Hello Splinterlands Community, for this week I will share my thoughts and opinion about Elven Defender which is a good melee card to use in battles. This card is a great frontline unit that pairs very well with vulnerable units like ranged and magic damage monsters and also deals a decent amount of damage in to the enemies as well.

About Elven Defender

Elven Defender is a common neutral unit that deals melee damage to opponents and also belongs to the Untamed Set. The lowest price for a regular foil card is currently at $0.296 while the gold foil card is listed at $4.058 on the marketplace as of this writing. The price for this card is quite affordable compared to other common units in the game considering its overall statistics as well as its availability in battles being a neutral unit.

The figure above shows the complete statistics of Elven Defender from Level 1 up to its maximum level of 10. It requires at least 400 cards in order to upgrade this card to its maximum level and it can be done by collecting this card from the marketplace or by getting it from opening Untamed Packs in the game. Based on the figure above, I can say that upgrading this card to Level 5 would be good enough to increase the amount of armor of this card and to unlock as well the Shield ability which reduces the ranged and melee damage it would receive from the enemy team. Upgrading this card to its maximum level unlocks its second ability which is Knockout. That ability causes causes this card to deal double damage against enemies that are currently stunned.

Rulesets

Elven Defender is not only a good frontline unit but also capable of dealing decent amount of melee damage to enemies when certain rulesets are present in the match where it would favor this unit. Since this card does not have any abilities at lower levels, it would mostly rely on the rulesets in the game wherein it could unleash its firepower. There are certain rulesets in battles I will share that should make Elven Defender an offensive threat for the team.

Melee Mayhem

This ruleset fits very well with Elven Defender. It allows all melee monster in the match to attack each round regardless of its position in the battlefield. It also gives Elven Defender the ability to deal damage to opponents even if it is placed at the back of the team. This also helps Elven Defender to survive longer in the match because it would not take any damage at all unless this unit will be targeted by an enemy monster that has scattershot, snipe or opportunity ability.

Equal Opportunity

This ruleset is favors very well with Elven Defender. This particular ruleset gives every monster in the battlefield the opportunity ability which makes them to target the monster of the opposing team that has the lowest amount of health. This makes Elven Defender most likely not the target of the enemy team considering that this unit has a great amount of health and an armor as well.

Super Sneak

This ruleset is also great for Elven Defender, it gives all friendly monsters the sneak ability. This ability causes all the monsters in the team except the monster in the first position to target the opponent's monster that is currently placed in the last position. This ruleset is very similar with the Equal Opportunity ruleset where both ruleset allows melee damage monsters to strike each round regardless of its position in the game.

Up Close and Personal

This ruleset fits quite well with Elven Defender, this ruleset only allows melee damage monsters to be able to used in battles. Which means ranged monsters and magic damage monsters are not allowed to be used in the battle. The durability of the Elven Defender would be utilized very well in this ruleset where its armor can absorb the initial damage it would receive from the enemy and it has a great sustainability with its base amount of health.

Back to Basics

This ruleset fits quite well with Elven Defender, this ruleset removes all abilities from all the monsters in the battlefield. Since Elven Defender does not have any abilities at lower levels, this particular ruleset would not affect this unit. It makes the battle a straightforward match where the both teams would target the monster in the first position of the opposing team. This ruleset can also be overcome by using a summoner that grants ability to all units at the start of the match.

Summoners

Picking the appropriate summoner that will be used in the battle can be challenging some times. It needs a careful planning not only the summoner that will be used in battles but also on the other monsters that works well together with Elven Defender. Since Elven Defender is a neutral unit, it can be played using any summoners that are available in the match as long as the Taking Sides ruleset is not present in the battle. I mostly use Chaos Legion Cards, Gladius Cards, Reward Cards and some starter cards that are playable in my battles, which is why I am going to share my personal picks on the summoners that belongs in those sets that I mentioned where I am familiar with and have experienced playing it on ranked battles in different occasions, that I think should be a good choice whenever you plan to use Elven Defender in battles.

Tarsa

This summoner is the best choice to use when playing Elven Defender. It is a fire summoner that gives health and melee damage buff to the whole team at the start of the match. The health buff from this summoner further enhances the durability and sustainability of Elven Defender in the battle while the damage buff gives this unit more offensive firepower and if this unit is played with some of the rulesets mentioned above, that offensive firepower should be utilize very well in the battle.

Kelya Frendul

This summoner is the best choice to use when playing Elven Defender. It is a water summoner that gives armor and speed buff to the whole team. The armor buff from this summoner increases the durability of Elven Defender against melee and ranged opponents, at the same time the speed buff allows Elven Defender to strike earlier each round in the match. The combination of the speed and armor buff from this summoner is a perfect match for melee damage monsters such as Elven Defender.

Dragon of Arnak

This Dragon element summoner is also good when playing Elven Defender. It gives +1 armor to all your monsters at the beginning of the match and because this is a dragon summoner, it allows you to use dragon element monsters in the battle. The armor buff from this summoner gives the Elven Defender some durability against melee and ranged opponents which is the same buff that Kelya Frendul provides, the only difference is that it does not give any speed buff, however the ability to use dragon element cards in the battle is a great compensation considering that there are a lot of good dragon element cards that works well with Elven Defender .

My Battle

This is the ranked battle I want to share where my Elven Defender alongside with other melee monsters to take down the enemy team. I used Kelya Frendul as my summoner in this match to enhance the speed of all my units in addition to that the armor buff which would improve the durability of all my monsters. The Elven Defender did a great job being a frontline for the team and you can watch the battle by clicking this link (https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_64e6eca6b891c43637294649a5cca956).

Thank you so much for reading my post, If you haven't tried playing Splinterlands, I'll suggest to start playing right now using my referral link below.
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