Hello there! @saydie here, playing Splinterlands everyday!
As the Rebellion against the Chaos Empire continues, it is just a matter of time before the battle to liberate Mox City to approach. With this in mind, Elias Max Pruitt, begins to gather different individuals to build his own resistance consisting of the outcasts, and misfits of Mox City but his cunning nature says to him that his force is not yet enough to overthrow the Chaos Empire so with my and @thepeoplesguild's help, we look for like-minded individuals across Praetoria that would also synergizes with Elias Max Pruitt's power of runemancy. But in order to know which individual to look for, first we need to know more about what Elias Max Pruitt is capable.
Elias Max Pruitt
| Edition | Rebellion |
|---|---|
| Mana Cost | 7 |
| Element |  Life,  Water |
| Card Type |  Summoner |
| Rarity | Legendary |
| Global Stats | +1  Melee, +1  |
| Tactics | Give 1 unit  Repair and  Cleanseor Give 1 unit  Armored Strike and  Piercing |
Harnessing the power of Runemancy, Ellias Max Pruitt was not only able stop the spread the curse of wraithblight that the necromancer has cursed him but he was also able to give all ally units from both Life and Water elements with additional Armor and Melee attack.
During an offensive battle, he can give 1 unit with the Armored Strike ability which allows them to attack using their armors along with Piercing that allows damage to penetrate all through the target's health. This makes units with Sneak, Opportunity, Charge, and Reach to decimate their targets and a possible play to use during Melee Mayhem, Equal Opportunity, Super Sneak, and Maneuvers ruleset.
| Ability Synergies |  Sneak,  Opportunity,  Charge,  Reach |
|---|---|
| Rulesets |     |
On the other hand, when Ellias Max Pruitt was pushed on a defensive battle, he can give 1 unit with the Repair and Cleanse ability to restore the armor of an ally unit and removes any negative status on the tank monster. This makes him a crucial ally with units that has Protect, Void Armor and Armor Strike ability and might as well be the play during Armored Up, Weak Magic and Fog of War which or During Noxious Fumes and Earthquake ruleset.
| Ability Synergies |  Protect,  Void Armor, Armored Strike |
|---|---|
| Rulesets |      |
Beneficiaries of Armored Strike and Piercing Ability
Now that we know what Ellias Max Pruitt, here are the folks that I find across Praetoria that can utilize the abilities that he can provide, starting with the monsters that will benefit from having Armored Strike and Piercing ability.
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Basically, all melee units that we used at the first position with a decent amount of armor benefits from having Armored Strike ability since they were able to use their armor to initiate another attack that can inflict damage equivalent to their current armor aside from their melee damage, not to mention that, they would also got a permanent increase in both melee and armor just by using Ellias Max Pruitt like with Spineback Turtle for example which has a total damage of 3 and armor of 5 will have a damage of 4 and armor of 6 and by using Armored Strike, it can inflict a combined damage of 10 while at the same time, any extra damage that it can inflict towards the opponent's armor will go directly to its health due to the effect of Piercing ability.
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And among the potential tanks, I was particularly curious among these 4 given the set of abilities they have.
Comander Slade: The combination of Armored Strike and Enfeeble means that he can reduce the melee attack of the target twice per turn. That is if the target can survive after it receives 14 damage from it.
Kralus: With both magic and melee attack this card can originally inflict up to 4 damage but now, with Armored Strike, it can also use its armor to perform another attack up to 6 damage while its melee damage also increased by 1 with the stat boost provided by Ellias Max Pruitt.
Inevitable: The problem with Armored Strike is that once the monster loses its armor, the ability cannot be used anymore but that will be less likely to happen to Inevitable as it can use Repair to restore its armor or of any ally units and it also has Shield that reduces the damage it receives from melee and range attacks.
