Greeting Battlemages!
This week, we go with probably my most used legendary, the super versatile Spirit Hoarder!
The card
The Spirit Hoarder is a Legendary monster from the Chaos Legion set. Did I say versatile? The Spirit Hoarder is Neutral, you can use it with any splinter! In addition to that, it only costs 3 mana to play, so you can basically use it in any match!
As for its stats, it is a slow monster, with 1 speed. His Health is quite low but not that bad for the mana cost. And it comes with 1 magical damage at level 1, which again is nice for the cost. And in addition to that, it also has at level 1 the very useful Triage ability: healing one monster on the backline every turn.
I like to use it in different scenarios.
The most obvious: the infamous double tank/taunt heal with Obsidian-Mycelic Slipspawn.
If I expect a Sneak unit, it can counter it by healing my last monster every turn. Let's say: a Death mirror match, Sha-Vi hitting Sha-Vi except it gets healed every turn and you win.
In Explosive ruleset, it's always a nice addition to gain back a few points of Health.
And there's a special trick with Poison or Earthquake rulesets, where it heals itself back every turn... Super funny to watch!
The battle
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_b20380bb15e85c44fd463b1dbfb3c69f&ref=engilhramn
The battle is played in Modern Silver. It is opened to Fire, Earth, Death and Dragons. The rulesets are Explosive Weaponry and Counterspell. The mana cap is 32.
The Lineup
When it gets to Explosive Weaponry, I like speed and double strikes. No Water available though, so I picked:
Summoner: Quix the Devious, mainly for the speed malus
First position: Djinn Chwala, a mighty tank with its armor and Thorns
Second position: Carnage Titan, for being relatively fast, and double strike means double explosion!
Third Position: Spirit Hoarder, despite the Counterspell, it could still prove very useful healing the backline
Fourth position: Silent Sha-Vi, to sneak some damages behind
Last position: Chaos Agent, just to dodge maybe or be a punching ball, as I expect a Sneak in front
I decided to concentrate the mana on less monsters but more powerful ones. No point in Explosive ruleset to line plenty of small monsters who will die pretty fast.
Surprisingly, my opponent chose an Earth/Obsidian team despite the rulesets. Well, magic teams can be powerful enough to win matches with the Counterspell rule. I guess we all lost matches like this (or in all cases, I did!). But Counterspell plus Explosive Weaponry, that may be a bit too much though...
He picked Mycelic Slipspawn as Tank, then a bunch of small Legendary(!) monsters, each more annoying than the other. We have Doctor Blight with Affliction, Spirit Hoarder with Triage, Queen Mycelia with Protect, Spirit Druid Grog with Resurrect and Djinn Blijka to finish. Hopefully for me, all slow monsters.
Round 1
Here we go! After the Obsidian magic boost, Mister Opponent will generate 14 points of damage per turn, when I will only do 11. So I'm not that confident at the start!
All my monsters attack first, already killing Doctor Blight who get Resurrected. Spirit Druid Grog is the first one to attack in front, to die instantly by the Counterspell. Well... It's just too bad I was too fast to kill one monster fast! It would have been even funnier!
Spirit Hoarder follows and he at least survives its own attacks.
Djinn Blijka is next: one counterspell, a second couterspell, farewell then!
But my two tanks are already seriously hurt! That's the power of magic teams! Hopefully my Spirit Hoarder is here to heal a bit of my Titan!
Queen Mycelia in the other hand, took the opportunity to kill my Djinn Chwala.
Round 2
Now, with my faster monsters, it is done. Sha-Vi first attacks to remove the armor on Mycelia and the Spirit Hoarder, then the Titan proceeds to kill Dr Blight and the Hoarder. Only Queen Mycelia remains, and she won't survive her own attack with the double counterspell.
For the photo-finish:
Takeaway
My takeaway is a bit mixed.
In one hand, I would say "play with the damned rules"! Putting up a magic team with Counterspell is already daring, with Explosive Weaponry in addition, it's calling for troubles.
In the other hand, I wasn't far from losing. What kind of broken mechanic makes it so that magical teams are so powerful in a ruleset supposed to counter it?
The Spirit Hoarder didn't really have the opportunity to shine as the battle was so short, but it does usually very well in Explosive rulesets. In all cases: a neutral Legendary costing 3 mana to play, with a magical attack and healing power: of course you need it!
So... Well... Don't forget to play Obsidian with the Counterspell rule, and see you on the Battlefield!
