The torrents of time slowed down even the fastest opponent. Charging cavalries seemed as if they were bogged down in mud. Weapons and armour rusted away as if they were artifacts of a bygone age 🔮⏳🧙🏻‍♂️

The ability to manipulate time, if not outright control it, is one of mankind's greatest dreams. We've had stories of time travelers since time immemorial. Imagine the power wielded by any person or organisation with such an ability. He who controls time will control the world. ⏰🌏

The theme of this week's Share Your Battle Challenge - I give you the TIME MAGE!

Time Mages are members of the Order of the Silver Shield and close associates of the Wizards' Council. They are trusted to peer through the fabric of time and reality to foretell the future or manipulate the present by slowing the flow of time. They can also speed up the aging process of armor, causing it to rust prematurely.
However, with such power also comes great risk. The future is ever-changing, and the ripples of time can affect everyone. Time Mages must undergo strict training to ensure they don't abuse their power and use it only for the most dire of circumstances.

🔮⏳🧙🏻‍♂️From Splinterlands Lore on the TIME MAGE🔮⏳🧙🏻‍♂️

The Time Mage is a Rare card released during the Chaos Legion expansion. It has definitely found it's place in many Life decks given its availability and usefulness. At LEVEL 1, it has 1 ⚔️MAGIC ATTACK⚔️ and 4 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 0 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 3 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the SLOW ability. It's summoning cost is also just 4 🧪MANA🧪.

These stats alone make the Time Mage a rather low cost and fast attacking magic unit. It's almost guaranteed to attack first, and it's speed will also give it some form of defense against slower units.

The Time Mage's true strength lies in it's SLOW ability. Debuffing the opponent across the board with -1 to speed can absolutely turn the tide of battle. The chances of your own units having the first strike increases. The chance to dodge against slower enemies likewise increases too. It even makes your own physical attack units more likely to hit the opponent instead of missing their attack! This could make all the difference if the battle comes down to the wire where the slightest advantage is the fine line between victory or defeat! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

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The release of Chaos Legion has given the Life splinter it's first card with the ability SLOW at level 1. Only 3 other cards in the entire game has SLOW right off the bat too. They are Creeping Ooze (Neutral Common out of print Reward card), Boogeyman (Death Rare out of print Reward card), and Baakjira (Water Legendary Chaos Legion card). Seeing as only the creeping ooze is realistically useable in a Life deck, we could say that this card is entirely unique for Life with no other card able to replace it at all. This ensures that the Time Mage will definitely have it's own place here in all Life decks. This is definitely what I'd consider game changing! 😱😱😱

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📊Card Stats by Level📊

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As we can see here, the main purpose of the Time Mage is to be what I would call "Slow Debuffer". Every level barely improves it's stats just slightly all the way to level 10. The difference from a level 1 and level 10 Time Mage in terms of stats is just +2 damage, +1 speed and +1 health. We can tell that the focus isn't really on stats when you level your Time Mage. 😜

The REAL magic comes into play at level 5! That is where it gets the RUST ability! Now instead of simply debuffing the enemy with Slow, it'll also reduce ALL of their Armour by 2! This makes the Time Mage an excellent support unit to bring into battle especially with Life Deck's physical attack based cards.

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📝Important Rulesets Rundown📝

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Here, I detail the list of combat rulesets that may affect the Time Mage.

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	Time Mage
	N.A. Melee and Ranged attacks will never miss
	👍🏻 Gives itself more protection. Always good, especially for a unit with such low HP.
	👎🏻 Loses all it's abilities. Really bad as it'll lose it's SLOW.
	👍🏻 Ranged units can't be used.
	N.A. Ranged units can attack from the front.
	👎🏻 will be able to last at least 2 rounds with it's health though.
	👍🏻 With its really low HP, it gains the most from such rulesets.
	N.A Doesn't really help Magic units much.
	👍🏻 Even summoning cost
	👎🏻 Blast will probably kill it very quickly
	N.A
	N.A
	Situational. Could add more damage if the opponent's front unit is stunned
	👍🏻 Improve it's own survivability
	👍🏻 Melee units are affected.
	👍🏻 Costs 4 or less mana
	👍🏻 Only Legendary cards cannot be played.
	👎🏻 Magic units cannot be used
	👎🏻 Gives melee the positional attack advantage enjoyed by ranged/magic
	👎🏻 Will die to poison.
	👎🏻 Odd summoning cost
	👎🏻 Makes slow units fast and fast units slow.
	👎🏻 Only Common cards can be used.
	👍🏻 Doesn't really depend on Summoner abilities
	👎🏻 Enrage works out well for units who can take a few hits
	N.A
	👍🏻 All units abilities stay intact
	👎🏻 Allows melee to attack even if it's not in the first slot.
	👍🏻 It is NOT a Neutral unit.
	👍🏻 All ranged/magic units have the Snipe ability.
	👍🏻 It has no armour to begin with.
	👎🏻 Only Melee units can be used
	👎🏻 Magic attacks hit armour first instead of HP directly.

