I really enjoyed writing the "Weekly Battle Challenge" last week, so I'll write it again, this week with the Disintegrator, a super situational common Chaos Legion card.
Before start talking about the card I want to say that I analyzed it as a Bronze player.
So let's start analyzing the card:
1 ) Mana cost: 7 Disintegrator is not a cheap card to play, let's see if the Mana Cost fits with its potential.
2 ) Melee Attack: 2 Nice attack value, but nothing exceptional.
3 ) Speed: 1 Lowest possible value in speed, it may be useful in reverse speed battles, but it is not a good value.
4 )Ability: Demoralize This is an ability that lowers enemies' monsters' melee attack, it is a useful ability, but really situational, for example: versus a Magic deck it would be useless.
5 ) Expansion: Chaos Legion I highlighted that because in the next future the Expansion of a card will be important to know if it is playable in the Modern format or in the Wild format (MF: playable only in the last two Expansions that came out on Splinterlands, WF: every Expansion is playable).
6 )Armor: 2 Nice armor value, but as for the attack, nothing exceptional.
7 )Health: 5 This is, in my opinion, is too low of a value for a tank that costs 7 of mana, it couldn't stand so much in the first position of a battle.
8 )Element: Neutral Its element is "Neutral" which means that it can be used with every Summoner, that's interesting for a situational card.
I proceeded in analyzing the Disintegrator versus other common tanks that you find in Bronze 1 League, the one I'm actually playing in.
Thanks to https://splintertools.io/, where you can "Test different decks from your previous battles"
Considering the Cards at the same level boosted by the same Summoner, the Disintegrator loses with a 100% probability versus every common tank in the Bronze League, it is a statistic that ends in itself because there's a lot of variables that a simple 1v1 battle doesn't consider, but it is pretty explicative on how much difference there is between the Disintegrator and another Tank when we consider only its brutal strength instead of his ability.
So...when and how should we use a melee card that has horrible performance in the first position and doesn't have any ability to attack from second lines?
Simple: only in some situations.
The Disintegrator performs really good in two situations:
1 ) High Mana Cap, the higher it is, the better the Disintegrator will perform, because his problems of high cost and lack of resistance will be "diluted" by other cards that will take advantage from its ability.
2 ) Rules of Combat: if it is a high mana battle and the rules of combat involve a high melee monster utilization, the Disintegrator's ability becomes very useful and can turn the tide of battles in its favor.
Best Rules of Combat to use the Disintegrator:
Nice Rules of Combat to use the Disintegrator:
Images from https://splinterlands.fandom.com/wiki/Splinterlands_Wiki
So the introduction to the Disintegrator is finally over, let's see how I used it in a battle, which I won because I followed the two rules to use the Disintegrator (and because I forced a little bit my hand since after 30+ battles I couldn't find a nice match up).
Mana Cap: 26 not really high, but not really low either.
Rules of Combat: Super Sneak usually with these Rules there's a high melee monsters utilization in low leagues, because of their attack stats.
I decided to risk it, predicting that my opponent would have used a lot of melee monsters and I lined up the Disintegrator.
Predicting an high number of melee monsters that would have attacked my last monster, I decided to go with the Summoner Dragon: the Drake of Arnak, choosing as second element Death.
Why did I choose this mix? To take advantage of these three things:
1 ) Drake of Arnak's +1 armor bonus, more resistance versus melee monsters and the Dragon tank Djinn Chwala with its Thorns ability that returns damage to melee attackers.
2 ) Death's monster Cursed Windeku with its Thorns ability.
3 ) The absence of Fire from the Elements to choose from, with no Summoner that can give melee attack bonus, the Disintegrator with his ability Demoralize can weaken a lot of melee opponent monsters.
The real risk is that I decided to ignore the possibility to find an opponent that would have choosen a Magic deck, it was a calculated risk because in the previous battles I had used only counter-Magic decks, mind games (and luck).
This is the team I choose, completed with a Carrion Shade, that with Sneak ability could have damaged some of the opponent's monster, being something more than meat for slaughter as always.
Nice meat for slaughter for 1 mana cost.
Look closely before and after the Demoralize ability activation:
BEFORE
AFTER
Obviously the melee attack stat can't go to 0, but the Disintegrator "stole" 3 attack from the opponent's monsters, 4 if we consider the Grund Double Strike ability.
As you can see my opponent choose the Thorns ability strategy too, using the Venari Knifer and mixing it with Grund and his Double Strike ability empowered by the Sneak ability given by the Rules of Combat. He also used as a Summoner the Wizard of Eastwood canceling my +1 Armor bonus.
But the Djinn Chwala in first position and the Cursed Windeku in the last position returned all Melee attacks that they received, the Disintegrator, safe in second position, attacked taking advantage of his stat, and the Carrion Shade sadly perished, giving me the victory, instead the Grund presence in the other team (one of the best Epic Chaos Legion cards in my opinion).
The Disintegrator survived.
Final considerations:
The Disintegrator is not a really good tank, and on its own it's not a powerful card, but Splinterlands is a strategy game, and helped by the right strategies the Disintegrator can become a trump card.
The battle: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_07dcb486819ca3808cadaa5f8f12be55&ref=magalli
Best regards,
Mr.Magalli
P.S. my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=magalli
P.P.S. A special thanks to 
P.P.P.S. A special thanks to 
Singular coincidence