Abracadabra
The Venari are an academically gifted species that live underground in the Realm of Silence and look like a lot like rats.
Those who wish to become fluent in spellcasting train to become Spellsmiths: masters of creating and using spells. It is through this knowledge they research and experiment with magic in order to unlock new ways to harness mana and the elemental forces.
-Splinterlands lore
And I'd like to dispel the myth of Venari silence with a link to what is undoubtably the Venari Spellsmith's favorite tune Abracadabra by the Steve Miller Band.
Abilities
The Venari Spellsmith is a rare neutral card with all-around low stats that costs 4 mana. What makes it unique is the dispel ability as it is the only level 1 chaos card with this ability (In Untamed Goblin Firemage also has this ability at level 1).
In my day-to-day battling I haven't made the best use of Spellsmith or dispel and this battle challenge allowed me to reassess the dispel ability which I didn't know much about to figure out whether I should be making better use of it.
Dispel removes "positive status effects" that are granted by other monsters and excludes summoner buffs and those that are provided by the ruleset. The dispel ability antagonizes Protect (additional armor), Inspire (additional melee), Strengthen (additional health), and Swiftness (additional speed) when Spellsmith attacks, and does so regardless of whether the monster has the Immunity ability. Be careful though, because removing the Swiftness buff in a Reverse Speed battle could actually work against you!
I also wanted to give credit to Splintercards who have a great tool for a quick exploration of abilities and showing which monsters have them and at which levels. As well as highlight the Splinterlands support page under Advanced Gameplay: Abilities & Status Effects where I found additional details.
Also, as most monsters go Spellsmith levels up he becomes a much more appealing support card gaining Amplify at level 4, and Retaliate at level 8.
Strategy
To make the most of the Spellsmith's dispel ability I was looking for specific rulesets for example magic only lineups. Or finding an opponent who relied on a lot of buffs. But at some point it started to feel like I was trying to shoe-horn him in a bit.
In the battle I played him in I tried to anticipate my opponents lineup and I thought that they may go with a Queen Mycelia here who has Protect and to make the most of my thorns and melee damage I would add in Spellsmith to potentially get rid of some of the tank's shield. I also wanted to make sure Spellsmith wasn't an opportunity target so I included the Slipspawn... However my opponent didn't do anything I thought they would do. Oops!
Lineup
Watch the Battle!
I chose Delwyn for my summoner so that I could add to my magic damage and also have access to Djinn Chwala and Carnage Titan.
In the first/tank position Djinn Chwala has high health to deal with magic damage, and both shield and thorns help with melee attacks.
Carnage Titan in the second position allows him to be protected for all attacks (except splash damage from blast) and with reach and double strike he can do a lot of damage from here with minimal exposure.
I wasn't sure how much magic damage my opponent would be doing, but the Prismatic Energy has high health and does magic damage from the third position. In addition, if he had a magic snipe (like Magi Necrosi) I thought Magic Reflect could come in handy.
In the fourth position I included Mushroom Seer because I didn't have very good magic protection in the front lineup and he also does a lot of damage.
Venari Spellsmith in the fifth spot does two damage, and I was hoping to make use of dispel.
Finally, the Mycelic Slipspawn helped to detract from the damage up front so I could whittle down the opponent's tank, as well as keeping Spellsmith alive long enough to land an attack/dispel.
Analysis
My opponent included blast damage from Nightmare and in the second position Muirat Void Amor making him impervious to even magic damage until after the shields are removed. He also chose Delwyn and did a ton of magic damage. He slowed me down significantly and weakened all of my monsters. When I saw all the negative effects I felt like I would have been better off with a cleanse! I did feel like I made a good decision with Mushroom Seer here because it negated the Summoner boost. I also wanted to focus all of my damage to the front and split up the opponent's damage because it was a fairly high mana battle.
Slipspawn absorbed all the damage in round 1 with the exception of Nightmare's blast damage, luckily my team was able to take out Nightmare even though Carnage Titan only landed one of his two hits.
In the second round my Slipspawn went down, but the collective damage from my monsters took down Muirat removing both of the opponents tankier monsters.
I lost Djinn Chwala in the third round, but Carnage Titan was in good shape to become the next tank. They lost both the Venari Bonesmith and my Venari Spellsmith took out the Undead Priest (along with his weaken effect so in a way he got to dispel something!).
In round 4 the Boogyman was removed, and Magi of Chaos was in the hot seat and Venari Spellsmith landed the final blow.
While my lineup worked, it was not at all what I had planned, and unfortunately didn't really magnify the usefulness of the Spellsmith and his dispel ability. However! I learned a ton about the ability that I hadn't really used previously, and I think that it could be really useful in certain situations! For example, the Inspire buff can stack which could mean that the opponent could gain a huge advantage in melee. A Dispel could effectively nerf the opponent in the tanking position and could really help the odds of survival. I am also excited to level him up to gain the amplify ability in future.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed learning about the Venari Spellsmith and the Dispel ability!