The Glass Cannon - Using Pelacor Arbalest in Battle!

This week's Share Your Battle challenge features Pelacor Arbalest! Pelacor Arbalest is one of my favorite cards to play when I choose the Life splinter. It is a super solid ranged attacker, even though it does (as you may tell from the title of this post) have a few drawbacks that you should be mindful of while constructing your lineup.

While it is on my shortlist of cards to level up, I am currently working with just a level 1 copy of Pelacor Arbalest - I'm working on it but I only have 3 copies out of the 5 I need to upgrade! Even at its base level, it hits awfully hard. It has a ranged attack of just 2, but its Double Strike ability gives it an extra attack each turn, letting it to hit for 4 base damage. On the down side, Pelacor Arbalest is fairly squishy - it has just 2 hit points, which means that you need to be careful not to place it in a position where it may get taken out by a stray attack. So overall, a high risk, high reward monster.

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. The first thing that I thought when I saw this ruleset was that it might be a good ruleset to play Life cards in - the Evens Only rule is in effect and Life has plenty of solid monsters with an even mana cost. After further examination of the rules and my opponent's match history I decided to go with a Life lineup, but with a twist - a Dragon twist!

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My summoner choice ended up being Quix the Devious. I suspected that my opponent would be choosing a ranged attacker lineup, so I decided to try out some counter-play. Assuming that General Sloan would be on the other side of the battlefield, Quix would both counteract the ranged damage buff as well as give my team a small speed advantage. And while the Quix I was renting was just level 1, the fact that he is a legendary summoner means that I am still able to bring levelled up cards into battle.

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I started my team with my main tank. Djinn Chwala is an amazing tank - 5 armor and 9 health is an amazing stat line, not to mention being able to hit hard for 3 damage at level 2. What really puts Chwalla over the top is the thorns ability. Any melee attacks hitting Djinn Chwala will take Thorns counter-damage, and with all of that health and armor to work with, there is a huge potential for some serious Thorn-age. On top of that Djinn Chwala is a relatively inexpensive (money-wise) card - this very fact meant that it was one of the first monsters I leveled up in my collection.

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I filled the middle of my lineup with support monsters. Time Mage would partner with Quix to give my team an overwhelming speed advantage, and Venari Crystalsmith's Tank Heal would help Djinn Chwala to survive a little longer and hopefully push out more Thorns damage, as well as pitch in a bit of ranged attack damage.

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I finished off my team with our guest star of the week - Pelacor Arbalest! Pelacor Arbalest hits twice for 2 damage each, for a whooping 4 per turn. Soul Fiend was at the back to provide a bit of protection to Pelacor Arbalest - I really didn't want the Arbalest getting taken out quickly, and Soul Fiend could soak up a hit or two to buy some extra time.

With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams it turns out that my prediction was half right - my opponent has indeed brought a team heavy on ranged attackers, but they brought a ranged lineup with Mother Khala as their summoner. So the enemy team won't be hitting particularly hard, but it WILL have some extra tankiness.

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The battle starts off slowly, but by the end of the second round my team is able to take out my opponent's Chaos Knight. Pelacor Arbalest's double ranged attacks and Djinn Chwala's Thorns are putting in solid work! Djinn Chwala is taking heavy damage but is still hanging in there, thanks to the heals from Venari Crystalsmith and Quix's attack debuffs.

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One more round and the battle is nearly won - at this point all of my opponent's tanks have been killed and their ranged monsters are beginning to get pushed to the front where they are unable to attack.

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It was just a matter of time - by the start of round 5 my entire team was still intact, and all that remained on the other side of the battlefield was a Mantoid which was unable to attack. Victory! And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.

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My gameplan for this battle worked out perfectly. My opponent didn't pick the exact lineup I was expecting but it was close enough for my counter play to work, and my team was able to pull off a nearly flawless victory. Djinn Chwala stood strong at the front while Thorns damage and heavy ranged attacks from Pelacor Arbalest did the rest.

I love playing with Pelacor Arbalest, its high damage potential makes it extremely useful in battle, though using it properly takes a bit of skill and luck. It has been a staple of my Life splinter play in the past, and will continue to be one in the future.

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:

• Splinterlands Economics: Prospect Theory - An introduction to Prospect Theory, and how we can apply it in Splinterlands.

• Splinterlands Economics: Demand - A look into Demand and how understanding it can help us in Splinterlands.

• Swiss Army Knife Monster - Using Mycelic Slipspawn in Battle! - Last week's battle challenge, featuring Mycelic Slipspawn!

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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!

All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.