Steem Monsters: Errata to Exploding Dwarf

For the longest time in Steem Monsters, the Exploding Dwarf (a Common Fire monster from the Reward card set) has been an anomaly because there was no benefit to upgrading the card from Level 4 to Level 5.

Here is the old stat progression (this snapshot was taken under the old graphical interface):

As you can see, the Level 5 stats were identical to the Level 4 stats. Meanwhile, the improvement from Level 5 to Level 6 increased the Exploding Dwarf’s speed as well as added the Retaliate ability. As a result of this discrepancy, I kept my Silver League Exploding Dwarves at Level 4 since there was no point to leveling them up.

@yabapmatt was aware of this issue but there were always more important things for him to focus on. However, yesterday I noticed that he recently got around to errata’ing the Level 5 stats for the Exploding Dwarf. The Level 5 Exploding Dwarf now gets the speed bonus which it used to get at Level 6. And so upgrading to Level 6 grants only Retaliate. You can see the new progression here:

So if any of you have been keeping your Exploding Dwarves at Level 4, now would be a good time to upgrade them.

This change also has implications for Silver League games and tournaments since the Exploding Dwarf can now reach Speed 5 under Silver League caps.

There are actually a lot of Speed 4 monsters in Silver, so reaching Speed 5 means that the Exploding Dwarf is now faster than: Cerberus, Flame Imp, Imp Bowman, Pirate Captain, Sabre Shark, Mischievous Mermaid, Naga Warrior, Ruler of the Seas with Swiftness factored in, Minotaur Warrior, Stonesplitter Orc, Silvershield Knight, Peacebringer, Crystal Werewolf, Defender of Truth, Twisted Jester, Dark Enchantress, Elven Cutthroat, Centaur, and Prismatic Energy.

The Exploding Dwarf is now as fast as the other Speed 5 monsters: Serpentine Soldier, Water Elemental, Javelin Thrower, and Skeleton Assassin.

There are only a handful of Speed 6 monsters that remain faster than the Exploding Dwarf: Serpent of the Flame, Brownie with Swiftness factored in, Feral Spirit, Air Elemental, and Spineback Wolf.

In the Silver League, the Exploding Dwarf tends to be used mainly under the Melee Mayhem and Super Sneak rule sets. This errata makes the Exploding Dwarf and the Fire splinter a little more competitive since the Exploding Dwarf now gets the initiative over a lot of other monsters.