One of my favorite strategies is playing Pelacor Bandit in the first position in the small mana battles. This can work really well with Merdaali Guardian, but in the battle that I am showing today it is a very small mana battle - only twelve mana so I didn't have room for the shield repair and heal monster.
Playing Pelacor Bandit in front used to be very un-traditional though I do see it more in battles recently. Normally you want to use Pelacor Bandit as a sneak monster, however it is also very effective as a tank.
Because of his high speed this monster almost never misses so he is likely to take out a Chaos Agent if one were to play it in the first position in this small mana battle. Also many monsters miss him because it is so high speed and has a flying ability that contributes to his evasiveness.
So here in the battle I am using Kelya Frendul as a summoner, because Kelya is a fairly small mana monster and comes with speed and shield boosts for the friendly team she is perfect for this strategy. Speed boost makes Pelacor Bandit even faster and shield gives him a shield which he normally doesn't have.
In the second position I am putting Tide Biter. Tide Biter never misses and is a fairly high damage monster with three melee damage, he is a perfect companion to the Pelacor Bandit and together they do seven melee damage per turn which is very significant in the low mana battles.
And finally in the third place we have an epic rarity card: Igor Dark Spear. For only two mana this unit packs quite a punch. First it comes with a high ranged damage of three and it has a stun ability which comes in handy. It also has five base health points which for two mana in a twelve mana battle is important as every health point and every damage and every mana point really counts.
And finally the key point of this Pelacor Bandit in front strategy is to focus high damage on a single point. In this case we are focusing all of our damage on the front position and not spread it around with sneak/snipe/front attacks.
So let's see the battle!
The Battle:
As you can see our opponent also picked the blue team, although Fire and Earth teams were also available. His lineup is a bit different in front he used a more traditional tank with lots of armor and health and in the back he put Pelacor Bandit and in the middle sandwiched the same Igor Darkspear:
In the first round Igor Darkspear missed our Pelacor Bandit, but the slower Cruel Sethropod surprisingly scored a hit. That first miss may prove very key. We on the other hand scored all of our hits:
In the second round we took out their tank and now Igor Darkspear is simply a meat-shield on their team:
Their Pelacor did manage to take out our Igor Darkspear at the start of third round but we put away their Igor Darkspear as well. I believe that we came to the fourth round with a clear advantage. As long as our Pelacor Bandit doesn't miss their Pelacor Bandit we should win this one:
And Pelacor Bandit doesn't disappoint! We win this one in the fourth round and take away over 9 SPS tokens and 792 glint as our prize:
I hope you enjoyed learning one of my favorite small mana strategies and will be able to use it on the battlefield soon!
If you wonder what is the best way to get involved you can use my link to begin your Splinterlands and HIVE journey.
