VOID DRAGON : ETHEREAL CHAOS

Pros & Cons

While other magic card tend to have low health and low speed, Void Dragon is the contrary. It is a Tanker (high health) and Ninja (high speed) type card. In addition, its abilities make it a very powerful card to resist all type of damage. There's only few known card with this very unique traits. The most similar one would be Djinn Oshannus (a very bothersome cards!). But rather than costing 8 mana, Void Dragon will only cost you 5 mana! So let's focus our study to the pros and cons below:

1. High health to mana ratio (7 health for 5 mana) which make this a very formidable Tanker card.	1. One thing sure from Dragon card is it's always a stronger card than other Splinter cards. But this comes at a price of more costly mana for the Summoner.
2. High speed which make turn this card into Ninja card (have earlier attack initiatives) and of course, a better evasion, which make its Tanker roles more threatening.	2. As a pure Tanker and Ninja card, Void Dragon have drawback from the lack of damage (its lack even more since its a magic type damage). Although it will get damage growth, it happened at the final level, which of course would be less accessible.
3. Possession of full Tanker abilities. There's Flying to resist melee and ranged, and then there's Phase to resist magic damage. And more there's Void which reduce magic damage.
*Reference for Archetype term : Striker --> Superior Damage / Tanker --> Superior Health / Ninja --> Superior Speed.

Market Price Analysis

On the time this post is written, the regular foil priced at $2.86 and gold foil price at $26.00. Regular foil seemed have a high fluctuation, with deviation reached almost $4.00 - $5.00. While the current price seemed fair as it is closer to the lowest price. Regular foil price is in a downtrend. The current seemed to be the lowest price ever hit. But with the price of gold foil almost 9 times of regular foil, while it cost 3 regular bcx to 1 gold bcx to reached the same level; then purchasing the regular foil card would be more preferable in term of affordability. Purchasing gold foil should only be considered with higher budget and long term investment in mind.

Progression Analysis

Just like all Legendary type card, Void Dragon only experience three step of growth. Level 2 give the least growth of only 1 health. Level 3 give the ultimate growth by increasing 1 health plus Phase ability. At this point, the growth will be enough if final goal is to make Void Dragon into a full Tanker card. Level 4 will give damage growth by 1. Void Dragon already started with only 1 magic damage, which is rather low for a 5 mana card. By the time the card reached max level, the 2 magic damage might already fall behind compared to other magic card. In addition, there's higher chance other cards might already learned several abilities which could negate or ward magic damage. So there's less incentive to grow the magic damage.

Rulesets To Be Watched

Ruleset	Strategy
	No more explanation needed. True Strike will rend speed difference, Flying, and Phase useless. Meanwhile Back to Basic will only rend Flying and Phase useless, but speed difference will make up the remaining evasion rate.
	Battle of attrition are best strategy in Earthquake ruleset. And with high evasion and high health, Void Dragon would stand still until no opponent cards remaining.
	As happened to other card. Reverse Speed will jeopardize all the speed benefit from Void Dragon.

Here's one of my battle experience with Void Dragon in my formation. Click Here for the battle link. The battle have 15 mana cap, with Target Practice and Explosive Weaponry ruleset. For my formation, I used:

Position	Card Name	Level	Mana	Health	Armor	Speed	Damage Type	Damage
Summoner	Drake of Arnak	1	4	-	-	-	-	-
1st Row	Cursed Slimeball	1	1	1	-	1	Melee	1
2nd Row	Void Dragon	1	5	7	-	5	Magic	1
3rd Row	Silent Sha-Vi	1	5	5	-	3	Melee	2
4th Row	Corpse Fiend	1	0	1	-	2	Melee	1
5th Row	-
6th Row	-

My opponent formation:

Position	Card Name	Level	Mana	Health	Armor	Speed	Damage Type	Damage
Summoner	Thaddius Brood	2	4	-	-	-	-	-
1st Row	Cursed Windeku	2	6	10	-	3	Melee	2
2nd Row	Silent Sha-Vi	3	5	5	-	4	Melee	3
3rd Row	Corpse Fiend	1	0	1	-	2	Melee	1
4th Row	-
5th Row	-
6th Row	-

There's significant gap between using Level 1 Summoner and Level 2 Summoner, especially for Normal type monster which differ between up to 2 level. Take for example My Silent Sha-Vi was falling behind in term of speed and damage. Not only the stats difference, but also because the Explosive Weaponry effect which could caught other card in blast damage. Overall my formation lack in term of total health and damage, which aggravated by Thaddius health debuff. Luckily Drake of Arnak armor buff provide additional damage protection. Void Dragon and Cursed Windeku are comparable as a Tanker (although Windeku cost 6 mana rathern than 5 mana). It's hard to decide whose gonna survie, since Windeku have damage and health, but Dragon have evasion and Flying ability.

At Round 1, both attack from Windeku and Sha-Vi are being resisted thanks to armor protection from Drake of Arnak. My Sha-Vi strike and destroy Chaos Fiend, while my Void Dragon strike Windeku. Both damage cause blast that damage Silent Sha-Vi. Overall Round 1 ended in a gain.

Round 2 rolled not much different than Round 1. Both Windeku and Sha-Vi strikes again. But this time thanks to the sacrifice of my cannon fodder, my Void Dragon and Silent Sha-Vi are able to survive. Although the blast damage from oppoenet's Sha-Vi caused 2 damage to my Sha-Vi. And then when my turn comes, both strike from Void Dragon and Silent Sha-Vi able to deplete the health of opponent's Sha-Vi. Tide seemed to turn to my favor.

Round 3 turn up, and the odds began to turned upside down when Sha-Vi strike into Windeku, but then fallen when it received damage from Thorns ability. Void Dragon also got direct hit from Cursed Windeku and left with 3 health remaining.

Starting from Round 4, it's a one-on-one duel between Void Dragon against Cursed Windeku. It will took Windeku 2 hit to kill Dragon, and it took Dragon 4 hit to kill Windeku. But Dragon got the advantage to strike the first damage as it possessed higher speed. The final result Dragon got hit once again and down to 1 health remainig.

Dragon is cornered with 1 health left. Victory could only be achieved if its able to survive the next 2 round. And Dragon shows its incredible skills by feinting all Windeku attack in Round 5 and Round 6. When the Round 7 start, Dragon shot it's final attack and blast Windeku last health into its death.

Did your strategy work? What will you try differently next time?

Based on my battle experience above, Void Dragon truly show its incredible skill as both Tanker and Ninja. Overall Void Dragon there are 4 direct attack targeting it (all from Windeku), where 2 of them are missed. The overal evasion of Dragon by those attack around 20% (from 2 mana gap) + 25% (from Flying ability). The damage although a little bit low, have contribute damage consistently. Especially with the Explosive Weaponry effect.

Do you like VOID DRAGON? Why or why not?

Void Dragon would be the first card coming to my mind when playing Dragon Splinter. There's lot of other alternatives for Tanker card. But with an average evasion rate at 45%, then this card 7 health could be equalize to a card with 14 health without ability and low speed. And since Void Dragon have magic damage, it role as Tanker are more flexible to be turned into a sub-Tanker or a rear Tanker.