With the continuously growing cards in Splinterlands, it's not uncommon to overlook the potential of some cards, as they get overshadowed by other cards. They were often neglected and not appreciated due to these cards not being part of the game's meta. However, these cards have the ability to completely change the tide of battles when used correctly.
That is why, for this week's Community Engagement Challenge, I want to bring Skyspire Leopard, which is one of those underrated cards in the spotlight to give them the love and recognition that they deserve.
Skyspire Leopard
| Edition | Rebellion Reward (Soulbound) |
|---|---|
| Mana Cost | 5 |
| Element |  Life |
| Bloodline | Mundane Beast |
| Rarity | Rare |
| Max Armor | 4  |
| Max Health | 7  |
| Max Speed | 2  |
| Max Melee | 5  |
| Abilities/Debilitations | Lvl 1 -  RetaliateLvl 4 -  Void Armor |
Skyspire Leopard was a life unit that is part of the Rebellion Soulbound rewards, which I think is part of the reason why this card does not get that much attention. At only 5 mana cost, it already has 4 armor, 7 health, and 5 damage, which makes it a very decent low mana tank, aside from it having the Retaliate ability that gives it 50% chance to attack a melee unit that attack this card as well as the Void Armor ability that makes magic attack armor first before it can damage the health. Another thing that makes this card usually neglected is that it only has 2 speed, which makes it on the slower side of the tanks, but because it was slow that it could shine during the Reverse Speed ruleset.
Battlefield Rulesets
For the battle that I am about to show, there was only 27 mana-cap available with only Water, Life, and Earth elements playable. But this is just the right time to use Skyspire Leopard, especially since it has the Reverse Speed ruleset at play.
Reverse Speed makes the units with the lowest speed attack first and has the highest chance to evade attacks. Attack order and accuracy will also be reversed when this ruleset is at play.
High Five, on the other hand, limits the number of units that both teams can use to only 5 cards.
For the final ruleset comes Equal Opportunity, which gives all units the Opportunity ability that allows them to attack the unit with the least amount of health regardless of their position.
Lineup Breakdown
After taking all the active rulesets into consideration, I decided to have a melee-focused team using cards that do not excel at speed with fairly low mana use, to utilize the active ruleset. Now, my team is made up of the following cards.
Archon: Elias Max Pruitt
With Weak Magic active, having the additional armor from Elias Max Pruitt not only will increase my defense, it can also boost the damage of my melee units with its additional melee damage, and by giving one of my units the Armored Strike and Pierce ability during the tactics phase, I will be also able to use the armor of one of my units to attack my opponent.
Card Units
 | For my main tank, I decided to use Halfing Refugee, which has a decent amount of health and good damage, as well as the Heal ability for only 1 mana, but it also has the Weary debilitation. |
 | For my 2nd unit, I chose Chaos Rearguard, to served as my damage sponge against opportunity attacks, which gets half the damage with the Shield ability. |
 | In the 3rd position, I placed Silverblade Fighter to give my units an additional armor with its Protect ability. |
| In the 4th position, I placed Nimbledook Explorer, to also add more to my card's armor, and while it was not a melee unit, it can attack the opponent with its armor, using the Armored Strike ability. |  |
For the last unit, I used Skyspire Leopard to serve as my main damage unit with its huge damage and by also giving it the Armored Strike ability, which is further boosted with armor buffs, making more stronger. |  |
Battle Showcase
With the stat boost coming from my Archon and other supporting units, Skyspire Leopard, now has a total of 6 melee damage and 9 armor that it can use to attack with Armored Strike, for a total of 15 damage. The opponent uses the same archon but uses a different lineup.
Round 1:
Right off the bat, Nimbledook Explorer defeats Taye Loreswift with it's 9 armor, but then Skyspire Leopard follows it, by defeating the opponent's Halfling Refugee with a total of 9 damage from Armored Strike and continues it with another 6 damage to Skyspire Yak that lefts it with only 5 health which is more than enough for my Halfling Refugee to defeat it.
Round 2:
With round 2, my team has started to attack the opponent's Chaos Rear Guard, but since it has the Shield ability, defeating it with melee attacks makes it difficult, but we were still able to defeat it at the end of the round. At the same time, the opponent team has also managed to defeat my Halfling Refugee.
Round 3:
Not long after, we proceed to round 3, where my team has finally put an end to the battle, with Skyspire Leopard, inflicting a total of 9 damage to Harbringer of Chaos.
Closing
And that was it for this battle. While Skyspire Leopard is not often used in most battles as it gets overshadowed by other cards, it is undeniable that it can be a really strong card when used in the right situation, along with the right cards to support it, and bring menace to the battlefield.
Thank you, and see you on the next post!
Splinterlands Free Assets
This were assets that I edited using Adobe Photoshop and more of this assets were available in this post for anyone who likes to use them.
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