This community challenge is for underrated cards. I struggled a bit with this since I'm not sure what cards are rated beyond how often I see them and their cost on the market. For that I'm gonna talk about the Virid venomancer. I rarely see them, and they're a mere 55 cents for a gold foil!

The Virid Venonmancer is very much a situational card. It costs five, which isn't a lot, but it's not got a lot of health, and it's only 2 speed so they're not very quick. The shield ward ability at level 3 is fantastic though. There's a lot to of utility in that ability. Two magic is also a nice feature. Two magic means it'll still do something to someone with void.

Where to use it?

With the venomancer granting shield to the unit in front of them it's important to think about whose going to be targetted. Putting them behind a unit with taunt or right behind your tank are both solid choices.

Where not to use it?

As the venomancer's ability effects the unit in front of it, and they're stats re rather squishy, don't put them as a tank. It's also important to be aware of abilities like snip as it will target them if they're supporting your tank. I'd also advise against using it in the target practice rule set as they will end up going down quickly unless there are some beefy magic/archer units in front of them. The equal opportunity rule set also isn't great for this guy as he's not got that much health.

Best rule sets?

One of my favortie rule sets for using this guy is fog of war as it means almost everyone is attacking the front row. No attack of opportunity or snipe to worry about. I've also gotten great use out of him with brawls and the "Are you not entertained" ruleset since it means my gladiator has that much more going for it.

How much mana?

I get the most use out of him in medium amounts of mana, say 20-40. Any lower than that and the 5 mana just seems to expensive for the amount of units and slots I have. Though I've done it with the halfling refugee once and that worked out. And more than that and there's just to many other options. One of the things I love about splinterland is how adaptable you need to be. Each rule set and mana cap is a puzzle and there are so many different puzzles to solve. (or lose. As I often do)

Now lets see it in Action!

The battle set up

23 mana, fire, death, earth and dragon are options, and the only active ruleset is amplify. I also looked at my opponents history and can be fairly confident they're going to play tofu. Tofu gives everyone on their team briar patch so I know I want to avoid melee units.

Meet the team

Archon		Kaylia only costs 4, gives all elves exacute and reduces the opponents magic attacks by 1. Sounds awesome.
Tank		The Quilliun Legionaire has thorns and close range and this combo is GREAT for tank. With 8 health and one armour he's pretty good.
Postion 2		However, the Quilliun is even better with shield. Hence the Virid Venommancer playing summor right behind him.
Position 3		The silverleaf warlock is another one of my favorite cards. With a low mana battle I want speed. And since I'm using Kaylia he gets execute.

I've created a team that has no melee meaning that briar patch won't hurt it despite tofu putting it everywhere. That despite having 2 units with only 2 speed, won't be to bad thanks to the warlocks swiftness, and has a potental of doing a fair bit of magic damage. Not bad for a fairly low mana set up.

The Battle begins (watch it here)

I'm a little worried at first since that's a pretty stacked team. But they only have one magic unit, and they're reduced to doing 1 damage. the corrosive ward isn't going to help them, and with shield my tank can take a lot of damage.

Before round one is done, their tank is down. The combined effort of all three units, and thorn(doing two damage instead of three due to amplify and shield canceling each other out.) my Quillion is down 1 health and one armour(the damage from the dwarf reduced to two). I'm a bit worried about the long term health of the venomancer since the snipe from Blamoor Jinx got it. This is also an exemple of how important it is to have focused fire. The brigburan fighter is a touch card, made tougher by Tofu.

I got lucky here. Two damage would have hurt...but then it would have been 3 damage. So maybe they got lucky ?

And more luck as the Venomancer dodges an attack. The Legionarre has also taken one damage from the blackmoor elf, but I'm not to worried about it.

Then it's my units turn and they take out the halfling refugee. At this point I'm pretty confident I got the round in the bag.

Venomancer is pretty close to going down by the time the blackmoor elf is downed by the group. And then the archer goes down as they can't attack from the front line.

In short, the venomancer played a key role keeping my tank alive during the start of the battle, and continued to be a decent damage dealer. This fight also highlighted how focused damage can be key for victory. If I hadn't had so muck damage being done to the their tank they would have been hitting me for 3 damage far longer.

Thank you for reading!