left. For that price an excellent card but in this case just a filler. The stun might hurt me a little bit but I doubt it will make a difference.
Round 2
Round one revealed the mistakes. My opponent does not deal enough damage. There is no healing or repair action to compensate any damage, beside a one time resurrection.
The health of their cards is very low compared to my line up. Once Agor Longtail is gone, the others will fall quickly behind it.
All their attacks go to my tank with healing, with the exception of Deeplurker who started knibbling at my Axemaster
Round 3
Even though I lost Baakjira, my alternate tank Oshannus is holding position.
Agor Longtail is gone, the magic attacks have to wear down Alva's armor and then it should be gone quickly.
Round 4
Kye took tank position with now 6 armor and 13 health. That should last for some time while the magic attacks bypass Titan's armor to take him out.
Deeplurker will finish off Axemaster, that was to be expected. Since it was debuffed by Quix anyway, the loss is not that big of a deal.
Result
The battle is definitely won at this point, Kye stood her ground at tank position while the Axemaster went down as predicted.
The gold cards (including Nerissa) give a nice boost to the reward points, as well as Lux as a promo card.
The battle was a clear victory with three monsters on my side left standing (including Nerissa).
Conclusion
The overall strategy worked. With the selection of higher health cards that are fast and have high attacks, I did not need a taunt.
The other taunt was badly placed, the four melee attack points of Agor (inspired by Hellondale) were wasted at the rear. Without healing or repair it would have been better placed at tank position replacing Alvar and instead of Alvar there should have been a support unit with heal/repair and maybe some magic/ranged attack. I think that might have caused a lot more trouble on my side.
Even though Nerissa brings no abilities to the battle field, her three magic attack were a big contribution to the win. High health and position made her almost invisible to snipers and (in this case) opportunists to last long enough to deal her damage (in this case until the end).
Her price of 9 mana is based on her stats without abilities. Remember that when selecting for "back to basic" rule set.
And as mentioned above, as an epic card she can be played in lost legendaries which makes her an alternative to Oshannus in that case.
Thank you for reading, maybe we'll see each other on the battlefield.
Special-Opps wants you
We are looking for active players to fill the novice, bronze, and gold foil frays who will contribute at least 100 DEC per week to buildings. Our Guild has an active Discord chat with channels for all the important topics. We like to talk shop but also all sorts of things, from good card deals to resources and strategy and sometimes also off-topic chatter.
Membership rewards include weekly card giveaway drawings and free card packs for long term memberships.
Header image designed in canva.
Divider designed by freeztag as free to use.
Special-Opps logo and animation designed by 
Guild-Buildings screenshot from baronstoolbox.
All other images are screenshots from the game.