Thanalorian Scion is a unit that looks very odd when you first look at the stats. The 5 mana for 1 health feels weird and many players will skip it right away. The trick is that this unit is not meant to survive through health at all. It is built around armor and how armor interacts with magic damage. With 11 armor and Void Armor, Thanalorian Scion can take hits from magic attacks without touching health for a long time. This makes it feel much tankier than the 1 health suggests. It is a unit that can tank for a long time when played correctly. When used correctly, it can sit in front and while your team slowly deals damage to whole enemy team.

Stats

• Thanalorian Scion works best and should be treated as a tank that can deal magic attack rather than a pure damage dealer. The 3 magic attack is decent but not the main reason you play this unit. The real strength comes from the combination of very high armor and abilities that protect that armor. Speed of 1 is very slow, so it will usually act last and take hits first. One health is scary on paper but because your armor blocks so much damage, health often does not matter with Thanalorian Scion until very late. This even makes her a really good unit that you can use with other combos like spamming Resurrect since Resurrect revives units with 1 health but full armor.

Abilities

Corrosive Ward: When hit with a Melee attack, Unit does 2 armor damage to the attacker, and max armor of the attacker is reduced by 2.
Corrosive Ward is very strong against melee focused teams. Every time Thanalorian Scion is hit by melee attacks, the attacker loses armor permanently. This is important because lost armor is permanent for the battle and you cannot recover it using Repair. Against teams that rely on Repair, Corrosive Ward can break their plan and makes Repair less effective. This can make your units get easier time to hit the enemy health if you have a lot of melee and range attackers. This ability is also perfect if the enemy has Void Armor that protects their unit.

Void Armor: Magic attacks hit this Unit's armor before its Health.
Void Armor is one of the most important abilities on Thanalorian Scion. It allows armor to block magic damage instead of magic going straight to health. With 11 armor, this ability gives massive value. Magic heavy teams will struggle to break through Thanalorian Scion's armor before other parts of their team start to die. Because Thanalorian Scion has only 1 health, Void Armor is what keeps it alive. Without it, this unit would die almost instantly to magic damage.

True Strike: This Unit's attacks cannot miss.
True Strike is a strange ability on a magic unit because magic attacks normally never miss. The only time it gets value is when the enemy uses Phase, which allows magic attacks to miss. Since Thanalorian Scion has very low speed, it would miss often against Phase units without True Strike. This ability removes that weakness completely. In those situations, True Strike keeps Thanalorian Scion useful instead of becoming dead weight. While it is situational, it prevents very bad matchups.

Battle

Link to battle

With the Holy Protection rule being in play, I wanted some units with armor. I found Thanalorian Scion a good unit in this modifier since her Void Armor ability can block magic damage. If you notice, I didn't use Shock Trooper in this scenario unlike what my enemy did. Shock Trooper's Electrified ability passes through Void Armor so even if Thanalorian Scion has Void Armor, with 1 health, she would die when you use Shock Trooper. Going back to the battle, Thanalorian Scion can be used as a tank but I always use her behind a main tank because I want to block possible Snipe which is what saved me in this battle. The enemy Torrent Sniper's snipe attacks was being blocked by Thanalorian Scion each time which allowed my team to deal more damage to theirs and delay my team's death. This slowly allowed me to win by doing more damage than them while their team is also self destructing because of the two Electrified debilitations from Shock Trooper and Water Diviner.

Images were taken from Splinterlands, made in Canva, drawn in Krita and animated in Photoshop.

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