Trying something different: Renting Valnamor instead of Alric

Recently, I've been doing something I havn't done a lot of in the past, that is, checking out cards that I've never played with - mostly because they're too expensive and I don't like renting. As I'm getting back into the game, this has been part of my deck re-building exercise, and one of the plans I had was this:

1. I used to have a permanent Level 5 Alric rental, which cost me 100 DEC per day.
   But I've come to realise:
2. If I stop being cheap, I can rent a Level 3 Valnmaor for about 400 DEC per day, and this card should be able to let me POWER my way through GOLD LEAGUE.

At the moment, I've only recovered to be in Silver I - so while I can't test my gold league theory yet, the truth is, this card knows how to win in Silver. Let's have a look at him and how he improves on Alric:

When you put both of these cards side by side, you'll notice that Alric costs 3 mana, but he is quite a good offensive buff card, as he gives all your team +1 magic damage.

Valnamor however develops this aggression, by matching the +1 magic, but giving your cards additional health and speed. The only con is that the card costs 2 more mana than Alric, which, granted, is not useful to give away in low mana battles.

Perhaps it is for this reason then that Valnamor certainly isn't cheap, at $300 a card, he's actually quite an investment, as a maxed card will set you back $3300.

The comparison for Alric is $1200 for a maxed Level 8 Alpha edition. As a point of interest, usually Beta edition cards are cheaper, but instead of the 115 cards Beta requires for max (at a price of $1280) the Alpha card only needed 86, which meant that while a single card price was higher, the total for a maxed card was lower. How's that for interesting trivia?

From an investment point of view, I don't have this kind of coin to put into a single card, so for me, I'm looking at the rental market. I'm not looking to rent for fun, and will be seeking to use Valnamor to push me into Diamond league contention. And at around 400 DEC a day for a Level 3, this card looks like some crackin' good value. You can rent a single card for around 20, and let's be clear - that's even better value for the lower leagues!

So let's see the man of the moment in action and see how he performed:

In my very first battle with Valnamor, I could already see just how impressive this card was. I had come up against a BOT combination which I'd faced a bit with little success. Basically, the BOT play here is to keep restoring the DJINN OSHANNUS' health, while the SCAVO restores his armour. The function then of the DEEPLURKER is to take out your backrow. The strategy works an absolute treat, and I found I couldn't do enough damage quick enough to be able to take out the DJINN OSHANNUS. But, by playing with the VALNAMOR that was about to change. You see, it was my intention that from this position I would have a much stronger attack. Previously, my Ice Pixie would hit for 1 damage, and it wouldn't hurt the DJINN given the MAGIC VOID ability, similarly, my own DJINN would hit him for 2 and only do 1 damage. It was a mountain to overcome. But, VALNAMOR's +1 magic has finally meant I can do critical damage to get this team down. Let's see how the battle unfolds!

By definition, this is a boring battle (helped along by the DIVINE SHIELD ruleset). But after 2 rounds, you can start to see I've made some definite progress - and am narrowly (perhaps) I felt like I was gaining ground on my opponent's amazing line-up. This battle really is all about which DJINN dies first.

The next critical point in the battle doesn't ocur then until the end of Round 4, where finally, my opponent's DEEPLURKER has been able to crush my ICE PIXIE. Really, this impacts me as it will be 1 less magic damage on my opponent's DJINN each round, but I played the HARDY FISH and the CHAOS AGENT as distractions for SNEAK and OPPORTUNITY, so it means I will still be able to pursue my opponent's tank. You'll notice that my DJINN has barely sustained damage - but, the battle is on to overcome his HEALING abilities.

That +4 health on my opponent's DJINN was, however, quickly taken in Round 5, largely thanks to VALNAMOR's speed boost (where Alric doesn't give the boost). It meant both of my attackers got their hits in (at +2 each) before my opponent had the chance to heal. This really becomes the key moment in the game as from this position, my opponent will not be able to hold back my +7 damage - in fact, from here, I'll rip through the line-up.

OK, by 'Rip through', I was a bit surprised. The ruleset ended up working against me as the DIVINE SHIELD slowed my progress, and the ENRAGE didn't help either. When my opponent's DEEPLURKER got to the tank position, he was ENRAGED to +5 damage, and my DJINN OSHANNUS fell (I didn't see that coming!) promoting my NERISSA TRIDAWN to the lead. Look, ultimately this battle outcome won't be changed, but it goes to show that rulesets can be tricky.

In the end, this became quite the long-drawn out battle, but I finally got the win up in Round 11.

If you want to re-live this battle, the good news is, you can, here's the link: https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_dd50af0e0d4ffd7f93cf75d88711f9c1
Or, you can watch the video:

Evaluation:
I really enjoyed renting VALNAMOR today, I ended up just spamming him over and over again and honestly, I think I had 9 wins in 10. I was excited to be able to overcome this awesome BOT line-up of my opponent too, but more importantly, renting this card told me that I've got the right idea for when I move back into GOLD LEAGUE as the difference between this card and ALRIC will certainly make the difference (especially when you used to get Alric vs Alric battles) - the only difference will be, I will have a Phantom of the Abyss and a Ruler of the Seas in my line-up to make this attack extra powerful.

So here's my hot tip: have a look in the market, we hear so many people complaining about being stuck at a certain level - (I know, I was one of those voices) - but, let's do something about it and find some gems - you only need to improve your win rate slightly to make a massive difference overall.

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