“The ant… the foolish ant,
sitting on the edge of an enormous disc
spinning about its axis,
reckons at every instant of time,
that it’s progressing forward.
Who would hold a mirror up to it?
And convey it the truth,
Clearing out its fallacy,
Clean as a hound’s tooth.
The fallacy that it can see
the whole dimension in entirety.
Shall it ever concede,
If one tries to enlighten?
Or, inured by canard shall it fight
To win against what is right?”
― Anurag Shrivastava, The Web of Karma

LORE

An Antoid Platoon typically consists of five to seven Fire Ants, each approximately the size of a man's fist. They are well armored and wield shields and spears that, while tiny, provide a formidable defense and offense against the antoid's foes. Operating through a shared hive mind, the Antoid Platoon is employed to defend Ant Miners, other workers, the colony, and its queen. They are also known to become aggressive when invaders encroach upon their homes and surrounding territory.

STATS

Antoid Platoon's stats are fairly low. The good part is the mana is quite decent and good enough to be used on a Little League rule sets, which is probably the best card in that rule set.

ABILITIES

Level 1 - Level 5 ||
Level 6 - Level 10 ||

Shield || Melee and range damage gets halved (rounded up), except attack 1 which deals 0 damage
Shield Ability is the best ability for a tank. A low mana monster with a great ability is always the best. It reduces damage on 2 of 3 damage types and can sometimes negate the damage itself.

Scavenger || Gains 1 max health each time any monster dies
Scavenger is a good ability especially for tanks. If you have strong damage dealers that can take care of your enemies, Antoid Platoon's health would skyrocket before you know it.

Rent/Buy Cost

This is the rental cost of Antoid Platoon at the time of writing this article.

Antoid Platoon's rent is so low that you acn rent a level 6 card for 1.70 DEC per day. That's 1 win in silver league. Level 6 card gives you not only a powerful card but also collection power as higher leveled cards have multiple copies of itself in one card.

This is the purchasing cost of Antoid Platoon at the time of writing this article.

You can purchase an Antoid Platoon for less than 10 cents. That means you can get high leveled one by getting multiple cards which would be helpful in whatever league you are currently in.

Advantageous Rules:

Slower monsters attack first. Try to pick monsters with speeds of 1. Speed effects how soon your monster will attack in battle and how effective it is at evading attacks. So a monster with a speed of 1 would normally attack last now will attack first. A speed of 1 will also have the best chance of dodging if paired with evade and flying as well.
Reverse Speed is a great rule set since Antoid Platoon has low speed. This allows him to have a speed boost which in turn allows some attacks to miss. More attacks missing means higher survivability of your tank, which is the Antoid Platoon.
All monsters have the Sneak ability. Targets the last Monster on the enemy Team instead of the first Monster.
Super Sneak is a good rule set for Antoid Platoon since you can use him as a second tank instead. Put a stronger tank in front like Living Lava and put Antoid Platoon on the second position and both of them can still attack on the same round. A more smarter positioning is putting Antoid Platoon to the very last position allowing you to block sneakers since everyone will have sneaks. Living Lava in front, Antoid Platoon at the back and you have a real solid defense.
Magical Monsters can't be used. Your armor will play a very important role here. Get summoner which provides armor. (Drake of Arnak, The Peakrider, Chanseus the Great, Tyrus Paladium, Lir Deepswimmer). Or maybe one that takes armor away from your opponent. (Wizard of Eastwood) And, if possible use a monster that can penetrate.
Lost Magic is advantageous to you in the sense that any shield ability users, including Antoid Platoon, reduces the damage of any attackers. Without magic dealers, shield can block the rest of the 2 attack types, melee and ranged. This gets you huge advantage especially when partnered with Demoralize and Headwind for decreased melee and ranged respectively.

Disadvantageous Rules:

All monsters start the game poisoned and will take 2 damage each turn unless cleansed. Big HP and cleanse are going to be your best bet here. However there may be some cases where you ignore and go for a big offensive attack and wipe out your opponent before the poison becomes a factor.
Noxious Fumes is deadly for Antoid Platoon. Even in real life, gasses are deadly to ants. With such low health, this would kill your Antoid Platoon in a heartbeat. When you have this rule set in place, high hp cards are better than great abilities.
Monsters with Melee attack type can't be used.
Keep Your Distance is bad and it's obvious why. You can't use any melee. Therefore, you're not allowed to use Antoid Platoon in that game as well.
Monsters lose their own abilities. Summoner effects such as those that give abilities to monsters still take effect.
Back to Basics is one of the worst rule sets to put Antoid Platoon because you're picking him for his great ability. Now, without the ability, Antoid Platoon is just a burden with low stats overall.

You can see the rule sets here.

Compatibility

This card is compatible with demoralize cards. Demoralize and Shield abilities are excellent combination. If you're able to reduce a melee monster's damage to 1, shield can insta negate the damage allowing your Antoid Platoon to slowly eat on him without inflicting any damage.

This is a replay of how I use this card and taking advantage of his great ability.

Click here to watch the replay

Positioning

In this battle, I have Antoid Platoon leading the front line with damage cards behind. The idea is a rush battle in which you would kill your opponent before turn 3 or 4 but in this game, I don't think that happened because it's a light element.

Round 1:

By end of Round 1, damage was inflicted to both tanks. Antoid Platoon got decent damage and his armor got removed.

Round 2:

By end of Round 2, Shieldbearer dies before Antoid Platoon. Celestial Harpy goes to the front line.

Round 3:

By end of Round 3, Celestial Harpy dies along with my Antoid Platoon. Tenyii Striker takes the front line and also took quite a bit of damage in the process.

Round 4:

By end of Round 4, Truthspeaker and Pelacor Arbalest dies leaving Xenith Archer the only one on the opponent's team.

Round 5:

Game ended by round 5.

Final Remarks

Antoid Platoon is an efficient card especially in low mana battles. His amazing abilities makes up for his low stats which in turns actually wins you battles. Avoid Noxious Fumes while keeping an eye with Super Sneaks as these are the rule sets that this card especially shines on.

If you have any questions, suggested combos, any violent reactions, feel free to comment it down below.

Good day and see you in the Arena.