No Disinte-, Actually, I'll Allow It - Using Disintegrator in Battle!

This week's Share Your Battle challenge features Disintegrator! Disintegrator is in the starter set of cards so it's accessible to everyone, and as it happens that it is an extra useful card and one of my favorite ones. I had some fun with this challenge, and managed to find a battle that features not one, but TWO Disintegrators! Oh, and before we get too far into today's article - extra credit to everyone who caught Star Wars reference in the title!

As I've already mentioned, I am a fan of Disintegrator. So much so, in fact, that I already had a gold foil copy of it! It is fairly pricey at 7 mana and is somewhat mediocre as a tank, but it can serve as one in a pinch, dishes out a bit of damage, and (very importantly!) has the Demoralize ability. Although it is not a universally useful card, it can definitely shine when placed in the right situation.

If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!

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First up: the ruleset. This was great ruleset for Disintegrator because with the Up Close & Personal ruleset forces all of the monsters to be melee. This means that Disintegrator is guaranteed to be able to debuff the whole opposing team. Also, the medium-high mana cap means that we'll have enough space in our lineup to bring some monsters to serve as a buffer for our Disintegrator.

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I decided to play into the all-melee ruleset by bringing Mylor Crowling. Mylor is amazing in a melee ruleset because it gives all of your monsters thorns, which basically gives you an extra attack every time one of your monsters gets hit.

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I started my team with dual tanks. Mycelic Infantry has Shield and was a huge part of my gameplan - I wanted to use Disintegrator plus Mycelic Infantry's Shield to dramatically reduce the melee damage from my opponent's team, and would hope that thorns plus my own melee damage output could do the rest. Nectar Queen was my second tank because it's another great monster for the melee ruleset - its Flying ability helps it to dodge, it hits hard (stings like a bee?), and has a lot of health, which is all the better to be able to dish out more Thorns counter-damage.

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My next spot wasn't quite a tank, and wasn't quite part of my back line either. Battering Ram is great in melee rulesets because it has Opportunity and can attack even though it isn't near the front. It doesn't hit very hard, but it'll at least hit whatever is the weakest. It is extra good in this particular ruleset because Reverse Speed means that Battering Ram's 1 speed is a big advantage!

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I finished off my lineup with the guest star of the week, Disintegrator, and a meat shield for Disintegrator. As I briefly mentioned earlier, Disintegrator's Demoralize ability is guaranteed to debuff the entire opposing team, and synergizes well with Mylor's Thorns and Mycelic Infantry's Shield. I wanted to keep Disintegrator alive for as long as possible, so I added in Fingus Fiend to provide a little bit of a buffer - it can't attack from the back, but it might be able to put out a little bit of counter-hit damage with Thorns.

With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am hopeful - my opponent was forced to bring a melee lineup thanks to the ruleset, and they didn't bring anything with Shield or a Mylor. They DID bring a little bit of their own thorns in Venari Knifer though, along with their own copy of Disintegrator. With a Disintegrator on both sides, this battle is going to be a slog.

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In the first couple of rounds of battle all of the low health monsters get cleared out relatively quickly. My Battering Ram unfortunately managed to hit some Thorns, but so did my opponent's Goblin Thief! With all of the indirect melee damage done, it's down to a straight-up fight between the front monsters. With Thorns on my side, I like my chances.

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As I said at the start, this battle turned into a long one. With Disintegrators on both sides, the Mycelic Infantry were each only dealing a single point of damage per attack. However, mine had Thorns and so was dishing out twice as much damage. My opponent's infantry finally falls, and mine still has a few health left. It's looking even better for me now, since Disintegrator's single attack point doesn't do any damage to Shield.

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We finally (finally!) got to our final round at round 10. Thanks to reverse speed, my Infantry was able to get the last hit this round and survived in the end with just a single hit point left. Yep, it was a long one. I would say it was a slugfest, but a large number of rounds involved monsters hitting for a single point of damage. Thank goodness for faster game speeds! And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.

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My strategy for this battle worked out perfectly - Disintegrator's Demoralize and Mycelic Infantry's Shield combined to drop my opponent's damage output to nearly nothing, while Thorns and my own melee damage picked apart my opponent's lineup.

Disintegrator is amazing in battles like this, and I'm a big fan. While I won't bring it in every matchup, it is great if you know that your opponent is likely to be bringing a lineup heavy on melee damage. Disintegrator has a well-earned spot in my deck, and battles like this one show exactly why!

Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:

• Let Me Reintroduce Myself - Hello Hive (and Splinterlands too!) - My (very, very belated) personal introduction.

• A Thorny Quix-tuation - Using the Dragon Splinter in Battle! - This past week's battle challenge, featuring Chaos Knight!

• Splinterlands Economics: Externalities - An introduction to externalities, and the insights they can give us into Splinterlands.

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Thinking about giving Splinterlands a try but haven't signed up yet? Feel free to use my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=bteim, and be sure to reach out to me if you have any questions!