This week's battle challenge is sure to appeal to nearly everyone - after all, it focuses on a card that is included in the current Starter Deck that Spellbook owners may borrow for their battles.
Behold the CRYSTAL JAGUAR!
Card Details
Looks like a decent card at Level 10, but for beginners, noobs, and shrimps, the Life Splinter is a graveyard of broken dreams, and the Crystal Jaguar is not normally a tempting choice for navigating the army of Mana-optimizing bots. The Thorns and Retaliate skills as well as 7 health would make this an irritating card to try to kill with melee fighters. At Level 1 though, you are gambling that the old crystal cat does not face anyone with the Shield skill, or Pierce, or face a team with Magic attackers, or... the list is pretty long, I guess.
I do not know how often I use this card. I am a Bronze level battler, so when I see the Life Splinter Daily Quest, I usually skip it in hopes that I get anything else. But I thought it would be fun to see what can be done - for the sake of science and the Weekly Battle of course!
Battle - Full Replay (link)
Ummm, it did not go well. Probably the worst tank for this little kitty to face is one that does high damage and has Shield. So, hello Living Lava mwah mwah mwah mwaaaaaaahhhhhh.
Battle Details
- Mana = 25
- No Special Battle Conditions
My strategy was to try to supplement Crystal Jaguar with some of the new reward cards that might be common for typical Bronze leaguers. Or at least these cards are reasonably priced for rare and epic cards. I wanted the health boost and unerring strike of the Djinn and the healing of the Crystalsmith. I went for Armor boost over Health boost because it looked likely, even for what I expected was a bot, that they would play Fire and I wanted to try to survive the first round with as many cards intact as I could.
Lineup Details
- Crystal Jaguar - for the challenge
- Feral Spirit - hopefull to pick off one of their sneakers or range attackers
- Djinn Renova - health boost and accurate attack
- Venari Crystalsmith - healing with a little attack
- Peacebringer - additional attack on the tank, enough health to last 1 round
How did it work?
My strategy did not work. It was not very close. I think it was a bit of an inspired touch by my opponent to put Cerberus on the end of their line. I never was able to get into the heart of their low-health attackers.
What would I change?
Maybe Crystal Jaguar would have done better at the end of the line, as a somewhat Mana-expensive flank defender. I clearly did not have enough attacking power on either their tank or their flank, so perhaps if I had skipped the Venari healer and put in more powerful attacker I could have started to do some damage.
Life splinter is just a challenge with the Starter deck. At least for me. Even with a few significantly better Rare and Epic cards a basic Fire lineup blew me away.
Final thoughts on the Crystal Jaguar
I am glad that these battle challenges exist to get us to look at cards we might neglect. In this specific case, I am looking forward to neglecting it again haha! Well, the truth is that it is a pretty uninspiring card with not much power and not much pizzazz. But then again, I am have a pretty uninspiring deck and I do not have much pizzazz either! So, I will think of the Crystal Jaguar if I need a tank and am certain that I will not be going against Life or Fire splinters where my opponent is likely to neutralize CJ completely by playing a Shielded tank.