Share Your Battle w/ Goblin Shaman - EPIC FAIL

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Somehow, I was lucky enough back during the Untamed airdrops to have received a copy of Yodin Zaku, but I haven't used it at all! Instead, I have been renting it out for some pretty good DEC. In fact, I was renting out all of my good summoners up until a week or so ago, and I didn't even realize it!

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I had worked my way up to Silver II League, and I kind of hit a wall, so I started taking an inventory of all of my cards and realized I had a Level 3 Arlic Stormbringer and Daria Dragonscale as well as a level 2 Tyrus Palladium that I had been renting out for so long that I had FORGOTTEN about them. So, I took them all off of the rental market along with a bunch of somewhat leveled up monsters that I hadn't been utilizing. It was a game changer! Suddenly, I went from struggling to stay in Silver League to attaining a Gold League rating (although I don't yet have the CP to compete in Gold League).

Among those monsters that I took back control over was a lowly Level 3 Goblin Shaman. I was shocked at how handy he was in situations where you end up with 3 mana left to spend. Before, with the level 1 version, all he offered was that Weaken ability with no attack; there are much better 3 cost options out there. But when you tack on that 1 magic damage Goblin Shaman becomes a contender! I've had several matches where he was the card that pushed me to victory. The battle featured in this post, however, was not one of them.

For this battle, I was working on a Snipe quest, and I wanted to use my newly freed up Yodin as my summoner. In a match capped at 23 mana, this left me with 17 more to pick my monsters. Yodin was expensive, but would he be worth it?

My first monster choice was a Level 2 Cerberus. At 4 cost with 2 attack, 6 life, and tank heal, it was a no-brainer.

Next, I went with a Level 3 Fire Beetle so I could get my Snipe requirement out of the way. I chose this one because it only cost 3 mana with 2 ranged attack that would be buffed up to 3 with blast damage by Yodin. This left me with 9 mana.

My next choice was a Level 1 Fire Demon. With 5 health and 2 ranged attack, he seemed pretty cheap at 4 mana; especially when considering the +1 attack and Blast buffs that he would receive from Yodin. That only left me 5 mana to spread out over a possible 3 more spots. Did I want to go with one 5-cost card? A 4-cost and a 1-cost? Or maybe a 3-cost and a 2-cost? Two 2s and a 1? There were so many possible combinations!

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After about 30 seconds of scanning over my options, I decided to go with the 3-2 option. I started with the 2-cost selection and chose the Level 1 Halfling Alchemist. That ability to cut the attack of any oponent that it hits in half can be HUGE. I was also curious to find out if the added blast effect it got from Yodin would reduce the attack of enemy monsters hit with collateral damage (Spoiler Alert: it did not).

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With 3 mana left, I looked at my 1 and 2-cost cards and didn't really see anything that I thought fit the situation, so I decided to go with one 3-cost card and an empty slot... which I *literally just now realized was pretty dumb considering I could have thrown a chicken in the back for free. It wouldn't have made a difference in the outcome, but its just one of those mental errors that I'm trying to weed out of my game. Anyhow, I decided to go with our featured monster, the Level 3 Goblin Shaman.

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After tweaking my monsters' positions a little bit, I ended up with a lineup that looked lik this:

I was pretty confident in my selection; especially with Yodin at the helm. But then, the enemy team popped in:

JAMESLR1 brought Arlic Stormbringer with a ton of magic damage behind him. I did some quick math and figured out that my Cerberus was going to go down in the first round. From there, I knew I was doomed.

Given the mana cap, I still think I had a pretty good lineup that would have worked in most situations in Bronze League. I just couldn't overcome all of that magic damage!