The theme of this week's Community Engagement Challenge is Campaign Mode, I guess I have some partial ability to tell the future as I actually used this exact same topic for my Social Media Challenge this week.
So, since you can read all about Campaign Mode in my post HERE, I will use this post instead to feature a battle with one of the new Conclave Arcana cards, namely Aranduriel.
Now before we get into the stats discussion of Aranduriel, let's have a sneak peek into her LORE.
It seems that Aranduriel is a very potent character who has played pivotal role in Rage's defeat and she is yet to play an even more important role in the events which are about to unfold. She really seems to be a very cool character, deserving of her Epic status.
Alright, we've got some idea of who Aranduriel is, after glancing at her lore. Let us have a look at her stats and abilities at different key levels now.
Aranduriel is a 6-mana Epic Elf card from the Dragon Element. She starts off at level 1 with 3 Ranged Attack, 2 Speed, 0 Armor and 4 Health as well as the Sneak ability. At level 2 she gains her most important ability (imho) - Painforge. At level 3 she gains one more Ranged Attack for a total of 4. Then at level 5 she gains another useful ability - Life Leech. Finally at level 6, she has 4 Ranged Attack, 3 Speed, 0 Armor and 7 Health. She also gained Immunity. Now, Immunity devalues her Painforge ability a bit but there are other ways to trigger it apart from Noxious Fumes (Poison).
https://x.com/GhostlyBG/status/1925832310710034806
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The line-up of the Battle and the Ruleset:
There are 3 rulesets in this battle - Unprotected (All units have 0 armor and cannot gain armor from summoners or abilities.), Healed Out (Units and summoners lose all abilities that restore health.), Might Makes Right (You can only summon units with 3 or more ranged, magic, or melee power). The mana budget is 50 which is an above average amount of mana, so the units can be chosen more freely. The available Elements are Life and Dragon. I will obviously go with Dragon and choose the only other available Element - Life as a sub-Element.
The "main tank" I've got for this battle is actually a Magic Attack card - the Harbinger of Chaos. He can take one "free" hit due to his Divine Shield ability, and I am also planning to use a Taunt unit, which will soak some of the incoming damage during the period it is alive. Other than that, I tend to like the Harbinger of Chaos and I play him every now and then. His 4 Magic Damage is not bad at all and she also has Immunity. His stats at max level are 4 Magic Attack, 10 Health and 3 Speed for the cost of 8 mana.
In the 2nd spot I've got the last RB promo card - Kelan Gaines. At level 1 Kelan starts off with 2 Magic Attack, 5 Speed and 6 Health, and the ability he's starting with is Snipe. Not so great for 8 mana imho, unless you have no other option but ofc could be used in the rare occasion you get a high mana battle in wood/bronze league. As soon as you get 5 copies of him and hit level 2 you get an additional ability - Phase. Now Phase + 5 Speed and 6 Health is not too shabby for a low league Anti-Magic tank. At level 4 things get spicier and he also gains Backfire. Now that's a formidable foe in Silver for sure. He also has 7 Health (gained at level 3). At level 5 he gains 1 more HP for a total of 8 and at level 6 another one for a total of 9. Level 7 gets his Speed to his max potential of 6. And we finally get to his final stats, we've already had a look at, at level 8. I can say that apart from getting a maxed level of him. Worth having levels would be level 2 - for the phase (5 copies). Level 4 for the Backfire (26 copies). Not sure that level 5 and 6 are that worth it for 1 extra HP each considering the exponential increase in price. If you get him to level 7, you might as well get all the way up to max for that Double Strike.
The 3rd spot is for a unit I normally play in the last spot but this time I have something else in mind. The unit is the Night Reaper. It is an 11-mana RB reward card with the following stats at max level: 4 Magic Attack, 2 Armor, 4 Speed and 10 Health. It also has Flying, Windbreak, Deflect and Last Stand as its 4 abilities at max level. I love playing him paired with Nidhoggr but it is also useful with some other Dragon Archons. Obviously, in this battle, Last Stand will probably not trigger unless it somehow ends up being the last surviving unit on my side of the battlefield but I find that a bit unlikely.
In the 4th spot I've placed our protagonist for this battle - Aranduriel. We'll see how she does here.
In the 5th pot I have placed the Taunt unit I mentioned earlier. He is a 7-mana, 3 Magic Attack, 2 Armor, 9 HP and Speed Dragon unit of the Drakoshan bloodline. Songale also the following abilities - Reckless, Taunt, Enrage, Bloodline Tribute and Redemption. I am interested in his Reckless ability because I hope he would be able to trigger Aranduriel's Painforge ability with it. Of course, it all depends on the firepower my opponent brings, as Songale woun't be able to take advantage of his 2 Armor because of the active rulesets, so he might not survive for longer than just a single round.
It is time for a quick round by round analysis:
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The Archon I am going with for the battle is one of the most fun Archons there are but also one of the trickiest to play - Nidhoggr. I've used him to buff with Speed and grant Execute to Kelan Gaines, Night Reaper and Aranduriel. I'm hoping they will prove deadly enough to manage to take down the enemy team quickly through sheer speed paired with damage output and the Execute ability. My opponent has decided to go with Tofu and also has quite a few heavy hitters in their line-up.
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After 1 round I lost both Songale and Kelan while my opponent lost Delya. My side of the board looks in a bit worse shape than theirs.
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In the beginning of Round 3 - My Night Reaper is trying to tank while Aranduriel is pretty beefed up with 13 HP, however, if Night Reaper falls she won't be able to attack from the first position and she'll just be a sitting duck.
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Round 4 - my Night Reaper is still alive and both of the units are faster than the one of the opponent so my victory could be sealed.
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Victory!
Aranduriel is an Epic card you need 46 copies of to max (in RF). She is currently being traded at $0.75 per CC. I think people are underestimating her ability to be played so she is getting dumped. They might be severely underestimating her. Time will tell.
Over and Out,
Referral
