Hello everyone!
It's a new week again, and a new battle challenge has come. This time those are the little pesky ants.
This card comes from fire splinter, so fire or dragon summoner only. The card is a melee attacker and is rather squishy with just (1) health, so it must be placed somewhere after the tank.
But it comes with the scavenge ability which increases the monster's health by 1 each time a monster dies (opponents or mine). So this card could have its uses in lower mana matches where there are used low health monsters and they drop dead left and right.
Later on, at level 6 ants gain another ability - shield and plus 1 shield to its stat. That would help them to survive longer with less gamble.
But even with that, it could be quite slippery in various situations.
It's kind of a niche card where in some situations it could have its use. Reverse speed and equalized health matches could be quite interesting.
Not sure why the stats for the card didn't show up, but to mention them:
- 1 melee attack
- 1 speed
- 1 health
I haven't used this card in my battle setups as I found other starter cards more useful, but as it's the weekly battle challenge, then I just had to use him and get a feel for this card and see what it can do.
All in all the battle was a success. But let's leave it for later. First, we'll look at the monster decks.
Not yet playing? Join the game using this link.
On to the match itself.
Rules:
- Standard
- 19 Mana
- All splinters allowed
It was a quite low mana match and I thought that my opponent would go with a melee deck as well, so I made my deck as follows.
My team:
(Summoner) Pyre
I like to use this summoner in low mana matches where a fire splinter is involved. As most likely low health monsters will be used on both ends then hitting them first is the key moment.
On top of that extra speed can help with evading opponents' attacks if his monsters are way slower than mine.
(Spot 1) Living Lava
My tank for this match, so obviously spot nr. 1. In low mana matches, he's really tough with a shield ability that reduces both melees and ranged attacks. Plus he has good survival stats on his own - (2) shield and (6) health. And at the same time, this monster hits really hard.
In low mana matches, this guy can be a pain in the ass if you go against him with a melee / ranged deck.
His vulnerability though is magic as it can quickly decimate him before he even makes a move due to his low speed.
(Spot 2) Kobold Miner
A widely used monster from fire splinter if the match is with low mana. He has the sneak ability and is useful in these types of matches where the opponents' back row is rather squishy in most cases.
He has a bit more health than my remaining monsters so I placed him right after the tank to take a hit before the others are damaged.
(Spot 3) Serpentine Spy
A hard hitter with (2) melee attack and (3) speed. He also costs only 3 mana to use, but the downside is his small health (1). That's why I moved him a bit more to the middle and hoped that the opponent will not have any snipe monsters.
(Spot 4) Ant miners
The star of this match. It's a melee monster, but it has low health, so I couldn't place him in the front. That's why I moved him in the middle of my deck just before my ranged monster.
The idea was that he would protect my ranged monster if all my other monsters in spots (1,2,3) went down and the ants would scavenge some health.
(Spot 5) Imp Bowman
This is a low-health and mana monster that was just perfect for this match and added extra firepower to my deck.
On top of that this card also has flying ability thus making it harder to hit by melee monsters with the sneak ability or ranged monsters. I was hoping that this ability would come in handy and make this monster survive long enough.
(Spot 6) Furious Chicken
And lastly, I added the old and trustworthy chicken at the very back so that it would first take a hit before the opponent goes for my Imp Bowman increasing his chances to survive and deal some damage.
As you can see I focused more on melee monsters. In the beginning, were my main damage dealers. Whereas in the middle of my deck there were my most squishy cards. While at the back I placed a ranged damage dealer that with the help of his ability could take a hit before going down.
I picked 2 monsters with stealth ability hoping to decimate the back row of my opponent before it can do too much damage to me.
Because of that, I was hoping that my two stealth monsters would do enough damage to tip the battle in my favor.
But what did my opponent bring to the match, lets have a closer look.
Oponents team:
I didn't get everything that I expected as my opponent brought 2 ranged monsters and a card that affected all my monsters.
Fire elemental made me a bit worried as that card has blast ability and my cards already were quite squishy except the tank.
Another card that I was thinking of bringing to this match but didn't was Goblin Shaman. I decreased the health of my monsters even further.
| 
| 
Spot 1: Cerberus [lvl 1]
Spot 2: Goblin Shaman [lvl 1]
Spot 3: Fire Elementam [lvl 1]
Spot 4: Spark Pixies [lvl 1]
The battle took a hooping 7 rounds. Way more than I was expecting and was intense down to the last round. Let's take a look at what happened.
The cards that made me worry the most were Goblin Shaman and Fire Elemental. As together they could decimate my squishy cards.
Thanks to that combo I lost my Kobold Miner in the first round. But luckily I also got the Spark Pixies which had the flying ability and my monsters could focus on other back-end monsters.
During round two my monsters got the opponent's Cerberus. But again thanks to Fire Elemental I had to wave goodbye to another monster of mine - Serpentine Spy.
The good thing though was that my Living Lava was still standing and this matches star - Ant Miners have scavenged quite a bit of health due to all the dead monsters thus turning into a small tank.
Not much happened during the next round as my Living Lava did miss a hit and was on the brink of destruction with only 1 health remaining.
During round 4 my Living Lava monster did give up his life and now it was all down to my star - Ant Miners and Imp Bowman to save the match.
The Fire Elemental in the end did manage to take down my Imp Bowman, but the MVP of the match Ant Miners did get to the last ranged monster and chipped his health away one by one as he couldn't do anything.
So, all in all, this went very well. The biggest surprise was the Ant Miners card that actually closed the match for me. A round of applause for this little guy!
Did your strategy work? What will you try differently next time?
It was a tight match, but in the end, it worked very well. My damage dealers made the hard work and this matches star - Ant Miners accumulated enough health from the dead monsters to last till the very end of the match. And what's more - win it.
I might have incorporated Goblin Shaman in my setup as in low mana matches his ability is very worthwhile. Nevertheless, the match ended with a victory. A little nail-biting, but it was sure fun to watch.
Do you like the Ant Miners? Why or why not?
This little fellow changed my perspective of him as now I do see some uses for this card. And I might incorporate him in other matches.
Could be interesting to try him out in equalized health match where the health of monsters is set to that of the highest health monster. Coupled with low mana cost and scavenge ability he could be a useful secondary tank.
You can see the whole fight by clicking on the image bellow:
All in all a fun match where I was shown that even the smallest monster cards can do their part. And in this case - close the victory.
Not yet playing this amazing card game? Join the community using this link.