Hello there! @saydie here, playing Splinterlands everyday!
Rebellion was the 5th major set that was introduced into Splinterlands and just like the previous sets, it has introduced a new batch of abilities to the game, expanding the variety of strategies and card synergies that we can use to win our battle. That is why it is important for us to familiarize with how this new abilities work.
And so, starting with this week moving forwards, I want to have an in depth review on this abilities starting with the Ambush Ability.
What is Ambush Ability?
Ambush is an ability will only activate during what we call as the Ambush Round or Round 0. During this stage, cards with the Ambush ability can attack their opponents even before the battle starts, giving the team with the Ambush cards the damage advantage against the opponent. However, just like a normal round, the attack order during the Ambush Round applies the same meaning, if there were multiple cards with Ambush ability, the faster units will be the one to attack first and if the cards have the same speed, the attack order will be determined by their rarity and attack type.
Prons
Can attack the opponent before the start of the round.
Notable Interactions with other abilities.
When a unit with Ambush has a successful hit with Poison during Ambush Round, the initial application will trigger at the end of round 0 - before round 1.
Cards with Recharge ability will will be able to Recharge on round 0 and attack in round 1 when given the Ambush ability.
Last Stand will trigger during the Ambush round if it is the last Unit left on the team and was given Ambush.
Cons
- The ability is one- time use only.
Cards with Ambush Ability
Common
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Rare
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Legendary
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As of the moment, there were a total of 9 cards with the Ambush ability, 3 each for common, rare and legendary with the Fire element having the most of them. Aside from that, there is also 1 Rebellion summoner that has the ability to to give the Ambush ability on any units during the tactics round.
Battle Showcase:
Battle 1: Saultry Barmaid and Warborn Shaman
Due to Ambush, Sultry Barmaid was able to attack Wave Brood before the start of the first round, inflicting 3 damage as well as to trigger the Expose ability, removing the Void ability on Wave Brood as well as to Stun it so it won't be able to attack for a turn. On the other hand, Sultry Barmaid has received 3 damage due to the effect of Return Fire ability.
And since Wave Brood does not have Void anymore, Warborn Shaman was easily able to inflict 2 magic damage to it as well as to give it the Poison debuff and as a result, it loses another 2 damage when round 1 started.
Battle 2: Chaos Jailer and Drybone Bowdog
In this battle, Drybone Bowdog was the first monster to attack during the Ambush Round, inflicting 2 damage to Daigendark Hunter.
While Chaos Jailer attacks Elanor Bravefoot, inflicting 2 damage as well as giving it the Poison debuff so even if it did not die from the attack, it dies from poison damage as soon as round 1 starts.
Battle 3: Gobalano Soldier, Chaos Evoker, Rush Townsend and Baron Fyatt
Fire element has the most number of Ambush cards and can readily fill more than half of your team so in this battle, I just did try that and immediately, Rush Townsend just defeated Djinn Inferni.
This was then followed by Chaos Evoker which inflicts 2 damage to Mordeus and since it has the Blast ability, it also resulted for Kha'zi Firemage to receive 1 damage.
It does not end there because Gobalano Soldier also inflicts another 3 damage to Kha'zi Firemage.
For the final attack, Baron Fyatt inflicts 2 damage to Mordeus but since it also has the Halfing ability, the 8 damage that Mordeus have has reduced to 4. As a result, before round 1 start, there is already 1 monster that was gone in the opponent side while the other 2 units barely have any life left.
Battle 4: Akane
For the last battle, I used the Dragon Summoner Akane which has the ability to give the Ambush ability during the Tactics Stage and as a result, Coeurl Lurker and Rage, despite not having the Ambush ability at default were able to attack during the Ambush Round with a total of 10 damage.
Closing
The Ambush ability is an interesting addition to the new abilities that comes with Rebellion. It allows you to get the headstart in damaging your opponent at the cost that you can only use the ability once. It also brings new interactions on old abilities which brings interesting card synergies that does not exist before.
Thank you and see you at the next post.
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Speed and hitting first is definitely very important! It's why I bought Akane two weeks ago to prepare for the modern rotation
Still waiting for my bids for Akane to be filled but I have all the core rb cards with ambush.
Thanks for sharing! - @libertycrypto27
Thanks for the support. 😁