Centauri Mage... better than I realized? (Splinterlands Weekly Battle)

It has been far too long since I participated in a weekly Splinterlands content challenge. I got so caught up in so many games that I lost track of the basics!! No more. Let's check out this week's card Centauri Mage and get back in the flow of things before the ultra hype Chaos Legion set drops.

_{Thumbnail Credit: @splinterlands account}

First Impressions

I haven't used Centauri Mage before. Ever. I don't even know if I have seen it in a battle more than a few times in my entire history of playing Splinterlands.

It's a simple card. A bit expensive for the stats, but return fire can be amazing if the opponent has the misfortune of using ranged attacks against this monster. Ranged monsters with snipe like Mantoid will be in big trouble.

Can this card work out or is it too expensive for what it does? Is this a 99-mana-ruleset-ONLY kind of card? I'm not sure how I feel about it.

The Battle

After queueing up about 4 times, I found a good ruleset. While not a ton of mana, it seemed like enough. I rented a Kron the Elder and the plan was to spam that card with Mylor Crowning and Centauri Mage, hoping to have massive defense against melee and ranged.

My only fear would be to come up against a strong magic deck, perhaps something with Alric Stormbringer. Since I'm not going the Unicorn Mustang route, I am vulnerable to magic.

The battle looked pretty good to me when I saw my opponent's deck. Life splinter with +1 shield hero is a great matchup for my magic build.

At first it looked close, but became clear within 3 turns that I would lay down the defintive win.

You can see the battle here:

Clearly I crushed them!!

On one hand I am in the lower ranks, but I played fair. My collection is actually really small on this account (collection power is like 4k) and I rented all these cards for a 1 day rental cost of about 200 DEC.

When you know the format and the key cards, it's easy to throw together some rentals for a few games without any stress. That's one of my favorite parts about Splinterlands.

How do I feel about Centauri Mage?

This card actually has a lot of potential in high mana matchups. I think it synergizes fantastic with Mylor Crowning since the addition of thorns means that ONLY magic attacks can safely hit this monster. If I use this card and Mylor along with some anti-magic cards like Unicorn Mustang or even the humble Failed Summoner, I think that's really difficult for any opponent to build against.

Considering this card is pretty cheap and in high circulation (at least by pre-Chaos-Legion standards), it might actually be stronger and more effective than people realize.

This card brings to mind an idea that FLUXCORP guild member @gorilas21 has told me, which is basically you should make your builds as well-rounded as possible. With Mylor specifically, you already have enough anti-melee power so all the rest of the building should be to counter magic and ranged. Centauri Mage works well for that kind of approach with Mylor.

Splinterlands Meta -- Still Not Solved!

Its cool that even after playing this meta for ~6 months, there are new cards to discover and new strategies to explore. I never realized the power of Centauri Mage before now.

While Chaos Legion is going to be so hype and fun, part of me will be sad to leave behind the Untamed meta. It's been a blast and this was what the game looked like when it really blew up over the last few months. I'll always have some nostalgia for this set.