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⚔️🛡My Battle Showcase🛡⚔️

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Let me present a battle I fought recently in which I used the Time Mage. My opponent used the FIRE splinter while I went for the LIFE splinter. At first glance, it would seem like my opponent had a slight advantage. He had a level 3 summoner and a Gold Foil Cerberus and Serpentine Spy. Would I be able to turn the tide of battle against such an opponent then? Victory or defeat would lie in the small details.

I would say that the Time Mage was DEFINITELY one of the the MVPs of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. It did what it was supposed to do by debuffing the entire enemy lineup with SLOW, whilst also contributing to the damage with its unblockable magic attacks. This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆

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LINK TO FIGHT WITH MY TIME MAGE

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👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

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1st CARD SLOT

Furious Chicken fills this slot. It's role is simply to absorb 1 hit before the actual battle starts. At 0 mana cost, it's an obvious choice to use to fill up any available slots.

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2nd CARD SLOT

Creeping Ooze fills the second slot. Just like the Chicken before it, it's main purpose is to take a hit whilst filling up a slot with it's really cheap 1 mana cost. Not to mention it will (like the Time Mage) also slow the opponent's team.

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3rd CARD SLOT

Dax Paragon occupies this 3rd middle slot. It's primary purpose is to deal damage, but also to be the first line of real defenses. At just 2 mana, it is another good and cheap card to be slot into the deck!

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4th CARD SLOT

Time Mage occupies slot number 4. Sitting in the middle with it's SLOW ability. It's role is to debuff the opponent's team with SLOW and also to deal damage with it's magic attack.

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5th CARD SLOT

Light Elemental occupies the 5th slot. It's purpose is to be the main DPS of the whole deck and sit behind to deal damage where it's protected. With it's Flying ability, it'll also hopefully have some dodge chance if it were targeted.

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6th CARD SLOT

Silvershield Archers occupies the 6th and last slot. It's purpose is to deal a small bit of ranged snipe damage. As a ranged unit, it'll lose all it's ability to attack if it were exposed right at the front too. Therefore, it sits right behind where it should be safest.

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⚔️🛡Battle Action Report🛡⚔️

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As you can see, both of us fielded compeltely different decks from opposing splinters. 👼🏻 LIFE 👼🏻 VS 🔥 FIRE 🔥. It was a Little League/Enrage ruleset with a rather low mana cap of just 16 mana.

My opponent used the Cerberus as his main tank in the first slot and Magma Troll as his Off Tank/Reach DPS. Both of which were VERY good choices, given how suitable they are as tanks. His Serpentine Spy and Radiated Scorcher were lined up in the 3rd and 4th slots.

My choice of the Main Tank was pretty much nonexistent though. I'd decided to go with the Summoner Lorna and her Divine Shield ability for the team. The first 2 slots were all occupied by cannon fodder units in the form of the Furious Chicken and Creeping Ooze. Dax Paragon and the Time Mage occupied the 3rd and 4th slots, while the Light Elemental and Silvershield Archers rounded off the rest of the team. The idea was to use Divine shield to let every unit take a hit before it got killed, whilst the SLOW debuffs hopefully allowed my units to kill off the opponent's first.

The battle started out with all our units just trading hits with my sacrificial cannon fodders of the Furious Chicken and Creeping Ooze dying quickly as expected. It soon became a race against time as I traded and sacrificed units to take my opponent's units down faster than he could do the same to me.

Although the chicken and ooze died early though, they more than did their job by taking 2 hits each for a total of 4 hits. This allowed me to take down the opponent's Self Healing Cerberus Tank. Thanks to the speed of my attacks, my units all basically had first strike, ensuring that the Cerberus went down before it could heal up yet again. This is something REALLY CRUCIAL in such low mana matchups. an extra heal and the Cerberus would have lived and then dealt a deathblow to one of my units, which would have resulted in my DPS dropping drastically.

Once the Cerberus went down, it was just a battle of attrition where I eventually came out on top due to superior numbers.

Therefore, I would say that the Time Mage was most definitely the MVP of the team, with it's SLOW ensuring that I always made the first move, thus coming out ahead when trading blows! ⚡⚡⚡

Well as you can see here in this GIF of my battle, the results were pretty good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

This was truly an eye opener! 😁🏆

Slowly, but surely, I wore down the opponent's team and the match was won handily with 2 of my units still left standing. My team selection proved to be the edge I needed to eventually overpower my opponent. 💪🏻

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🔮🔮🔮Hindsight is 20/20🔮🔮🔮

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Would I have done anything differently? 🤔 This might have seemed like a really close battle, but IF I had to use the same cards again, there would be no better lineup than what I had already used for the match. Any other combination MIGHT have resulted in a loss for me. I'm really satisfied with the results against such a worthy opponent. 🏆🥇

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💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

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I definitely can appreciate the Time Mage and it's strengths. This is one of those cards which are very strong if surrounded with the proper team. The role it brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

For any players looking to try out the Time Mage, I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

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