What is going on Splinterlandians, lately I have been thinking about the forcefield ability and how it can be used in the meta. So I figured I would make a post and give my thoughts on it and share what I think will happen in the future with the legendary summoners yet to come.
Force Field
So this ability states that this Monster takes only 1 damage from attacks with power 5+. Now there is currently no monsters in bronze with this ability as most monsters in bronze don't reach this high attack for the most part. In silver league there is only one monster currently that has this ability the Mycelic Slipspawn. The other monsters are all in gold league and higher and they are Ifrrit Rising(LVL4), Djinn Oshannus(LVL3), Prismologist(LVL4), Djinn Muriat(LVL4).
- Magnor(LVL2)
- Sea Monster(LVL4)
- Torhilo(LVL3)
- Frost Giant(LVL2)
- Rexxie(LVL2)
- Mitica Headhunter(LVL3)
- Undead Rex(LVL1)
- Desert Dragon(LVL2)
- Sandworm(LVL1)
- Goblin Mech(LVL5)
So overall there is not a lot that you will see in the silver league. Now there are times when people will run a summoner like Daria Dragonscale, Selenia Sky or any other summoner that gives +1 to melee/ranged/magic.
Pair that with an ability like inspire that gives another +1 to melee monsters you may see more monsters get to that 5+ attack. But for the most part, you will not run into it often. Now one exception that I find this ability and specifically this monster for is the enrage ruleset.
In this ruleset, you can often see monsters hit that 5+ damage number and with Mycelic Splispawn having both taunt and forcefield makes him an amazing option to run in this ruleset. Two different ways you could play this is either throw them in the backline with a triage possibly 2 triages if you run dragon as you could run scale doctor along with spirit hoarder. If you don't like that option or don't have access to those cards you can just throw Mycelic upfront and pair them with the insane amount of heals earth has to offer.
You could run Wood nymph, Goblin psychic, Khmer princess, Spirit of the forest that is a whopping 4 tank heals to a card that will be barely taking any damage. Now you may opt to go with some other variations but either way this card in ruleset can dominate and troll the opponent as you take 1 damage over and over again.
Gold And Above
Now in gold and above everything changes as you encounter a lot more monsters that get to that 5+ damage ratio. Not only that but you see way more buffs like inspire so it is much more likely playing in the higher leagues that will encounter these high damage monsters. That is where forcefield becomes a lot more useful however, there is still only a very few monsters with this ability. So being able to run this consistently is not always an option and with very limited choices it is not a go-to strategy currently.
The 2 options I see being best are Djinn Oshannus and Djinn Muirat as they can either be front line tanks or tossed in the back line in spot 2 and draw that sniper fire.
Countering Forcefield
Now that I told you the uses of forcefield and how best to use it I'm gonna give you some options to counter it. So one thing many may not know currently is the ability everybody likes to hate on currently recharge.
Now rightfully so as this ability can really suck and get you in more trouble than help most times. However, one thing very interesting about recharge is it goes through forcefield due to the fact it doesn't buff the monster's stats but just triples it's damage done.
So monsters like Ifrit Rising and Insidious Warlock can completely avoid it and actually one-shot these forcefield monsters at times. Now there is other options as well like Uriel and Zyvax however one massive drawback for both of them is if they hit armour the hit is completely absorbed. Still, this is a great counter to forcefield with both of the magic options and if you run them alongside Delwynn you can see some serious damage output from the two of them.
Giant Killer?
Another ability I feel would work the same is giant-killer however there is currently no monsters that have forcefield that are 10 mana cost or more. All of them are under 10 mana so we may not be able to find out until more cards with the ability come out.
This also makes me think though to make some of these abilities more useful like recharge and giant killer as well as force field will we see a summoner that gives everybody forcefield?
Now I don't know if that is too broken or not I can't currently say as I don't play in gold or above so I don't know how much of an effect it would have. However, down in silver I don't think it would be too bad.
The life legendary airdrop summoner should be revealed in the next few weeks depending on pack sales but I'm sure Nate Aguila is itching to show off some of these summoners. We know the life legendary one will be the first one so this may be it.
It would fit the life splinter perfectly I find as life is all about unkillable shit lol, so I could see a legendary summoner giving everybody forcefield. If it's not done this time around I feel when riftwatchers comes out we could see the rare summoner in that set having forcefield as ability possibly. I don't think just forcefield alone would be good enough so I could see it being paired along +1 speed or maybe +1 to magic.
Now again this is all speculation and just a thought but I have a feeling they want to make use of some of these underutilized abilities more. I feel all three of these abilities like giant killer, recharge, and even forcefield to an extent are underperforming currently.
Final Thoughts
Well, that's all folks for this one, I have given my opinions and strats for using these abilities. Let me know what you think about it in the comment section below and whether you use these abilities or not. Also, feel free to let me know your thoughts and opinions on what the life summoner could have for a skill set. I think we are all eager to start to see these summoners and get our hands on them to play with.
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