My daily quest was for the fire splinter which made for a perfect opportunity to try out the weekly battle challenge!
This week we're taking a look at the Scavo Firebolt card.
Card Details
Scavo Firebolt has no abilities until level 6 when it picks up knockout. For Bronze and Silver leagues this means only the stats of the card will be relevant. For 4 mana, it's a solid stat package of 2 ranged attack and 4 health at level 1. The health is the greatest asset in my opinion, since it can survive an attack to the backline where most other cheap range units would die. With 2 speed, the card has a very good chance of getting off at least 2 hits before going down. That 2 damage can really add up in small mana battles.
The fire splinter has some of the strongest melee cards in the game which means Scavo Firebolt usually acts as good backline slot fill when you only have 4 mana left.
Battle
You can watch the battle replay here
This week the battle will be the fire vs water splinter. At 32 mana, it's the perfect midrange mana battle where Scavo Hireling could get some good value. The ruleset is holy protection and stampede which helps our weaker cards survive a little big longer by absorbing some damage. Unfortunately our opponent will also benefit from the holy protection so we have to choose our lineup carefully.
My lineup
| Card | Notes |
|---|---|
 | From the starter summoners, Tarsa is hard to displace as the best Fire splinter choice for almost all battles. Higher melee attack is always welcome and the extra health is really going to shine on our midrange cards. The 4 mana cost really only hurts in extremely low mana battles. |
 | The first slot is a majority of fire splinter lineups is usually Living Lava. The stats are good for 7 mana and the card starts with the shield ability at level 1. Tarsa gives the lava a whopping 4 attack damage making the lava a very heavy hitting frontline. |
 | Our second slot will go to another strong melee card, Tenyii Striker. Usually I would opt for a reach melee to maximize frontline damage but with the holy protection in play I thought it might be more valuable to have a few attacks to remove the backline protection on the enemy team. 6 health can also really help your frontline soak damage. |
 | I like Djinn for most midrange mana battles. His 2 magic damage can be very valuable to armor-based lineups and at 4 health it can survive most snipe or opportunity attacks. |
 | For 2 mana, Kobold Miner is a fantastic fill for most lineups and is fairly cheap to rent so I've been picking him up whenever I can. The sneak attack will help chip away at the enemy backline in the event they are hiding dangerous ranged or healer cards. |
 | For holy protection battles I almost always try to include a card with the blast ability. Fire elemental seems an easy choice as providing blast at ranged lets us remove holy protection from the second enemy while working on the first. Fire elemental is extremely fragile so will we have to protect it. |
 | The final slot will go to the star of the week, Scavo Firebolt. At 4 mana it fits perfectly in the last slot and will be strong enough to soak some damage to protect our Fire Elemental. |
Our opponent went with the water splinter and a high speed lineup with a lot of magic midrange cards. On initial viewing, it doesn't look good since our tanks will die extremely quickly to the magic attacks.
Round 1
With the speed advantage, our opponent gets to attack first and starts chipping away at our Living Lava's health. The enemy frontline Diemonshark also poses a problem, a very high armor and health pool. Our Living Lava is only going to get one hit in before it dies and to make matters worse it misses completely due to the speed difference!
Our sneak and blast combos start working on the secondary units but if we can't get the Diemonshark down in time it will look very grim.
Round 2
As expected our Living Lava goes down without a fight, it did soak two hits from the Diemonshark as well as almost all the secondary magic/ranged units. Not hitting that 4 damage hurt but it did the job as a tank. We make sigificant progress on the Diemonshark this round as well as setup a kill on the backline for next round.
Round 3
Our tanks both die but the backline finishes off the Diemonshark. The Kobold Miner has been working on the enemy Kulu Swimhunter and finishes it off this round. Now the situation is very close, the enemy is left with only weak magic cards but they still have armor to block hits. Our ranged will be ineffective if they are forced into a frontline position.
Round 4
The Fire Elemental blast is doing wonders during this battle. With holy protections gone, the enemy units are now vulnerable to damage. Our kobold is the last remaining frontline before our ranged but he still has his holy protection. This means that he will survive the magic damage and let us clean up the battle!
Round 5/6
Fire elemental's speed really helps in the end as it removes the shield off the second enemy card. From their our Scavo and Kobold Miner can tear through the remaining cards and win us the battle!
Summary
Our enemy didn't have any backline attackers this battle so Scavo Firebolt wasn't that effective as a backline tank. The card did provide a consistent 2 damage per round but many other options could have filled a pure damage role. I feel this card really shines when protecting your other ranged units from sneak damage. Unfortunately in the Bronze/Silver leagues, I find magic and opportunity cards are more popular.
Overall the card sits in a niche role for midrange mana battles, it's too expensive for low mana (especially since ranged units are useless when left at the front) and too cheap for high mana cost battles where you need very high stat units.
With a higher budget, the card would really shine when used with a summoner like Yodin Zaku. Turning Scavo Firebolt into a 3 damage blast backliner would let it replace Fire Elemental in most lineups.
Images in this article are all taken from splinterlands.com
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