SHARE YOUR BATTLE Weekly Challenge! GOBLIN SHAMAN

This week, let's check out Goblin Shaman :)

Stats:

Goblin Shaman on level 1 has no attack, 2 speed and 4 health for 3 mana. The cards highlight is it's special ability: Weaken, which reduces the Health of all enemy Monsters by 1, but the health can't be reduced below 1.
On level 3 it looses 1 health, but receives magic damage, which increases the utility of the card.
On level 5 it get's Slow as a cherry on the top, which reduces the speed of all enemy Monsters by 1. This is a ability which can turn the tides of a match.

Strategies

For Novice to Silver leagues I rarely use this card and I only see it on the enemy territory, when he is leveled to level 3, so it can attack use it's magic attack as well.
This card is best, when we believe our enemies team will have card we can kill with one hit instead of 2 using the Goblin Shaman.

Let's see, in what rulesets we could consider this card:

	Earthquake	Non-flying Monsters take 2 Melee damage at the end of each round.	In case the enemy uses cards with 3 health and not flying, then these will die before Goblin Shaman
	Noxious Fumes	All Monsters start the battle Poisoned	Same as with Earhtquake, cards with Cleanse are immune to this effect
	Explosive Weaponry	All Monsters have the Blast ability	With this ability all attacks will damage the neighboring cards as well. With Goblin Shaman the neighboring cards might be just weak enough to die by the colateral damage.
	Little League	Only Monsters & Summoners that cost 4 Mana or less may be used in battles	As cards with up to 4 mana can be used, this means that all cards are low on life, a little debuff from Goblin Shaman makes them even easier to kill
	Unprotected	Monsters do not have any armor and do not get armor from Abilities or Summoner Buffs.	No shields means all hits will hit the life of the enemy, so as before, let's make them a bit weaker, so they fall easier

Battle

I do as I preach :) So let's see how I defeated a water team with Alric Stormbringer.

The ruleset gives an opportunity for the Goblin Shaman to shine:
20 mana
Fire, Water, Earth, Holy and Dragon element.
Close range - Ranged attacks may be used in the first position in battles
Little League - Only Monsters & Summoners that cost 4 Mana or less may be used in battles * as mentioned this is a play where it can shine

I have seen that the enemy prefers to use the water splinter, so that supported my strategy, as I knew that Venari Wavesmith needs at least 5 mana, so it won't appear in this game.

Lineup

So let's look at the lineup:

Pyre

The Fire deck I chose was very fast, it would outrun my enemies Water deck, but I wanted to make sure, that there are no unhappy turn of events, so I chose Pyre as my Summoner. In Little League fight every hit can be a deadly strike, so I wanted to make sure my hits land first. With Goblin Shaman in the team all enemy cards got even weaker... just waiting for the killing blow.

Exploding rats

As I was expecting to have a weak team against me I hoped that every hit will count, so I selected in the first position the Exploding Rats. These die after the first hit, but go usually first and damage 2 cards at once. The benefit can be seen in the battle recording, as they finished off the first enemy in the game. And this was only possible due to Goblin Shaman!

Cerberus

A stable card in most Little League games is Cerberus, 5 health and Healing makes him almost a necessity in these type of games. He played a huge role in this fight as well.

Serpent Spy

Let's get to a card, which is a trademark of a low mana fire team: Serpent Spy. I don't think I need to introduce the card. With its 2 attack. 3 speed and 1 health for 3 mana it is a the number one choice for eradicating the weak.

Elven Cutthroat

As I was out for speed the next card was Elven Cutthroat (seen in last weeks challenge). I decided for her instead of Kobold Miner, as speed was more important then Health for me in this fight.
An alternative line-up for this challenge could have been with Kobold Miner and Fire Elemental instead of the Elven Cutthroat and the Exploding rats. The advantage would be that all the cards were in the starter deck :)

Goblin Shaman

Last but not least we have our own Goblin Shaman. Looking at the battlefield from a far and taking away all will to live from the enemy with it's toenails... Also covering the team from sneak and snipe attacks.

And now let's look at the fight here. Battle Orca as well as Coral Wraith were killed fast with the help of Goblin Shaman! :)

Thanks for the great challenge Splinterlands team. If you would like to take part as well, here is the link : https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@splinterlands/share-your-battle-weekly-challenge-goblinshaman