THE VIGILATOR

This week we're tasked to talk about the Dragon Splinter. But which card in particular? Well, we're free to choose whichever we want. That's why I decided to go for a monster that, although I hadn't used before, I had heard a lot, and that's The Vigilator, a Legendary Dragon monster from the Untamed set. I'll talk in a moment about why I've heard much about it, but before let's take a look at its lore.

Lore

Vigilators are arthropods that live just beneath the surface of the Sands in Draykh-Nahka. When prey wanders above one, a Vigilator is able to cause a controlled cave-in of the surrounding sand. It then quickly consumes its prey, using its multiple pincers and gnashing tooth-blades. No Vigilator has ever been recovered from the sand, so ideas of what they look like are mostly guesses.

Quite a scary monster, and its stats align with that as well.

Stats

At level 1, the level I'll be using it, The Vigilator has 2 melee, 1 ranged, 4 speed, 8 health, and... wait, 2 melee AND 1 ranged? That's right, this monster is one of the few who have more than one type of attack. Thanks to this, The Vigilator can attack with its ranged attack from the backline, and once it comes to the first position, it can take advantage of its melee attack.

Apart from that, it has Double Strike, which allows it to attack twice each round, making it a very deadly foe.

Then, after leveling up, it has both Thorns (which does damage to the enemy if attacked by a melee attack) and Poison, (which has a chance to apply poison to the enemy). Poison is especially great for this monster, since, by attacking twice in a round, it pretty much doubles the chance to apply poison.

The Battle

The Ruleset

• Close Range: Ranged attacks may be used in the first position in battles.
• Allowed Splinters: Water, Earth, Life, Death, and Dragon.

The Team

The Close Range ruleset means that the Vigilator can use its ranged attack even while being in the first position. Once I saw that ruleset, I knew I had to play it as my main tank. And since it would attack 4 times in a round (twice melee and twice ranged), the rest of my monsters were mostly support to keep it alive as long as possible.

Card	Description
	DRAKE OF ARNAK Drake gives +1 armor to all monsters, helping the Vigilator, since it doesn't have any armor naturally.
	THE VIGILATOR As stated before, The Vigilator is great in the first position with the Close Range ruleset, being able to attack 4 times in a round, while also having enough health to be a good tank.
	CHAOS AGENT Costing only 1 mana, I only played him to fill my mana cap, and I decided to put him in this position to protect the rest from snipe attacks.
	TRUTHSPEAKER A great support card from the Life Splinter. She gives +2 armor to every ally monster. This, stacked with the summoner's buff, means that every monster has +3 armor.
	VENARI CRYSTALSMITH While she has 1 range attack, I used her mostly for her ability Tank Heal. With this, she restores a portion of The Vigilator's health each turn, allowing it to survive even longer.

ROUND 1

The enemy decided to go for the Cursed Windeku, which had me worried, since it has Thorns, meaning that The Vigilator's melee attacks will also hurt itself. This could be a problem, since it'd take 4 damage each turn for its own attacks.

As for the battle, first, the Chaos Agent fills his role as a Snipe tank, and takes the first attack from the Magi Necrosi, protecting the Truthspeaker for another turn. After that, The Vigilator starts its barrage of attacks: it goes for ranged first, then melee, then ranged, and finishes up with a final melee attack. In total, it dealt 6 damage to the Windeku, but lost all its armor in the process.

Then, the Silent Sha-vi destroys the Crystalsmith's armor, and the Windeku attacks the Vigilator. But right after that, the Crystalsmith heals up my tank while doing a little bit of damage to the enemy's.

Even though I'm one monster down, I dealt a lot of damage to the enemy tank, while mine still has full health.

ROUND 2

This round starts with Magi Necrosi defeating the Truthspeaker. But it doesn't matter since both of my remaining monsters already had their armor destroyed. Right after that, The Vigilator defeats the Windeku with its first two attacks, then defeats the Corpse Fiend with its third AND deals some damage to the Silent Sha-vi with its final attack.

After that, Sha-vi counterattacks, leaving my tank with only 2 health. But then Crystalsmith comes to the rescue with tank heal, leaving it with 4 health.

It's incredible how The Vigilator almost defeated 3 monsters in a single turn. This shows its power.

ROUND 3

Once again, Magi Necrosi deals the first attack, but this time doesn't kill its target. Then, The Vigilator defeats Sha-vi with its first two attacks and leaves Magi Necrosi with only 1 health with its two last attacks.

Finally, Crystalsmith, after healing the tank, deals the finishing blow to the enemy.

Recommended Cards and Rulesets

Card/Ruleset	Description
	SELENIA SKY Just like General Sloan, she gives +1 ranged attack. With this, both the melee and ranged attack from The Vigilator would deal 2 damage, making it more dangerous than ever.
	EQUAL OPPORTUNITY This gives the Opportunity ability to every monster, meaning that they attack the monster with the least health. With this, The Vigilator can use its melee attack even in the backline, attacking 4 times each round.
	MELEE MAYHEM Just like Equal Opportunity, this allows The Vigilator to attack while being in the backline.

Final Thoughts

It was great using this strategy of 4 attacks in one turn that I had heard so much, and I know why people like it so much, it's exciting seeing a single card attack so much! Although it took a while for the perfect opportunity to use it, since I needed the ruleset and the mana to do it.

However, I must say that Thorns can be a good counter for this strategy, since, if it hadn't been for the healing, The Vigilator would have died quickly for its own attacks against the Windeku.

All in all, it was a great battle and I wished I own this card to use it more in the future. But, in the future, I'll just rent it whenever I need it.

---

Finally, I hope you enjoyed my review of The Vigilator (I know I did enjoy playing with it), and see you next week on the next Challenge!

---

If you want to be part of the incredible community of Splinterlands, and earn money while playing a really fun game, click here!