A Balanced Attack - Melee Meets Magic, featuring TENYII STRIKER.

A Balanced Attack - Melee meets Magic, featuring Tenyii Striker.

In some battles, I like to throw the majority of my cards in with melee, in other battles, I like to go all out with melee. I'll be honest, I never go arrows. But then there are other times I like to put in a balanced attack which prioritises both magic and melee attack in order to rip through an opponent's line up. In today's post, I want to do just that! And, I'd like to start by featuring the TENYII STRIKER.

Now - right from the get-go, this card is pretty amazing. It only costs 5 mana, and, as you'll see - that will be cheap for what the card can do. The card has +3 melee attack, which I would normally pair with TARSA to push him to +4 attack. He then runs in with +3 boots, which means he will be attacking in the middle of the battle. His 6 health is useful too, as it means you can play him in the final position and he'll have enough health to survive a SNEAK attack. Speaking of which, this guy has the DODGE ability which means he is likely to be missed by an opponent and to frustrate their attack - while, his own SNEAK ability will let him rip through an opponent's line-up with ease!

I own this card GOLD FOIL and Level 4 - which is the combination of 4 x RARE CARDS. Each card cost just over 4 bucks each, so he's not super cheap - but the end result is that he is a worthwhile upgrade. I can't wait to access higher leagues and take him to Level 7. His BACKFIRE ability that unlocks will certainly make this card dangerous in any line-up. Of course, that's many dollars and many months away!

The next step is then, to find a battle where this guy can shine (and in truth, he shines in many of my battles each day, but I liked this ruleset). This ruleset is 60 mana, which means we can wind up quite a lot of high mana cards, but it is slow goes first - which is nearly a contradiction in GOLD LEAGUE as everyone's cards have been leveled away from low speeds! At least the battle is equal, as both myself and my opponent have the same ruleset. Ideally, this is a battle for EARTH as the EARTH splinter tends to have low speed players, BUT - my deck is made up of a lot of low mana EARTH cards, which would run the risk of being quickly and easily overpowered. FIRE made sense given the mana cap. At 20 or 30 mana, 100% I'd have gone with EARTH.

Running my team then, of course it was a no brainer to pick TARSA. The card is valued at $108 but I think it is far more valuable than this as it offers each monster on your team +1 melee and +1 health. Given I wanted to play a balanced melee team, I will be looking to gain +3 melee from this summoner choice, but with 6 cards, I will gain +6 health.

The most obvious piece of my line-up then is GRUMM, largely because he is an absolute BEAST - and, he only has +1 speed so he will get his hit away early. I like this card at Level 2, because it has the reduced damage from magic, along with the void magic shield ability - but alas, mine is only Level 1. That said - he is going to act as a very significant block at the front of this team and protect the cards behind him.

My next puzzle piece was then the RADIATED BRUTE - This guy is really handy because he has the REACH ability, and at $5.82, this card is rather a good investment. While he is showing +3 melee, you need to remember that TARSA will push him to +4, which will make this card incredibly dangerous in that second position.

My next move was to put the TENYII STRIKER in that 3rd position - this was to protect him in the middle of my team, while also seeking to protect some of my more vulnerable MAGIC attackers. The first of which is my DJINN APPRENTICE, who I recently pushed to Level 4. His +3 magic bolts are dangerous given they ignore armour. At $7.08 this card is a good buy, as the lower version only has +2 magic.

Then it's the powerful DJINN INFERNI in the next position; this guy is seriously epic. You see, he pairs beautifully with the DJINN APPRENTICE because they combine for +7 magic damage. That's enough to destroy an opponent's health (particularly since they both have high speed, so will hit at about the same point in the battle). The DJINN also has the MONSTER KILLER ability, which will allow him to do double damage to an opponent who costs +10 mana. It's a useful trick to have up his sleeve, although I'd prefer this card at Level 5 to access STUN.

