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This post is the Second post in a series on why recharge is undervalued here! . Feel free to check it out.
Before Insidious Warlock I adressed another sleeping giant card Infrit Rising. Read about it here!

Insidious Warlocks are a faction of the Chaos Legion specialized in death magic. Wherever they go, there is a cold chill and the shadows seem somehow darker.

Insidious Warlock is a card most known for its ability recharge. This ability changes the way the round based system in a battle treats the card. Instead of attacking every turn like every other normal (and thus not very cool) card. It attacks every other turn. But as a trade off it deals TRIPLE damage this turn! Lets talk about the card first.

Insidious Warlock

Insidious warlock is an epic chaos legion card. Its recharge ability makes it unique in its splinter. No other card in the death splinter has this ability. At level 4 it obtains the blind ability and it gets upgraded to 3 damage on level 6. This card is very strong in Bronze and in diamond because this is where it gets acces to 2 and 3 damage. This means it deals 6 damage in 1 turn in bronze and 9 damage in diamond. This is an incredible amount of damage especially with sneak and snipe rulesets. There are not many non tank monsters in bronze that have more than 6 regular HP. This means it will outright kill them by turn 2 which surely can change the tide of battle.

It is said on moonless nights they gather to conduct their rituals.

Just like every other Recharge card its biggest downfall is its vulnerability. The risk of them dying before they even get to attack is very great. The use of these cards requires quite a bit of thought to fit into tour team. This is why their prices are so low compared to other cards. But when applied correctly they are very strong.
This negative side also applies to Insidous Warlock also applies. It only has 5-6 HP and 2 speed. Which means it is vulnerable to opportunityy monsters and is most likely one of the last monsters to attack. Except in reverse speed rulesets for example. The blind ability help keep you and your team slightly more safe as it increases their chance to miss by 15% flat. Cumulative with Flying and Dodge, to get up to + 65% chance of evading Melee or Ranged attacks.

Scenarios where Insidious Warlock shines

In order to keep this post relatively short i have decided to limit the positives scenarios for this card to rulesets. I use recharge cards very heavily in Diamond leaugue and they win me many games.

With their uniform dark robes and faces shrouded in the shadow of hoods, they are frightening for anyone to behold.

In the picture above i have boxed the most advantegeous rulesets in green. I will quickly elaborate why they are the best. And hopefully give some inspiration for application in your battles.

• Armoured up: All Monsters have 2 Armor in addition to their normal Armor stat. It is of course smart to use monster with magic damage like the warlock in this ruleset. This ability also provides the Insidious warlock with some much needed protection.
• Equal opportunity: All Monsters have the Opportunity ability. This ruleset is kind of a double edged sword. This makes your insidous warlock more vulnerable. But if you manage to keep him alive till round 2 he WILL one shot a monster on the other team.
• Equalizer: The initial Health of all Monsters is equal to that of the Monster on either team with the highest base Health. This rule takes away the low health stat of the warlock reducing his vulnerability in you team setup. The more obscure upside however is that equalizer battles tend to drag on a lot. And as the game progresses the more value a recharge monster can provide. For example:
  • normal monster with 2 damage in 10 round battle:
    2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2= 20 total damage
  • Insidous warlock with 2 base damage:
    0+6+0+6+0+6+0+6+0+6= 30 total damage

This effect increasses when time goes on. this is why Insidous is a great choice in this context.

• Explosive armory: All Monsters have the Blast ability. Again this is kind of a double edged sword as the warlock will be splashed a bunch with blast damage. But because of the big damage that the warlock deals if you manage to protect him it is still worth it.
• Heavy Hitters:All Monsters have the Knock Out ability. This is one of my favourites to rulesets to use him in. Just incorporate any stun monster like the new reward card for death the Revealer. when the first target is stunned the damage of the warlock will be doubled giving 6x the normal damage!
• Legendary Monsters may not be used in battles: lots of legendary monsters have the void ability, this helps this card in general.
• Reverse Speed:Monsters with the lowest Speed attack first and have the highest chance of evading attacks. This takes away the vulnerability and the slowness of the card making it much more reliable.
• Super sneak and target practice: This because of reasons mentioned above.

Conclusion

I really think the potential of recharge cards is being overlooked by many. By writing these psots i am hoping to inspire people to give them a try and improve their own winrates by using these amazing cards. Definetly consider leaving your strategy in the comments below i would love to improve my own gameplay with you all! I will be making a post about Temporal Master next so stay tuned and please follow me for more content. I will be releasing this new post tomorrow. Thanks for reading and i hope you all have an amazing 2023.