Hi guys,
this weeks Battle Challenge is about Legionnaire Alvar and it's the first time a Battle Challenge features a legendary monster since I started participating. I'll show you how I utilized him in gold league to win my battle with thoughts on the card in general and my strategy.
The Card
Legionnaire Alvar is a melee attacking neutral monster from the Chaos Legion set. It's by definition a tank with medium health but lots of armor. Its abilities further help it in its tank roll.
Abilities
Level 1 - Void Armor
Level 2 - Giant Killer
Level 3 - Demoralize
Level 4 - Deathblow
Legionnaire Alvar starts with the Void Armor ability at level 1, making magic attacks against him deal damage to its armor instead of its health. This is why the relatively low health for a tank is not that big of a deal, because with his armor he has a total of 14 hit points at level 1.
Giant Killer makes him a bit more potent in dealing damage, especially at level 2 and above when he gets his third attack, while Demoralize at level 3 helps tremendously with supporting the team and is especially strong in melee heavy match ups.
Finally Deathblow at max level gives him a bigger punch against single enemies, but since he's mainly a tank and will therefore take most of the damage it's very unlikely he survives long enough to make use of this ability.
Overall Legionnaire Alvar is a very strong tank against both magic and melee/ranged attacks that supports his team by lowering the enemy melee attack. Because its a neutral card you can pair it with other cards that have demoralize or put a resurrect behind it, which will revive it with all its armor.
Taking a look at the price it's one of the cheaper Chaos Legion legendaries at currently $4 per BCX. I personally think this is a fair price which will likely go up once Chaos Legion sells out, but which has also been a bit lower towards the $2 range in the past.
The Ruleset
The Line Up & Strategy
The choice for my summoner was pretty easy, since there were only water and death allowed and out of those I only have Kelya leveled up, so Kelya it was.
With Return Fire on every monster I didn't expect any ranged attackers so Legionnaire Alvar was perfect in the tank position. The 9 Void Armor and 6 health are very strong against magic, while the Armor is also good against melee at the same time. The Demoralize would further help against potential melee attackers and protect my back line a bit from sneaks and opportunities.
In the second spot I went with Flying Squid, because it's one of the best Reach monsters water has and the 25% dodge chance from the Blind ability would also help against melee attackers.
For my damage I went with Nerissa Tridawn for plain magic damage, Pelacor Bandit for some sneak damage and because he's really cheap for how much damage he's able to deal and Deeplurker in the back to pick off any low health enemies with opportunity.
Lastly I put River Helondale in to buff all my melee attacking monsters and for the resurrect. Like I said in the beginning it's amazing on Legionnaire Alvar, because he gets all his Armor back and since it's Void Armor the enemy can't just hit it with magic once, but has to go through the entire 9 armor again.
I felt pretty good about the line up, basically having a tank that's strong against both melee and magic (and ranged due to the rule set), with a support in the back that's able to resurrect him and tons of damage to take care of the enemy.
Let's see how it went!
The Battle
My opponent went for Kelya as well, but they chose to go with more magic attack with Doctor Blight and additional support in form of Junker with his Repair.
The battle starts with Pelacor Bandit attacking the Djinn Oshannus in the back spot and taking away its armor. Djinn returns the attack on Legionnair Alvar also only hitting armor, followed by Diemonshark hitting Alvar for 3 and Flying Squid hitting Diemonshark for 4. So far only armor hits.
Deeplurker lands a nice hit poison on their River Helondale, which repairs some of the Diemonsharks armor and takes away some more from my Alvar, also dispelling it. Junker misses his attack.
My own River Helondale hits beneath Diemonsharks armor and enrages it, followed by some more damage from Nerissa. Finally Legionnaire Alvar gets to attack but misses the enraged Diemonshark. Doctor Blight then also hits an affliction on him, but since we have no heal that's not too important.
Round 2
Round 2 starts with Diemonshark taking away the last armor off my Legionnaire, followed by Pelacor Bandit hitting the Djinn Oshannus. Djinn hits Legionnaire for two and Flying Squid again only hits Diemonsharks armor, which then also gets repaired by Junker.
My Deeplurker takes out their River Helondale, which is huge, because all their melee attackers lose the attack buff and she didn't get her resurrect off! Their Deeplurker misses its attack against my Legionnaire which is barely alive.
My own River Helondale takes out the Diemonshark with the help of Nerissa. My Legionnaire takes away the armor from Junker, before getting killed by Doctor Blight, but instantly resurrected by Helondale.
This was a great round for me!
Round 3
Pelacor Bandit goes first again and is able to hit Djinn Oshannus for the third time, because of his high speed. Oshannus returns 2 damage against Legionnaire, Flying Squid takes Junker down to 3 health, which is then taken out completely by my Deeplurker. Their Deeplurker only hits my Alvar's armor.
Helondale and Nerissa take their Deeplurker down to 2 health, ready to be taken care of next round and Legionnaire Alvar still has enough armor to easily tank the Doctor Blights hit.
Round 4
Pelacor Bandit finally takes out Djinn Oshannus and Flying Squid does the same with their Deeplurker, leaving only the Dcotor Blight.
My Deeplurker takes away its armor and poisoning it, while the rest of my team deal just enough damage to take it down to 2 health, so that the poison kills it off after the round ends, securing me the win!
Conclusion
While this battle seemed rather easy after round 2, the stats say it was only a 65% win chance. And this is mostly due to the fact that their Doctor Blight and Deeplurker both didn't hit a single poison.
My strategy worked perfectly with Legionnaire Alvar tanking both melee and magic damage and getting revived with its full 10 health while at the same time reducing the opponents melee damage. However a poison from Doctor Blight could've taken him out easily after the resurrect and made things more difficult.
My opponents line up wasn't bad but their tank was just not strong enough against magic and died too fast against Nerissa and Helondale and they also didn't protect their Helondale well enough from my opportunity, so that she died before being able to resurrect someone. Furthermore the Djinn Oshannus is usually a great protector against sneak attack with his high speed and dodge chance, however my Pelacor Bandit was even faster and thus had no problems landing his attacks.
Overall I'm very happy with the line up I chose and I think it was a great display of how powerful Legionnaire Alvar can be in the right circumstances. That being said I don't necessarily think the card is a must have if you're on a budget, but it's definitely one of those cards you enjoy having once you bought them.
Disclaimer
None of this is financial advice. This content is for educational purposes only and might fall out of date as both Splinterlands and the Crypto Market in general are subject to constant change.
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Previous Posts
Check out my push into gold league: Part I, Part II
Check out my Bronze league strategy guides: Part I, Part II
Hope you enjoyed the read. Have a great day and until next time!
Pinkman45