The Martyr-Cascade - "Let me die already!"

Prologue

Martyrs are among my favorite cards in the game. Especially when combined with Gladiators, they can make a huge impact. But there's another combo that I find rather amusing, and very powerful - reviving them as many times as possible.

I have two great examples of battles where I did just that, and it worked like a charm. Both battles are very nice to watch by themselves, I enjoyed them a lot and hope that you will, too.

Battle 1 - Whack-a-Vruz

We're looking at a Intermediate Tournament. 56 Mana gives a lot of possibilities, and the rules with Return Fire, Blast for all and Sneak for all melee promise a lot of fun as they give room for way too many combinations.

My opponent put up a great strategy - all in on damage. Jacek with his extra speed and piercing is perfect for that. Flameblade as tank, supported by the Ferexian as Reach monster. The Drybone Raider is an interesting choice - it does give 4 attacks+blast, but two of those are ranged and provoke return fire, even more so with the blast. The two magic monsters with 3 attacks are even better due to the scattershot, and the Tenyi at the end to dodge my attacks - overall a hard team to beat, since the Sorriel also blinds my team.

But I did not go all in on Melee, but on Vruz. Shieldpaw nullifies the "Sneak" in a way, but I did play it for the Triage. The Barbarian as enraged revenge monster. Corsair behind him for the Reflection Shield. Adelaide for reviving Vruz and repairing Agor's Void Armor. Oshuur for revive and reflection shield. Vruz as multi-martyr, and Agor with taunt at the end, being healed and repaired each round. That's the theory.

As hoped, Vruz gets killed three times, giving me two beast monsters. The Raider is down to only 3 LP already, mostly due Return Fire. Agor's Magic attack kills both the Striker as well as Sorriel, removing the blind. The Melee-Attack then takes down the Djinn and the Raider, leaving Flameblade quite overpowered. Vruz for the win!

Battle 2 - Kill that rat! Please.

This match was quite important to me, as the opponent was an alt of my guild leader. So I was extra careful in my strategy.

Again, high mana - 46. Extra armor for everyone, silenced summoners, and Amplify.

I went for the Oshannus + Martyr strategy this time. Oshannus is already super fast, and has phase. So, bumping his speed up makes it even harder to hit him with any damage. So. First - Marksrat. Second Oshannus. Then Oshuur for revive and reflection shield (one never knows...), the Merdaali for healing, Hellondale for revive, and the chaos dragon for explosive damage behind enemy lines.

The opponent went for a Diemonshark as trampling rager, and Oshuur in second. The Gold Dragon was completely new to me, but looks like a great card. Deeplurker for high opportunity damage, the Runner for extra speed, and Wave Brood in the rear with Taunt. Overall, a decent set-up as well, but I don't see a clear strategy.

As wished, the Marksrat gets killed three times and Oshannus has now 8 speed and 5 Magic Damage, and avpids a few attacks. My dragon takes out their Runner with blast - but it gets revived. Wave Brood goes next, then the Diemonshark. Hellondale gets killed on my side, but that's okay, he did his revive-job. It's over in Round 5.

Conclusion

Reviving Martyrs can make incredibly strong monsters. Especially when paired with speed-related abilities like phase, dodge and flying, or damage-related ones like Enrage or bloodlust, or healing (the more base-health, the more healed LP). It get's really interesting with double-strike or dual-attacks.

It's not perfect though, and still can be overpowered by other strategies - the first battle came pretty close with their magic-scattershot-blasts. But that is also quite rare, and usually, it does work out quite nicely.

Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it at least as much as I enjoyed writing :-D If you have any comments or feedback - please let me know! And don't forget to leave your own posts for me to curate. Thank you very much!

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