Splinterlands Social Media Challenge!

Another week, another Social Media Challenge, I will keep doing battles featuring the new cards in these for a while so this time around, I will feature a battle with what has quickly become one of my favorite Conclave Arcana cards, namely Taye Loreswift.

So, Taye is a bard. That's definitely no surprise with the name she has but apart from being a very popular bard now she has also become a fighter, that's something her RL counterpart can't match, at least for now.

Alright, we've got some idea of who Taye Loreswift is, after glancing at her lore. Let us have a look at her stats and abilities at different key levels now.

Taye Loreswift (definitely not related to Taylor Swift ;) ) is a 3-mana Melee Elf Legendary Unit. At level 1 she starts off with 1 Melee Attack, 3 Speed, 1 Armor and 2 HP. The ability she starts off with is Reach. At level 2 she gains an extra point of Health for a total of 3 and her second ability - Inspire. Next at level 3 she gains 1 Melee Attack for a total of 2. She also gains her third ability - Snare. Finally at level 4 she gains 1 Melee Attack for a total of 3 and 1 HP for a Total of 4. She also gains her final ability - Piercing. I think Taye Loreswift has a very good kit for the 3 mana she costs. She's definitely a contender to be often played in very low-mana battles as well as whenever the Little League ruleset is active, especially give the fact that she's a Neutral Unit. She's also an Elf so we've got a bloodline synergy Archon to add more power to her kit since she would get Execute in that scenario.

There are 3 rulesets in this battle - Healed Out (Units and Archons lose all abilities that restore health), Are You Not Entertained? (you can summon one additional gladiator), Up to Eleven (All Units have Amplify). The mana budget is 28 which is a below average amount of mana, so the units have to be chosen carefully. The available Elements are none but Death so Death it is. That was an easy choice.

The main tank in this battle is one of the most often used cards for tanking ever since it was released as an RB reward card - the Halfling Refugee. You can see him being used in the first spot in basically any mana-range due to his very low cost and frankly exceptional stats/abilities for the cost - 5 Melee Attack, 8 Life and Heal. What more can you want from a 1-mana card. As for the downside - Weary - his usually dead by the time that kicks in anyway so no need to worry about it too often.

In the off-tank spot I have placed our protagonist for this battle - Taye. It's no surprise I've placed her here as this is the place she belongs as an off-tank with the Reach ability.

The 3rd spot is for a 2-mana no-attack RB card I often use as a filler or as a target for Weapons Training - the Ahna-Chei Botanist. It has Blind so that's enough of an incentive just to throw it in and hope for some RNJesus goodness but if that's not enough for you, it also has Return Fire and Dispel. Other than that its 6 Speed is also pretty nice when it can actually attack, which won't be the case in this particular battle but also for defensive purposes 6 Speed + Blind = definitely some missed Melee/Ranged attacks.

In the 4th 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.

5th in the line-up is one of the Rebellion airdrops and the Grim Bardun Smith killer (and all no-attack Monsters in general). She has a new ability - Charge (The Monsters will use Melee Attacks from any position and will target the Enemy Monsters in the first position). Bear in mind that just as other abilities, it is affected by Taunt, so that's one way to keep your GBS, etc. safe. Her other abilities are Piercing (If Melee or Ranged attack damage is in excess of the target's Armor, the remainder will damage the target's Health), Oppress (Does double damage when attacking an enemy that has no attacks) and Trample (When a Monster with Trample hits and kills its target, it will perform another attack on the next Monster on the enemy Team) (at level 4). She can single-handedly wipe the whole Enemy team in certain situations.

Last in the line-up I have added Elanor Bravefoot. She's very unique in the way she can take advantage of any other Monsters of the "Divine Construct" category through the ability only she has - Blasphemy of Uul (permanently gains +1 ranged power for each allied card named Fiend). She also has an additional ability at level 4 - Strengthen (all friendly Monsters have their Health increased by 1) and a Debilitation - Weary (each round, Weary Monsters have a 10% chance to become Exhausted. This chance increases by 10% every round, up to a maximum of 80%)