I've been staying between bronze and the silver league when I battle in the modern format. And ever since the introduction of the new Foundations card set, I've been seeing more and more lineups utilizing those. I also use them myself from time to time. And while it is in the middle of the season where most of the higher collection players have already ranked up to gold or diamond leagues, I sometimes still encounter those who use premium archons. I say premium because they are legendaries with really unfair abilities.
One of the such archons that I really hate battling against is Nidhoggr. Now granted, it is very hard to use because it requires 10 mana and also reduces the card slot by one, it still is a very intimidating card to face. What I hate about it the most is the Blast ability. What it does is units that have Blast deals additional 'splash' damage to adjacent monsters, so it effectively lets enemy monsters attack up to three of my units at the same time. To make matters worse, Nidhoggr also weakens its enemies by reducing 1 point in armor and health. Talk about unfair advantage.
So when I came and faced Nidhoggr in a match in Bronze, I thought I was going to lose once again. You can check out the match here.
The match was a 49 mana battle with only one rule set, Up Close and Personal. This meant only melee monsters can be used. This was lucky on my part as I was able to use one of the best tank in the current modern format, Commander Slade.
My Commander Slade was still just at level two but already has impressive stats. And to think it is a melee, having a high speed combined with the Dodge ability makes it a formidable defender.
My opponent bestowed the dreaded Blast ability to three cards, Great Bear Druid, Vengeful Monk, and Dragon Egg Forager. The Bear Druid was a good call since it has magic attack while both Vengeful Monk and Dragon Egg Forager have Opportunity and have a high chance to kill one of monsters quickly since they would be targeting the same monster.
I was surprised when the match started because my own Dragon Egg Forager quickly destroys one of my enemy's monster, Chaos Furybringer. This is probably a wrong decision on my opponent's behalf since it is very, very weak. It was probably placed there just because of the Reach ability, but for six mana, it is very weak.
After that first attack, it became clearer that I had the upper hand. Even though my opponent was capitalizing on the Blast ability, the fact that it is a battle of melee monsters mean all of them are pretty tough. My enemy already lost a card slot due to using Nidhoggr, the placement of Chaos Furybringer was also a wrong call, in my opinion. And while both of our monsters were dying, my Dragon Egg Forager was racking up health from the Scavenger ability.
At the end of the battle, Commander Slade was still standing tall with six health points to spare. Four of my monsters survived thanks to the rule set that allows only melee cards. If it were any other instances, I'm pretty sure my opponent would have bombarded me with magic attacks. I guess I got lucky this time. And I hope most of the stronger players climb faster and let us smaller players duel in the bronze league.
Please use my referral link if you guys are new and want to get into Splinterlands. https://splinterlands.com/register?ref=badeaux
Special thanks to Saydie for providing free dividers. You can check them out here: https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@saydie/free-to-use-splinterlands-dividers-and-other-materials-for-blogging