Silvershield Fighter: This card does not only have a decent amount of armor, it also has the Protect ability which gives 2 armor on all ally units so when combine together with the stat boost from the summoner, it will have a total of 4 damage and 10 armor to use for Armored Strike and with Flank, we can placed Mantaroth next to it and gained Reach so all of a sudden, we now have 2 units with Armored Strike ability.
Reach Units:
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But depending on the situation, we may not want to use Armored Strike on our tank since it will likely lose its armor from the opponent's attack and the less armor it has, the less effective Armored Strike will be. So instead, we can give it on the second position as long as they have the Reach ability.
Opportunity Units:
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On the other hand, melee units with Opportunity may not have the highest amount of armor and melee damage but their target are usually the opponent units with the least amount of health and the additional armor and attack from Armored Strike may be the extra damage they need to defeat their target.
Sneak Units:
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Some Sneak units will also benefit when used with Ellias Max Pruitt particularly, the Silvershield Assasin which can attack twice per turn due to Double Strike can now attack more with Armored Strike which increases its chance to afflict its target with Poison, and given the right condition, Dumacke Exile could completely destroy any units with Taunt with the combination of Fury and Armored Strike.
Other Niche Use Case for Armored Strike
Nitch Usecase 1: Melee Mayhem, Super Sneak, Manuevers and Equal Opportunity.
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Not all melee monsters are a tank material due to the lack of abilities that can counter different type of attacks but during certain rulesets, they can gain abilities that allows them to attack regardless of their position. Some of which are Coastal Sentry and Drybone Raider which both have the Double Strike ability, letting them attack multiple time in a round whileJared Scar has Bloodlust that allows him to get stronger for each monster it defeats.
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Alternitively, we also have the Flank ability that can be used as a support to give a melee unit with Reach ability.
Nitch Usecase 2: Give Armored Strike on Non- melee units.
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It does not matter if the monster does not have melee attack as long as it has a decent amount of armor, it can use Armored Strike but since it is counted as a melee attack, they will not be able to use it unless they are in the first position or under certain ruleset.
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At the same time, we can also give it on non- damage units which comes with a decent amount of armor as not only that they could attack with that if given with Armored Strike, we can also use Weapon's Training to give them attacks.
Beneficiaries of Clense and Repair Ability
Moving on to with Cleanse and Repair ability, there was really no downside on giving it on any units as this was more of a support ability, usually used during Earthquake and Noxious Fumes ruleset as well as during Fog of War to help sustain your frontline or when against units that can afflict your lineup with negative buffs though if there are be units that will benefit the most with this abilities, it will be the following cards.
A. Frontline Healers during Fog of War
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During Fog of War, the usual target of an attack was the frontline by which just having to Repair the armor and Cleanse may not be enough so while you are on it, it may as well be better to give it on units that can also provide healing to your tank.
B. Triage, and Self Heal Units during Noxious Fumes and Earthquake
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For this next one, why I would choose to give them Cleanse and Repair is that during Earthquake and Noxious Fumes ruleset, their abilities allows them to sustain the damage they or their allies would received which makes it for them to last longer and use the ability.
Closing
Searching for this cards has been a challenge and has taken me far longer than I expected, but now Ellias Max Pruitt has now the necessary force to to end the Chaos Empire's tyranny. Only few hours remaining before we can finally see how he will do in the battle. I have been quite unlucky to get a single summoner within the previous airdrops so I was hoping to get some in this batch but we can only wait and see how it will turn out.
And that was it for my post. Thanks for reading and see you at the next post.
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All the image that I edited here belongs to Splinterlands and Soulkeep.
Card abilities and rulesets from Splintercards.
All the battle links provided comes from my personal accounts and from the scholar account that I am using from Balthazar Guild.
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He's back for Challenge #2! Well done Saydie :)
Agreed with all of this - excited to try EMP out in the coming days. Fun stuff!
Thanks for participating!
Takes me quite long to make it since I want to look from all card sets but was satisfied on the end product and makes me want to play wild.
Thanks for sharing! - @azircon
