This week's Community Engagement Challenge has the theme - Unsung Heroes. It involves showcasing a card that does not often get in the spotlight. Well, I've decided to showcase a battle featuring the Henchling Enforcer. It is a card that does not see much play in general even though it's been around for about an year and a few months now (it launched together with Baron Fyatt as a promo card for the bitcoin halving).
The situation in which I use the Henchling Enforcer is when I am fairly certain the enemy will play a highly elusive team. That's generally when they play a Cryptic + Slade + Phase Ward combo or there's an Enrage modifier in play, especially when the modifiers are Enrage + Equalizer. In that case they are also likely to play a fast low-HP unit with Phase and/or Dodge which coupled with Enrage and a high amount of hit points due to Equalizer makes it very hard to deal with. In this scenario you can either be the one using to modifier to your advantage or decide to counter that sort of play by including a lot of units with True Strike on your side (or even better - using Risqruel Drath), however, if those Elements are not available and you but you do have access to Water and/or Life, the Hencling Enforcer is your guy.
Now, before looking at the battle, let's have a look at the Henchling Enforcer and his abilities at different levels.
The Henchling Enforcer is a dual-element card - Life/Water. At level 1 he starts off with 2 Ranged Attack, 3 Speed, 1 Armor and 3 HP as well as his signature ability - Halving. At level 2 he gains an additional point of Ranged Attack of a total of 3. A level 3 he gains 1 more HP for a total of 4. At level 4 he gains his second ability - True Strike. At level 5 his Speed increases by 1 for a total of 4. Then at level 6 1 more Armor is added to his stats for a total of 2. At level 7 he gains one more HP for a total of 5 and his final ability - Camouflage. Finally at level 8 he has 4 Ranged Attack, 4 Speed, 2 Armor and 5 HP. Obviously it's best to have him at the max level if you're playing with maxed cards in general but even level 4 could serve the purpose we're using him for.
Now for the BATTLE itself.
Given the available elements for this battle - Water and Dragon and the mana budget I was 100% certain my opponent would play Slade + Phase Ward cause any other play would lead to a loss for them for sure. Cryptic + Slade is just too strong on a lot of occasions so if you don't play the Slade team and decide to deviate, your loss is absolutely guaranteed. Anyway, since I knew they would play Slade and I am also going to play the same line-up, kind of, what usually makes the difference for me is precisely the inclusion of the Henchling Enforcer. In this way I am guaranteed to hit the enemy Slade every turn and potentially apply Poison to it and halving his Melee Attack each turn is not bad at all either. I also usually include the Anasth Soothsayer so I can Cleanse my Slade as Jicarilla as good as she is as a healer and a back-line Cleanser, does not have Main Tank cleanse which often proves fatal for the line-up since as soon as Slade falls, it's usually all over.
As you can see nothing much is changing initially and these battles usually take a few rounds to resolve.
Round 4 - my Slade looks slightly better at this point than the enemy one as they are unable to Cleanse the poison that's been applied to him but they are still able to keep him up thanks to Jicarilla's double heal.
Round 5 - the enemy Slade has fallen while mine is still happy and healthy. That's the beginning of the end for the opponent's line-ip.
After a few rounds of grinding down the rest of the enemy team, only Yaba's pickle is left standing (proudly). My Henchling Enforcer did the job it was brought in to do nicely.
As a bonus, here's the link to the Lil'Levy clip I did a couple of months ago, in case you haven't heard it, or even if you have - the song is one of my favorites:
https://x.com/GhostlyBG/status/1949975049080819720
Over and Out,
Referral