This week’s Share Your Battle theme is the Shadow Snitch.
The folks who pick the weekly battle themes have a knack for choosing cards I have never played, and they did it again this week with the Shadow Snitch. At first glance, the card seems slow and weak. In a splinter full of sneaks, snipes and life sappers the only thing going for it is its 5 health points.
However, I can see that once it’s affliction ability kicks in at level six and it’s dodge ability at level ten my bronze league perspective might not capture the full value of the Snitch.
But to keep with the theme, I set my mind to finding a good use for the card and decided that it could be helpful in a battle against magic when it’s 5 health might give my backline a bit more time to cut through my opponents rear loaded magical forces. With a plan, I set off to battle waiting for an opponent who was playing a lot of earth magic to come my way.
Before long I found a suitable match, a 29-mana-point affair with standard rules against an opponent who had played earth in three of their last five matches.
I moused over their previous teams to make sure they were a magic fan, and sure enough, all his earth teams were summoned by Obsidian with +1 magic. Game on! The natural counter is the death splinter headed by Thaddius Brood with -1 magic.
As I gain more experience with the chaos legion starter deck, I am finding that it is often best to try to predict what sort of team your opponent will use and simply go all in on beating that team. With the current starter deck trying to be well rounded to beat any team doesn’t seem to work. Middle of the road teams seem to get beaten by everything, so I just plan on a certain opponent and move all in.
So my strategy here was anti-magic and anti-earth all the way: no front-firing magic that the expected Unicorn Mustang will just void away anyway, fast backfield attackers to blitz the expected magical tank healer, and a helping of true strike to help bring down speedy and flying foes.
Going all in, I play Bone Golem as my tank. I like this play because it basically demands Unicorn Mustang (mana 8), Mycelic Slipspawn (mana 9) and Goblin Psychic (mana 6) in response because any other magic in the starter deck will be voided. Adding in Obsidian’s 4 mana, that’s 27 mana needed to insure 5 points of damage per turn to my 11 mana Thadius Brood/Bone Golem pair.
Shadow Snitch in second position, naturally. Then I round out the team with two fast sneaks and the sure-shooting Dhampir Stalker. I placed Silent Sha-vi in third position as insurance against the expected tank healer in my opponent’s team. In teams with armor or health repair, it is important to ensure there is a card on your team that can keep trying to hunt down the healers deep into the match. Placing the higher healthed Sha-vi in front of the 1 health Badger helps in this regard. I waffled over the order of the last two cards, but ended up putting Undead Badger last. In retrospect, I think the archer should have gone last, but oops.
Earth as expected. Good news as any other splinter would have wiped the floor with me, the downside of using Bone Golem. My opponent did play Unicorn Mustang/Mycelic Slipspawn/Goblin Psychic, at least it might be a fight. I don’t know if the Shadow Snitch is going to be my downfall yet. Usually I will use that four mana for a 1-mana blocker and the 3-mana sniping Death Elemental which is assured to both damage the opposing Slipspawn and continue firing into the magical backfield thereafter.
At the end of round two 9 points of damage from my back 3 have taken out the Slipspawn before it could act in round two, with a further 3 damage from the slower archer going to my opponent’s tank as well. And In return 9 points of damage from his front 3 have taken down my Bone Golem. The Shadow Snitch has missed twice (too slow) but my Bone Golem did hit once, which is good because it kept the healer from fully healing the Unicorn Mustang.
That brings us to the interesting position pictured above. Looking ahead to round 3, after the Unicorn Mustang tags my hapless Snitch for 3 points of damage, my sneaks will act. It is a 50/50 shot on how things proceed from here, since both sneaks are 3-speed commons. If the Badger goes first then I am in great shape as it will take out the Princess and Sha-vi will finish off the healer. However, if Sha-vi goes first he takes out the Princess and the Badger only does one point of damage to the healer and it’s a totally different ballgame.
Let’s imagine for a moment that the Sha-vi goes first, and that I had ordered my team with the Badger in third position and the Sha-vi fourth. After the healer finishes off the poor Snitch, the Unicorn destroys the Badger at the start of the next round and the healer lives forever. Game over for death. This exactly illustrates the point I made above about making sure a backfield attacker is able to keep seeking out repair cards. Had I placed Sha-vi last it’s no better, now losing the 3-points of damage from the archer who can’t attack from first position.
But back to the match. How did it turn out? You can see for yourself here.
Turns out the 50/50 went my way and all that was left to do was mop up the remains.
My Snitch even managed to get a lick in before the Unicorn stomped him. Way to go!
I suppose the Shadow Snitch did it’s job. It took two hits and acted as a shock absorber between my front and back lines. Be that as it may, I am not sold. As I noted above even though I won this match, the 4 mana used on the Snitch could have been put to better use. Slotting Carrion Shade into second position and Death Elemental third takes down the Mycelic Slipspawn faster, allowing a sneak to take out the Princess in round 2 and avoiding the 50/50 scenario I faced in this match. My poor Snitch is going back into mothballs for now.
