21 Round MEGA-BATTLE! Main Event: SILENT SHA'VI, Supporting Act: SOUL STRANGER.

I played an awful lot of battles today in Splinterlands, but my longest by far was thanks to two of my favourite cards, a battle won by SILENT SHA'VI and his mate, SOUL STRANGER. I wanted to use today's blog, then, to explore why these are two cards you need to have if you're going to be playing in the DEATH splinter, and then, just how they got to their 21 round victory. Join me for a voyage into death?

To do this, let's start with SILENT SHA'VI

On it's surface, this is a pretty amazing card! And this is a claim I do not make lightly, you see, SILENT SHA'VI has 3 MELEE - which means that he is going to pack a punch! But the thing about this card is, he also has SNEAK - which means he'll be using that 3 melee attack, whipping around the back and trying to take our your opponent's support line. His speed, at +4 boots, makes this guy likely to be one of the first to attack in a line-up. Usually what will happen - he'll hit, kill, next round he'll hit, kill and so on. Unless you are playing against an armoured up defensive line-up, SILENT SHA'VI will be deadly!!

My card is Level 3, and it is leveled so I can make use of it in in my Silver league battles with my Level 3 CHAOS SUMMONER, but I did want to check out it's complete stats, just for some perspective - particularly as I consider moving into GOLD LEAGUE in the future:

In the end, I was actually a bit underwhelmed with the card he grows into. It seems that he really needs to get to Level 9 before he gains some amazing additional melee attack, and then at Level 10 he becomes increasingly epic as he picks up the PIERCING skill.

That said - at 400 cards to max combine, my gut feeling is that once he starts being combined, the supply of cheap SILENT SHA'VI's will really dry up quickly. I wanted to test this wondering, so I headed over to the market.

What I discovered was that he costs about 10 cents per card; this is a lot for his 5 CARD POWER, as most cards on the market (particularly the Chaos Legion) are trading at under 1 cent per card power. Interestingly, I note that only 156,000 of these cards are in circulation. Using very, very, very crude mathematics and not taking into account already leveled up cards, this means if you wanted to combine cards to maximum, you'd only end up with 400 of these guys in circulation at Level 10. This could well and truly position this guy as an investment for the future, #leofinance!

You can see why, then, that SILENT SHA'VI is the main attraction in any fight, and deserved to be my headliner! But as we know, every headliner needs a supporting act, and for this battle, that role fell to SOUL STRANGER:

And here he is:

Now, I rather like this card for a number of reasons. I have actually taken mine up to Level 6, but I can only play mine Level 3, as per my summoner cap. The card image above is Level 3 to give you an idea of how he positioned himself in the battle.

You'll notice, straight up, that he only costs 3 mana, and let's be blunt, that's cheap! But, he isn't just cheap, he provides value - have a look at his attack, it's +3 arrows. That's really a super interesting number, because it means you get 1 attack per 1 mana - and that's something very few cards are able to achieve. His speed is average, and his health is low - and there's no armour on this guy - but, it's his ability to be cause significant damage in a battle that you'd play him for.

The next consideration is how to make both SILENT SHA-VI and SOUL STRANGER shine, then, is the right battle - and I think I found a brilliant ruleset to allow them to dominate, here it is:

You'll notice that I can only play odd cards - which is great, as SILENT SHA-VI is 5 mana, and SOUL STRANGER is 3 mana. The other awesome factor is that this battle will start every card without armour - which is great, as neither of my cards had armour in the first place. It is an equalizer which will make them shine! Being a 19 mana line-up, I also knew that often you'll win by playing a lot of cards - as low mana low damage cards can force an advantage, simply by virtue of hitting lots!

Here was my full line up:

Summoner: THADDEUS BROOD
This is a really awesome summoner, because he is able to negatively impact your opponent by reducing their magic attack and by taking 1 health off each of the cards. Also, he is a cheap summoner to buy, which makes it easy to be able to level him up - offering your cards a level advantage.

