Venari Heatsmith - Useless until Level 10.
You know how when you load a splinterlands battle and you're waiting, some message or other pops up. Today I read a message which was something like, 'No card is useless. Every card has its place'. I laughed and thought, 'Nope, some cards are useless'. And it occurred to me, one of those cards is Venari Heatsmith, which is useless, until it isn't. In this post, I'm going to have a look at how a very small investment in this card will give you a pretty awesome card for the line-up. I only discovered this card today, so I'm still learning, but how about learning with me?
And so here is the card of the week - and you know what, it's a REWARDS card. They're literally giving it away! And often I've got one and groaned. And the reason for this is: this card has no attack. It literally just takes up 3 mana. At the lower levels it has 2 health and 2 armour - and it plays the skill VOID ARMOUR which means magic hits its armour before health. But to be honest, I don't think I ever used this card before today.
Sure, at Level 6 it gains the AMPLIFY ability, but there's not a lot of need for AMPLIFY in the FIRE splinter - again, condemning this card as useless.
But - Check him out at Level 10 - finally, this card gets THORNS. And you know what? That AMPLIFY which we just said was useless - well, he can now use it on himself. And with armour at 4 and health at 8 - this card can be quite the solid meat-shield out front, and with the pairing of thorns/amplify, every melee attacker who hits him will take 3 damage. All of a sudden, this card looks like it could pack a punch!
And the best part? This investment is CHEAP. Literally, it is the cheapest card in the game. You could buy 400 cards to max this guy out for half a cent each. This means a fully maxed card will set you back 2 bucks. I'll say that again for it to sink in, 2 bucks!!
Now, with the card explored - let's put him to use and I found quite the battle for this card! It's a ruleset which allows melee attackers the chance to attack from any position. Wait until they do and end up getting THORNED!! An evil move, but I play Venari Heatsmith in the tank position.
Behind him, I line up with the SUMMONER Jacek, this gives me +2 speed for all my attackers and the PIERCE ability will allow my attacks to go through armour. In the second position I play the ANTOID, who I like for his SCAVENGER ability. In the middle of my line-up I then play the blasting rats - and you can see this card starts with 9 melee attack. Nothing wrong with that - but I play this card for it's BLAST skill, and REDEMPTION. In a nutshell, this card will be hard to hit, but it will certainly do damage.
I then play my SNEAK team in URAEUS, who also seeks to poison, and the TENYII STRIKER, whose speed and high attack will make him rather deadly. I then finish my line-up off with another SCAVENGER, DR BLIGHT, whose affliction and poison make him deadly in the back. My only issue is that with JACEK I can't control where his magic bolts fly - so it's a lotto, but he's a card worth having.
Round 1 was interesting for me, and certainly, it was a very good round for VENARI HEATSMITH. In this battle he dodged twice; I guess carrying 7 speed means you can dodge occassionally! But, he also had 3 separate melee attackers hit him, and in total, he did +9 damage. Not a bad outcome really, as while I lost my tank - my SCAVENGERS have gained health and there is damage all across my opponent's line up. I feel like VENARI HEATSMITH set this battle up for a win.
Round 2 was rather uneventful, we exchanged hits and my ANTOID lost armour and health, but my win this round was knocking over the DISINTEGRATOR and his -1 melee skill - and taking an awful lot off of the DEMENTED SHARK. In all, it doesn't look like I made much progress, but this round was all about positioning myself for a big Round 3.
And Round 3 was rather clinical. Every time my card attacked, I took one of my opponent's cards down - including my BLASTING RATS, whose REDEMPTION ended up taking the DIEMONSHARK's final health! In the end, it was Dr Blight who finished this battle off, knocking off the FIEND for a good victory.
Want to re-live the battle? Check out the link here:
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_f7328cd1633c2976729e8cd9d24d47ac
Evaluation:
I love investing in a bargain card, and let's face it, VENARI HEATSMITH is the very definition of BARGAIN. What I learned in this battle was that he has the ability to take a lot of armour off attackers - and that, in turn, makes them vulnerable to my own back-line attackers. Given the pairing with JACEK, however, was crucial, as the dodging of attacks meant my back-line wasn't exposed to the second round - and those wasted hits certainly could have changed the battle.
This is certainly a card that would be worth buying if you havn't - and, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't own it, afterall, I thought it was useless too!
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