I then round my team out with PRISMATIC ENERGY. This card is a great way to finish a line up as he has 10 health, which will make him likely to survive a few SNEAK attacks. I put him in this position with the MAGIC REFLECT on the off-chance my opponent played the SNEAK GOBLIN in the EARTH SPLINTER. This would reflect back his magic bolts and knock him out pretty quickly. But - more than that, it completes my MAGIC line-up and takes it to a total of +9 magic damage, all with 3/4/4 speed, so all hitting at the same time in the battle. It's a dangerous group of cards!

Now, let's have a look at the TENYII STRIKER in this balanced line-up:
The battle opens with my opponent playing a +1 speed summoner; again, I couldn't help but think this was the curse of GOLD LEAGUE and not having underpowered cards! Looking at the line-ups though, I notice that my opponent and I have a similar idea, except he has prioritised a number of arrow accounts. The biggest concern I have is the COUNTESS has OPPORTUNITY, and his +4 arrows is enough to drop my DJINN INFERNI in one hit. GULP!

And, according to script - the DJINN INFERNI died in one hit at the hands of the COUNTESS. However, the battle was interesting in a few other ways. I had managed to drop my opponent's GRUMM quite significantly down to +3 health only, which the TENYII STRIKER has started to take my opponent's back-line out. Otherwise, my PRISMATIC ENERGY was poisoned! This is OK, however, given his high health - it will keep him in this battle a while longer. I did notice though that my opponent has a number of SWIFTNESS ability cards and this, along with his summoner, has pushed all his card speeds through the roof - this means I get all the first hits in the battle; what an advantage!

Unfortunately then, Round 2 remained rather uneventful - I was able to get the first hit with my GRUMM to take down my opponent's GRUMM. This was key, as it activated my BLOODLUST ability. Otheriwse, I was able to weaken his ARROW TANK and my opponent continued to weaken my PRISMATIC ENERGY through the URAEUS SNEAK and the POISON. My TENYII STRIKER continues to work away at my opponent's back-line defense.

In Round 3, I made some significant progress by promoting my opponent's COUNTESS to the TANK position where she can't attack, this sets up my GRUMM to again use his BLOODLUST this round. You'll notice that with ENRAGE my opponent's cards should be nearly UNHITTABLE. COUNTESS is up to +11 speed, the rearguard is up to +14 speed. It's lucky it is slow goes first or I would have no chance of landing a hit. It goes to show the importance of playing the rulesets.

And then ROUND 4 happened, and it was as if dominos were collapsing. My PRISMATIC energy finally died of the POISON hits, the COUNTESS died at the hands of GRUMM, the DJINN APPRENTICE knocked out the URAEUS in one hit, and the TENYII STRIKER finally dislodged the my opponent's rear guard! At this point, let's say this battle is well and truly over!

If you want to re-live it though, you can do so by clicking this link:
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_2f7d16127597e1da1bf1f6015ab78490

Or, watch the video in full here:

Evaluation of the TENYII STRIKER
I really love this card, but in this battle, I'd have to say he was ineffective. I had 5 of my cards facing the tank, and the TENYII STRIKER hoping to rip through my opponent's back-line - however, my opponent picked my preference for getting SNEAKY and played the SERPENTINE SOLDIER whose SHIELD skill made him difficult to quickly dislodge. This was a funny choice, as the SERPENTINE SOLDIER could not hit in that position, he was simply defense. But - it worked, as the only card my TENYII STIRKER hit was that guy! Essentially, they cancelled each other out in the battle.

Regarding the balanced attack, this went well in the battle as the MAGIC trio paired up to deliver some serious consecutive damage, although losing the DJINN so early in the battle certainly impacted on their group's ability to SMASH through health in the following rounds, while the MELEE trio also worked well in partnership as they would take armour and health between them.

Ultimately though, the TENYII STRIKER didn't have a great battle - sure, he got one kill, but it was only a shield put up. That said, he was still alive at the battle's end, and that's more than you can say for my opponent's entire team! To that end, you could say the $16 investment to buy a Level 4 GOLD FOIL TENYII STRIKER was already paying off!

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