Share Your Battle - Is Pelacor Arbalest Overrated?

The theme for the current "Share Your Battle" challenge is Pelacor Arbalest and in my opinion, it is a situational card. When used well, it can cause a lot of problems for the opposing team. But if not placed well, it can be taken out easily and a precious 6 mana card would go to waste.

I am not a fan of Life cards (my favourite element is Water!) but if the situation calls for it, I would still field a decent lineup, which I will share with you in this post. Hopefully it gives you some ideas to explore!

Here's the Lore section for Pelacor Arbalest for reading interest:

Pelacor Arbalests are armed with powerful crossbows enchanted to fire bolts at extremely long distances. They are trained to wield a crossbow in each hand and can fire both simultaneously with deadly accuracy. Compounded with the Pelacor's excellent eyesight and nimble dexterity, these sharpshooters are extremely useful as snipers on the battlefield.

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Battle Type & Team Lineup

Position	Card	Notes
Summoner	General Sloan	Life usually has many summoners for different purposes but General Sloan is always the preferred choice when using Pelacor Arbalest because it gives an extra 2 damage per round due to Double Strike.
1	Shieldbearer	Shieldbearer is especially important in the Life deck because of squishy cards like Pelacor Arbalest and Ranged attacks can't really hit from the first spot. So having a card with Taunt ability is more important than ever.
2	Warrior Of Peace	If mana permits, I like to use Warrior Of Peace because its high speed and high HP buys a lot of time for the backline. With a speed of 5, there are bound to be some misses.
3	Djinn Renova	Djinn Renova is the best teammate you could ever have! Her Strengthen ability boosts everyone's HP and for Pelacor Arbalest, it's an extra 50% (i.e. from 2 HP to 3 HP). In addition, she deals 2 magic damage which is very decent!
4	Venari Crystalsmith	Venari Crystalsmith pairs well with the Summoner boost and helps to buy more time by healing the cards in front of itself.
5	Pelacor Arbalest	The damage card which the entire team is depending on slots in the 2nd last position. I am hesitant to place him last because of Sneak cards, which will then make him vulnerable after Shieldbearer goes.
6	Time Mage	Depending on how much mana is enough, the last spot is flexible and acts as another barrier for Pelacor Arbalest. For 4 mana, Time Mage was chosen.

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• Pre Battle: My deck of Level 1 cards came face to face with a deck of high level cards, but like I said, it all depends on Pelacor Arbalest so let's see what happens.
  

• Round 1: A total of 13 damage from my team was just enough to get rid of their tanky Level 3 Sea Monster and that was a massive move and a big swing of advantage to my side. Shieldbearer solidly hung on with 7 HP.
  

• Round 2: If my team could clear a Level 3 Sea Monster in one round, a Level 3 Flying Squid wouldn't be too difficult too. Shieldbearer went down as expected and Warrior Of Peace took the step up with 10 HP to count down. But OOPS, an Opportunity hit took my Pelacor Arbalest out. That's 6 damage output per round lost. Just like that, my advantage was lost.
  

• Round 3: Warrior of Peace proved to be a tough nut to crack, especially when aided by Venari Crystalsmith. However, I was being terrorised by the Opportunity hits and it looked like Time Mage would be the next to go.
  

• Round 4: Just as Time Mage went down, I took down another card and it was down to 3 vs 3. Still looking too close to call in this one.
  

• Rounds 5 to 6: If you thought the battle was ending, you are wrong! So let's do some fast forwarding. Fortunately, Djinn Renova and Venari Crystalsmith were able to deal some damage and every bit counted. Took 2 rounds to strike out another card while Warrior Of Peace continued to stand tall.
  

• Rounds 7 to 8: Another 2 rounds, another card struck out. Slow and steady from Djinn Renova and Venari Crystalsmith as the team closed in on the win but....
  

• Rounds 9 to 16: It took 8 whooping rounds to take out the opposing Water Elemental!!! Venari Crystalsmith had a lot of trouble getting hits on it due to the speed difference and it finally all came together at Round 16.
  

If you are interested to watch the battle, you can find it here.

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Post Battle

Did my strategy work? I had to say my strategy succeeded since a deck of Level 1 cards won a deck of higher level cards. I really like this Life lineup and like I mentioned, the frontline cards were able to buy a lot of time.

Do I like Pelacor Bandit? A little more yes than neutral, but I will only use him if I am confident that I can protect him. In this battle, I did all the protection possible but Opportunity cards still got him. Fortunately, the rest of the cards were able to limp to the finishing line.

Final thoughts? To answer my title question, I do think Pelacor Arbalest is slightly overrated. There are some underrated cards that you need to try out. One is Warrior Of Peace. Another one is Water Elemental. Like what you saw in this battle, they can cause a lot of problems for their opponents.

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So that's all I have! What are your takeaways from this battle? Feel free to comment below, as I am always keen to learn and improve!

As always, thanks for reading and have a pleasant day ahead!

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