Welcome to this Weekly Challenge! This time, the card to use is the Pelacor Arbalest. Most of the times, for this posts, I end up using some other card, but in this case, since the season ended recently, I’ll be using the Arbalest, because it happens to be quite useful to me in the Bronze League.
Well, as I mentioned before, I’m starting again from the Bronze League. This Challenge was done in the Modern Format (only Monsters with Chaos or Untamed card frames allowed), and it was done with my own cards, which happen to be, in this case, at max cap for Bronze, so I have a slight improvement in my stats, but I’m not very superior to those players using level one cards.
About the Pelacor Arbalest
Pelacor Arbalests are armed with powerful crossbows enchanted to fire bolts at extremely long distances. They are trained to wield a crossbow in each hand and can fire both simultaneously with deadly accuracy. Compounded with the Pelacor's excellent eyesight and nimble dexterity, these sharpshooters are extremely useful as snipers on the battlefield.
I’ll begin by saying… I don’t like this card. There are three main reasons for that:
One: it has very low health. Most players probably use it in the Bronze and Silver Leagues, and it’s health from level one to four goes from two to four, making it a very weak card, prone to be taken down in one hit by an attacker with Sneak or Opportunity.
Two: all along it’s levels, it has a very low Speed, which considering it’s Health Points, makes it even more vulnerable.
Three: it takes six points of Mana to summon, which considering the previous points, it sounds too much for me, even though is a strong card.
Those were the bad points that make me dislike the card, points that I believe make a big difference in combat. The Axemaster is a similar card; it costs seven Mana points to summon, but it has more Speed and Constitution, so it’s a card that I like very much, which makes the Mana you spend worth it.
Now, talking about the good points of this card, I see only two:
It has a very strong attack, which combined with General Sloan, is quite devastating in the lower levels. Unfortunately, it’s Speed makes him harmless against tanks like the Pelacor (all of them) or the Serpent of Eld.
A small perk of this card is it’s ability to Fly at level five. It doesn’t make wonders, since it’s Speed is low, but in an Earthquake ruleset could be useful.
Overall, you can see that I see more disadvantages than advantages here, however, is a card that I use pretty much frequently in the lower leagues, but I do so, under the condition that the Time Mage, whose able to debuff the opponent’s Speed, is in the team, otherwise, the Arbalest, is likely to miss many attacks, compromising my victory.
About the Bronze League
In the Bronze League we are full of bots, which sometimes assemble solid lineups and sometimes do stupid things. It doesn’t matter; what matters is that they are unpredictable and you shouldn’t assemble your lineup thinking about what they are going to do, because you could fail miserably. I tried to be a “good player” by anticipating, countering, and all that, but bots don’t allow it.
So I just assemble “default templates”, which allow me to win more consistently. In the Life Splinter it is:
Summoner: my level two Sloan, who allows me to have a slight boost on my stats, since I can summon max cap Bronze Monsters, and also increases my ranged attacks.
Tank: the possible tanks are either the Pelacor Conjurer, the Chaos Knight and the Shieldbearer.
First must card: a healer, in this case the Venari Crystalsmith.
Second must: the Time Mage, fast and with a Speed debuff.
Third must: if the Mana cap allows it, the Pelacor Arbalest, whose attacks are quite devastating, if they land, of course. As you can see, it’s Speed makes it the least important card in my template.
Templates are not a fixed thing, of course, you have to adjust to the situation; Mana cap, rulesets or whatever.
Standard: No modification to the standard gameplay rules and mechanics.
Death Splinter not allowed.
Mana cap: 27.
Battle analysis
Considering the Mana cap, I used the Chaos Knight as a tank, which was a risk, since my opponent could’ve use more Magic attackers and the Knight doesn’t have much Health, but fortunately it was a good choice. I had three Mana points left, so I decided to use the Scavo Hireling to assist the Venari in the protection of the Knight. And to cover the Scavo’s back, I put the Soul Fiend, free Mana card.
The Knight’s Shield ended up being very useful. I’m glad that I used the Scavo here, instead of a Sneak attacker, otherwise the tank would’ve fallen. There isn’t much else to say, this is a pretty standard Life team for Bronze, simple, yet effective.
Standard: No modification to the standard gameplay rules and mechanics.
All Splinters allowed.
Mana cap: 22.
Battle analysis
Similar lineup as before with slight adjustments; the Pelacor as a tank, to save Mana and focus on evasion, the same “must” cards, so to speak and, with two Mana points left I positioned the Harpy and the Soul Fiend to cover the backline.
Here we can see the importance of the Time Mage in association with the Arbalest. Without the first one, the opposing team could’ve taken down the tank and the rest of the line rather quick, but fortunately, the Arbalest was able to attack first, and took down three Monsters.
I do have to say that I was lucky that my opponent didn’t positioned the Regal Peryton as the first attacker, otherwise it could’ve been hard to hit, because of it’s Speed and Flying ability. Actually, the Arbalest missed his two attacks on him.
My Life templates don’t win everytime, but they do have a nice victory rate, making my strategy effective. It helps that my General Sloan is level two.
