Splinterlands Social Media Challenge!

Before having a look at the battle I've picked for this Social Media Challenge, let's have a look at the newest pair of promo cards which got released yesterday. I already went over their abilities a couple of weeks ago but it never hurts to do it again especially since they are the new hot thing in town this week:

From the previous pair I got both cards off the market for a little bit of discount - a maxed Riklauniman and a level 4 Rune Arcanist. So, let's see if these two are worthy buys and if anything other than max level makes sense for them.

I'll start with the Rare Card - Meriput Mossmender. Her price is the same as those of the previous rares - 3,000 DEC/ 3,000 Credits. I will probably buy her from the shop as every 25 copies guaranteed a gold foil, and buying a maxed one should get me enough GFs to justify the higher price (and I might also get lucky - even though that happens quite rarely). So, she is a dual-element (Earth/Life) unit and at level 1 she starts with 2 Magic Attack, 1 Speed, 1 Armor and 2 Health and the Repair ability. This time the new ability is at max level (we'll get to it), however, a repair Monster is not a bad addition for some teams even at level 1 even though at the cost of 6 mana, you probably have better options in your deck. Next at 2 level (5 copies - 15,000 DEC) she gains Dodge. I don't think Dodge does much for her with her 1 Speed and 2 Health apart for the cases when you play her in Reverse Speed. Then at level 4 (25 copies) she gains Cleanse. Level 4 makes her a decent support unit but nothing to write home about, and she still has just 3 Health. Now we jump from level 4 straight to her max level - 8. THe stats here are 2 Magic Attack, 1 Speed, 2 Armor, 6 Health but most importantly she gains a completely new ability - Echo. As you can see from its description above, it is pretty much mandatory to get if you want to take advantage of the full capacity of the Meriput Mossmender. Now from mediocre at best she suddenly turns into a very powerful card. She already has Repair and Cleanse so she automatically boosts 2 of her abilities to be cast twice each round. Most units at max level have Heal, Tank Heal, Triage, Repair, Cleanse so that's a long list of abilities that get boosted by Echo. I think getting a max copy of her is definitely worth it.

And that was what I did. I got a maxed Meriput Mossmendender from the shop yesterday. I got a bit lucky and instead of the guaranteed 5 GFs for buying 125 cards, I got 6, so that was not too shabby.

Now for the Legendary card - Nephket. His shop price is 50,000 DEC/50,000 Credits. I think it is wise to buy the legendary cards from the marketplace at a reasonable discount rather than from the shop. Yeah, you can get lucky and land a GF legendary (if you are not me) but I prefer to leave the big boys to buy batches of 25 Legendaries, get their guaranteed gold foils and flip the regular foils. The more big fish do that, the better for the smaller fish. Now for the card - he is a dual-element (Life/Water) 7-mana dual-attack (Ranged/Melee) unit. His stats at level 1 are 2 Melee Attack, 1 Ranged Attack, 3 Speed, 0 Armor, 5 Health. His mana cost is 7. He starts with 2 abilities - Sneak and Stun. When you level him up to level 2 (3 copies - 150,000 DEC) he gains 1 More Melee Damage and Knock Out. Which means his abilities are very synergistic now. If you land a Stun with the first attack, you immediately deal double damage with the second one - which in his case is melee. That's pretty significant (if you get lucky). Then the next ability is Divine Shield. Not a bad ability to have in the world of Tofu spam but I don't think it's crucial in general. He does not gain any stats at level 3. Finally at level 4 (max - 550,000 DEC) he also gains Piercing. Piercing is synergistic with his other offensive abilities for sure, however, is it really worth 250,000 DEC (the cost of 5 copies). I am not sure about that at all. The fact that he gains 1 more melee attack point is significant though cause it can be doubled (as we already discussed) for a total of 8. Nevertheless I am still not really convinced if I need this card. Yeah, he's cool but I don't see him as a must-have. And when you are working on budget you definitely have to keep that into consideration. Maybe a level 2 will do just to have him as an option. And that was what I did with him as well. I got him at level 2, however, I have not had the chance to play him so far. Hopefully it will have some use even at 3 BCX.

We'll look at one of the Monsters in the set and how he is used in battle. The Monster is one which has quickly become one of my favorite Fire Monsters despite the fact that he is a Red Lupi (and not some imposing fire lord) - Rush Townsend.

Now before we get into the stats discussion of Rush Townsend, let's have a sneak peek into his LORE.

So, Rush Townsend is a hero of the resistance against the Chaos Empire in the Republic of Fireboro. I guess you could tell that he's a cool lupi just by looking at his picture but getting some background info on him definitely helps.

Alright, we've got some idea of who Rush Townsend is, after glancing at his lore. Let us have a look at his stats and abilities at different key levels now.

Rush Townsend is a Legendary Monster. He costs 9 Mana and at level 1 he has 4 Ranged Attack, 4 Speed, 1 Armor and 4 Health but most importantly he starts off with two important abilities in the current meta - Ambush (This Unit gets to act before the battle begins) and Affliction (When a Monster with Affliction hits a target, it has a chance of applying Affliction on the target causing it to be unable to be healed).
At level 2 he gains 1 Ranged Attack for a total of 5, 1 Speed for a total of 5 and 1 Armor for a total of 2.
At level 3 he gains 1 more Speed point for a total of 6, 1 more Armor for a total of 3 and 1 Health point for a total of 5. He also gets his 3rd ability - Piercing (If Melee or Ranged attack damage is in excess of the target's Armor, the remainder will damage the target's Health).
Finally, maxed out at level 4 he has 5 Ranged Attack, 6 Speed, 4 Armor and 6 Health. He also gains his 4th and final ability - Amplify (Increases Magic Reflect, Return Fire, and Thorns damage to all enemy monsters by 1).