Tank: CRYPT BETTLE
This is a good 3 mana card to stick out the front, the reason I played him is because of his SHIELD ability - the rule of this card was to be able to absorb a couple of hits, allowing my SNEAK attackers in the back-row to be able to do some significant damage. His 3 health isn't too bad, but he's more of a meat-shield than a main weapon.

Off-Tank: CREEPING OOZE
This card is solid because it will reduce my opponent's speed, which will be awesome to allow me to take the opening hits in the battle and seek to do some early damage. He also acts as a meat shield, as he will absorb one attack and keep my SNEAKERS from danger for that one extra turn.

SNEAK DUO: SILENT SHA'VI AND URAEUS
These two cards are in the line-up to work in tandem with each other. I don't usually like just playing one SNEAK card in a team, my preference is typically to play two and that will allow the strategy to flourish. In truth, if I play in LIFE, sometimes I'll play three SNEAK in a line-up!

REAR: SOUL STRANGER
This guy is at the back, and if my opponent plays a SNEAK, he'll die quickly - however, the best ordering of cards is to put ARROWS at the end, because they can't hit in the tank position. Therefore, SOUL STRANGER - even as an offensive asset, finds himself in a vulnerable position pre-battle.

This is how the battle gets underways:

From the word go, this battle looked interesting. My opponent's attack was reduced to a total of 2 magic and 1 melee, but the melee was buried - so could not immediately hit me. This was in contrast to my 9 total attack - all of which could be utilised straight away. The problem was, that my opponent was playing THORNS - which meant every time my three melee attacks connected with an opponent, they would essentially be killing themselves. For my URAEUS, this meant he would get 1 hit only before dying. This was going to be close!

Ok, let's have a look at how the battle went, have a look at this video. Trust me, it's quite funny:

As you can see, this battle was really quite interesting - and by the end of Round 1, an awful lot of damage had been taken on both sides. My opponent's TAUNT tank was nearly destroyed - but my team had been thrashed by thorns. In total, my opponent had 5 health total remaining, while I had 6 health total. This game was certainly finely balanced.

And then, by the end of Round 3 - the battle looked a little bit more certain, although, the end result was a laughable position. My SILENT SHA-VI had landed the final blow on the MUSHROOM, which killed the mushroom, whose thorns in turn killed my SILENT SHA-VI. It promoted my SOUL STRANGER to the TANK position, along with my opponent's OOZE. In the end, nearly of us could attack, and only one stat matters - and that was HEALTH. My SOUL STRANGER had 2 health, and my opponent's OOZE had just the 1 health. All I had to do know was stare into his eyes for 18 rounds in order to claim my victory!

And there it was - In Round 21, I finally won the staring competition, as FATIGUE took 1 health from my SOUL STRANGER, and 1 health from my opponent's OOZE - leaving me the victor of this battle!

So what's the verdict?

• SILENT SHA-VI is a master of SNEAK and he is one of the best cards you are going to encounter in the deck, in this battle, it was his 5 health which allowed him to make three hits on my opponent, before the THORNS took him out. In total though, he did 9 damage - which was significant enough to make him the main aggressor in the battle.
• SOUL STRANGER also made the right hits at the right time, and with his +3 damage, he became a super partner to join SILENT SHA-VI in this battle, benefiting from ranged attacks not being hurt by THORNS.
• In the end then, both of these cards were vital for the win - as both made the right moves at the right time. Is this my new perfect partnership?
• And, it just goes to show, both of these cards will be worth a purchase - as they are both amazing, and with the circulation being limited, they certainly will offer opportunity for appreciating in value - particularly as SPLINTERLANDS works to add new cards. At the moment, the WATER, LIFE and FIRE Splinters all have overpowered combinations - I'm sure that SPLINTERLANDS will probably seek to give DEATH a bit of a boost in the future.

Thanks for joining me, for another Splinter Chat! This blog was put together as part of Splinterlands' weekly 'Share-Your-Battle' challenge. Have you put yours together yet?
LordTimoty

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