I fought an interesting battle in Modern Diamond ranked. In this game, I fought against the very expensive and very scarce Heloise the Hollow. And it was a GF version, of which there are only 5 in existence. Heloise was the only card ever sold at auction, where players had 25 hours to bid on it, with 100 copies being sold, 5 being GF. I didn't participate since it was too expensive for me. Even if I wanted to spend so much, there are many other cards that I'm missing, and it would certainly be better to get many different ones instead of just one, even if it's very good!

As for the card itself, it already came as a max level. I won't talk about it over the various levels because the card feels incomplete when it's not used at full level. It costs 9 mana, and it is a double-element unit belonging to Death and Earth. It is a melee unit with 8 attack, 3 speed, and 7 HP. It has Taunt, Opportunity, Spite, and Soul Siphon. Spite is similar to Retaliate, but it only triggers when Heloise dies. However, it always triggers, and it works for any attack type. Soul Siphon is a self-resurrection ability. Heloise comes back with full armor and half HP (rounded down). Debuffs are cleared, but buffs are kept. The downside is that for it to work, it needs at least one non-Weary unit. It chooses the one with the most HP, makes it Weary, and takes away half of its HP (rounded up). The card is full of synergy between all abilities. Opportunity makes sure it can attack from any position, Taunt pairs well with the two new abilities, which are amazing with each other. The concept is that it draws attacks, and when it gets killed, not only does it come back, but it also kills its killer. However, there are ways to fight against it. Getting armor on your units is great because Heloise doesn't have Piercing. 3 speed is not that much. Using faster units with abilities that help you dodge attacks can also work very well. Forcefield also makes any big attack almost useless.

This game had the following rule sets: Silenced Summners, Born Again, and Broken Arrows. It was a 25 mana cap game, and Earth, Death, and Dragon were available. I picked Quix the Devious and placed Dark Arborist in front. I followed it up with Void Dragon and Venka the Vile. I finished the team with Arachne Weaver and Corpse Fiend. They opted for Chuul Jujinchi, saving one mana compared to my choice but getting only one element since there are no summoners with both Death and Earth. They started with Halfling Refugee and Thunderhoof Nomad. Next, they had Heloise, followed by Mycelic Morphoid and Queen Mycelia. They finished the team with Doctor Blight.

My attacks put Heloise to 1 HP before Triage brought it back to 3. Heloise's attack killed my Fiend for the first time. Arachne Weaver put Heloise back to 1 HP and triggered the Poison. Doctor Blight also Poisoned my first unit, and Queen's Triage put Heloise to 3 again, outside of Poison range.

Void Dragon killed Heloise, and she missed Spite attack. She was brought back with Soul Siphon, not Rebirth, inflicting the Weary to Doctor Blight. Venka killed her again, but this time, the Spite hit, taking out my Venka for the first time. It was Nomad's turn to get Weary. Halfling's attack took out my Arborist's first life. Weaver Poisoned Heloise again, but Doctor Blight did the same to my tank.

Once again, Venka dealt a killing blow to Heloise. Thankfully, Spite missed, and Venka Trampled their Morphoid's first life. Queen Mycelia became Weary this time. The Halfling eliminated my Arborist for good.

Venka took out Heloise again, and this time, Spite finished it off. Weary went for last non-Weavery unit: Morphoid, which died in the process. My Weaver Poisoned Heloise for the third time, and they missed several attacks on Void Dragon.

Heloise finally had an attack that wasn't Spite and finished my Fiend. Their two Triages made sure their units were staying healthy. My Corrupt Healing was also doing some work, but with just 2 units left, things didn't look good for me.

Heloise hit my Dragon, killing it for the first time. The Halfling got Exhausted, which gave my Weaver the chance to Heal the Dragon. It also attacked Helooise down to 1 HP, and their last 2 units also got Exhausted, which meant Heloise didn't get Triaged.

Heloise was finally gone after the Poison took effect. They had 2 more units than me, but all of them had the chance to get Exhausted and also miss their attacks. However, Doctor Blight managed to attack, hit, and inflict both Poison and Affliction.

I killed the Halfling twice, and the Void Dragon still survived one more round.

Their Nomad got killed for the first time. In the following round, I lost my Dragon to Poison. The Weaver finished the Nomad and just took an attack from the Queen.

The Weaver killed the Queen twice in these two rounds, with the help of Poison.

It was Doctor Blight against my Weaver, but with Exhaust to the max on their side, the game was mine, for sure. The game almost went to Fatigue, but it finished just before round 21.

This was an insane game! Very close and with important RNG situations on both sides. I think I was a bit luckier than my opponent However, there are two things to consider in this game. The first one is that Heloise doesn't work very well in the Born Again rule set. That's because she never gets that "free" Resurrect from Rebirth. Instead, the game always uses Soul Siphon. I think even more importantly, the rest of the units come back from their Rebirth already Weary, if they had it before. The second one is that using units that already have Weary is also not the best option since it's one less Soul Siphon, and it's faster to reach a point where the whole team is Exhausted.

What do you all think about this game? Would you have done anything different? Let me know in the comments! Thank you for reading!!