Now that we know what the card does (or doesn't do) at the different levels of play, let us have a look at the battle I have chosen to showcase.

<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>BATTLE<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>

The line-up of the Battle and the Ruleset:

The rulesets for this battle are - What Doesn’t Kill You (All Monsters have the Enrage (has increased Melee attack and Speed when damaged) ability)), Are You Not Entertained? (One additional Gladiator card may be used in battles) and Briar Patch (All Monsters have the Thorns (when hit with a Melee attack, does damage back to the attacker) ability). The mana budget of 54 is an above-average amount, at least for today's standards, so I will be able to splurge a bit more on chunkier Monsters. Only two elements are available - Fire and Life. I'll go with the Fire Element.

1st in the line-up is a Monster part of the Rebellion set - the Torch Myrmidon. I have not have much time to play with him but he does seem to be a pretty useful Monster in some specific situations. It has Flank (At the beginning of Battle, if this Monster is in the first position, the Monster in the second position gains Reach), Close Range (Monsters with the Close Range ability can perform ranged attacks from the first position) and Shatter (Target's armor is destroyed when hit by an attack from Monsters with Shatter). I have obviously used it for its Flank ability but also for its high Speed and Shatter. It also has a very good amount of Health and some Armor.

The off-tank for the line-up is Mantoroth. He's a pretty beefy boy with 4 Armor and 11 Health at the cost of 11 Mana which makes him susceptible to Giant Killer (does double damage against targets that cost 10 or more mana). He also has 3 Melee Attack and 2 Speed. In terms of abilities - at max level he has the following ones (in order of appearance): - Shield (reduced damage from Melee and Ranged attacks), ARMORED STRIKE (Any unit with this ability gains an ADDITIONAL Melee attack using its Armor stat. This allows characters to improvise with deadly force, using their gauntlets, shields, helmets, or perhaps physical attributes (spikes, hard shells, etc) as weapons!), True Strike (this Monster's attacks cannot miss), Repair (restores some armor to the friendly Monster whose armor has taken the most damage) , Blast (does additional damage to Monsters adjacent to the target Monster). He is definitely shaping up to be a pretty interesting card, especially with the New Ability - Armored Strike and the fact that he is a Neutral Card, so he can be included in any Element.

The 3rd spot is for the Torch Vizier. She is a very cool-looking new addition to the game, released with the Rebellion set. I have her at level 6, and at that level she has 4 Melee Attack, 4 Speed and 6 HP but most importantly I have brought her for her Opportunity (Monsters with the Opportunity ability may attack from any position and will target the enemy Monster with the lowest health) and Reflection Shield (This Monster doesn't take damage from Blast, Magic Reflect, Thorns, or Return Fire) abilities. Reflection Shield is one of the best counters to Thorns.

4th in the line-up is Djinn Inferni. I love playing him in Jacek line-ups because he can literally ruin the day of the opponent if he has 10+ mana Monsters and the Djinn lands his Magic Attacks on them. He is so potent against "giants" thanks to his Giant Killer (Does double damage against targets that cost 10 or more mana) ability. His other ability is Stun (When a Monster with Stun hits a target, it has a chance to stun the target causing it to skip its next turn). Stun is basically one of the most OP abilities in any PvP game so it can't be bad here either.

5th in my line-up is the protagonist of this post - Rush Townsend. He is a great Ranged Attacker with 6 Speed and 5 Attack but what's more important is that he has the new Ambush (This Monster gets to act before the battle begins) ability. In addition to that he also has Affliction (When a Monster with Affliction hits a target, it has a chance of applying Affliction on the target causing it to be unable to be healed), Piercing (If Melee or Ranged attack damage is in excess of the target's Armor, the remainder will damage the target's Health) and Amplify (Increases Magic Reflect, Return Fire, and Thorns damage to all enemy monsters by 1). Getting to hit before any other Monster with 5 Attack plus Piercing could be a very powerful opener.

The 6th place in the line-up goes to Countess Sinash. Countess Sinash is a great Ranged Attacker specifically for the abilities she has - Opportunity (Monsters with the Opportunity ability may attack from any position and will target the enemy Monster with the lowest health), Swiftness (All friendly Monsters have increased Speed), Camouflage (This Monster cannot be targeted for attacks unless it's in the first position) and Blast (Does additional damage to Monsters adjacent to the target Monster) . Hopefully she'll get luck and survive until the end because Camouflage is no longer invincible to Scatter Shot as it used to be in the past.

It is time for a quick round by round analysis:

The Summoner I am going with for the battle is, as you have probably already guessed, Jacek. Jacek is my go-to guy ever since Rebellion came out when the rulesets of the battle favor a more ranged-heavy line-up. He is specifically effective against the pesky Lily teams which I am also guilty of playing. My opponent has also decided to go with Jacek in this battle, however, he lacks imagination or any new RB cards, so his line-up is very standard. That, of course, does not mean that RNJesus can't be on his side. Let's see how this goes.

After the Ambush Round and Round 1 I am considerable ahead having taken down two of his Monsters and have badly injured other two. My opponent managed to take down my Countess Sinash.

Round 3 begins and I have basically won the battle. All that is left is for Rush to hit the enemy Dr. Blight and send it to the underworld. A fast but fun battle.

Rush Townsend is a very potent Ambusher for the Fire Element. He is currently being traded at $4.75 per bcx which makes him pretty accessible for everyone interested in owning him which is great.

Over and Out,

Referral