Weekly Battle Challenge: Spirit Hoarder

Introduction

This week's Battle Challenge involves the Spirit Hoarder, a neutral 3 mana supporting creature that offers Triage, Dispel and Blind abilities. It also gains additional point of magic damage at the highest level. Spirit Hoarder is easy to include in a lot of line-ups and works exceptionally well with a backline Taunt monster.

Stats and Abilities

Lore

When the Chaos Legion opened their portals to begin the invasion of Praetoria, the great vortexes tugged at the edges of time and space, drawing in matter from other realms. These portals were so powerful that other beings were dragged through against their will, snatched from their own worlds. And so it was that the Spirit Hoarder found itself walking the lands of Praetoria. No one truly knows where it originated from, but the consensus remains the same: They wish the Spirit Hoarder would return and no longer blight the Splinterlands with its wicked presence.

Described as almost dryad-like in its appearance by the few that have lived to tell the tale, the Spirit Hoarder is a faceless creature aside from two large, yellow eyes. Its body is a deep green with tributaries of aqua blue running through its skin, converging into jagged dorsal vertebrae along its back, and the uneven ruts of its head almost look like broken wood jutting away from the otherwise smooth and serene outline of its body. The alien appearance of this creature makes it difficult to tell where it resided on its home world, and it is likely at some point in evolution its habitat was in water, but now it is clear that it makes its home on solid ground and is completely terrestrial.

Granted, it is a docile looking creature, but the gnarled staff it carries, with branches twisted into a series of synchronised patterns, holds a sinister, spinning orb of power. It is a mystic force, the likes of which has never been seen before. This is the Vault of Spirit Hoarders and the one true source of its power. If one were to look at the orb closely enough, they would see the tormented spirits drifting inside, desperate to be free of the anguish prolonged by their eternal prison. What makes the Spirit Hoarder so utterly terrifying, though, is the indifference in which it stalks the land. The Spirit Hoarder cares not of the source of souls it takes, with both Praetorians and Chaos Legion having fallen victim to its obscene harvesting.

Price

Regular foil singles are starting at $5.50, while combined versions can be bought for a bit cheaper as usual. Currently there is a maxed-out copy at the market for $58.01 ($5.27 per BCX) and a level 3 copy for $32.60 ($5.43 per BCX).

Gold foil singles are going for $43.97+ at the moment without any price discount for buying combined copies.

My Team:

Grandmaster Rathe is a defensive Life summoner that provides +1 Armor and Void Armor, quite a strong combination for any defensively oriented team. On top of that he provides Amplify ability which pairs nicely with Thorns, Return Fire and Magic Reflect abilities, and is a good choice in any of those rulesets.

Uriel the Purifier is a strong frontliner that makes great use of Void Armor. He has decent speed and Flying ability which comes in handy against slower and grounded enemies, and Heal ability makes him quite sturdy. Defenitely a prefered choice for a frontliner in Chaos Legion set.

Jared Scar - a scary Arena Master with deadly combination of Bloodlust, True Strike and Piercing. Once he gets a kill, he just keeps on going. Recent Dispel buff makes it possible for stat-boosts to be removed, but behind Uriel and with Opportunity there is no reason to worry.

Djinn Renova is a high magic damage supporting creature with Strengthen and Triage abilities. Her main job is to provide Taunting backliner healed up all while dishing out that sweet magic damage.

What needs to be said about Adelade Brightwing? She's such an amazing card in combination with Grandmaster Rathe. Ressurecting frontliner with a Void Armor is strong strategy, and on top of that she even keeps that armor repaired.

Here comes the Spirit Hoarder, the star of this week's Battle Challnge. In this battle, Spirit Hoarder provides support through Blind ability, threatens opposing Jared Scar with Dispel, and most imporantly provides additional Triage for the backline Taunter.

I was lucky enough to pull Iziar from my Seasonal chests, so I was eager to try her out. In this battle Iziar is responsible for taking all the damage for the team, while being healed by 2 Triage monsters.

Battle Ruleset

The first thing I noticed is Opportunity ruleset with Life available for the Jared Scar. On top of that Grandmaster Rathe provides Amplify for the Thorns, and all the good Magic attacking monsters in Life element have odd mana costs.

Battle Link

Turn 1

In this round not a lot of things happen. Both of the backline Taunters are taking hits for the team and getting healed by Triagers. Opponent's Uraeus takes some Thorns damage, and neither of the Jareds got the killing blows.

Turn 2

In this round opposing Agor Longtail gets killed, only to be ressurrected and killed once again by Jared Scar. Opposing Jared Scar missed a killing blow on Iziar by 1 health point.

Turn 3

In this round Iziar finally goes down, only to be ressurected and killed by opposing Jared Scar. Right after that my Jared Scar delivers a killing blow to opposing Jared Scar.

Turn 4

Jared Scar scores another killing blow increasing his stats even further. Both teams are healing up and repairing armor.

Turn 5

Jared Scar is now the fastest creature on the field and ready to finish the battle.

Turn 6

Battle finally ends with jared Scar delivering another killing blow, increasing his attack to 11 damage.

Battle Rewards

Conclusion

Both me and my opponent had the same idea about our lineups. Grandmaster Rathe proved to be a stronger summoner for sustaining teams with his defensive capabilities and Spirit Hoarder proved to be more useful than the Uraeus that he brought to the battle. I'm also impressed with how much damage iziar was able to soak up with double triage support.

Thanks for reading!

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