Some people might try to convince you that this week's battle challenge theme is Ant Miners, but that can't be right. We already covered Ant Miners almost a month ago. No, this week's challenge is all about the Axemaster!
Axemaster is an epic Water monster from the current Reward set. With a 7 mana cost, Axemaster is on the expensive side, but he packs quite a punch for the price.
At level 1, Axemaster has 2 ranged attack, 4 speed, 5 health, and the Double Strike ability. Double Strike lets Axemaster attack twice each turn, which can be much more useful than just doing twice as much damage with a single attack. Using 2 attacks per turn, Axemaster can get his second hit past armor or Divine Shield, or take out a low health enemy and immediately start working on the next one. And at 4 speed, most of those attacks are going to successfully connect with the enemies.
When fully upgraded to level 6, Axemaster gains an extra damage per hit, 2 more health, and the Close Range and Cripple abilities. Close Range means that even if things go sideways and Axemaster finds himself on the front lines, he is still able to use his 6 damage per turn to try and finish the fight. And Cripple reduces the enemy's max health every time it is hit, which makes Axemaster particularly effective against those pesky healing tanks.
Let's watch him in action!
This was a no-neutrals, Silenced Summoner battle with a 28 mana cap. I elected to play Water splinter, hiding my level 1 Axemaster behind some healing monsters. At the front was a Sea Monster, followed by a filler Ice Pixie, a Water Elemental, and then a Crustacean King for even more healing. Remember that Axemaster doesn't get his Close Range ability until level 4, so we need some padding up front to keep him safe on the back line, or the battle's over.
Our opponent chose Earth with a Flesh Golem up front (level 1, so no healing), a sneaky Goblin Sorcerer, a sniping Child of the Forest, a Wood Nymph (to heal that golem after all), and a Kron all the way in the back. The Goblin Sorcerer was the only real threat to our Axemaster, but it would take him 5 turns to get the kill. The Child would take out our Pixie, but he shouldn't have enough damage to work his way through the Water Elemental and endanger our Axemaster. So as long as our Sea Monster held, our team should be safe. But if it fell to Kron... there could be trouble.
The Child of the Forest killed our Pixie as expected. Then our Sea Monster was taken all the way down to 2 health before healing back to 6. In the meantime, we got the enemy Flesh Golem down to 2 health as well, so that our Axemaster could deliver the one-two-punch to delete both the Golem and Sorcerer. This left a useless Child, a mostly useless Nymph, and a still-pretty-scary Kron on the enemy lines. But without the Flesh Golem's melee damage, could they take down our wounded Sea Monster?
Nearly. Our Sea Monster fell to 2 health as before, but without the Golem to finish it off, it was able to recover once again. The small enemies at the front fell quickly, leaving only the Kron to deal with. But without his llama friend to help him with Stand Alone, there was nothing he could do against the combined efforts of our team. In the end, our Axemaster delivered the killing blow(s) to finish the battle. The enemy was successfully defeated, and the only casualty on our side was our poor pixie friend. Rest in peace, Ice Pixie.
As you can see, even at level 1 and without any help from a summoner, the Axemaster is quite a powerful ally. His Double Strike ability and great starting stats allow him to wreak havoc on the enemy team. At higher levels he only gets more ridiculous. As long as he is hidden behind a staunch tank and protected from sneak attacks, he can dish out enough damage to take out many teams on his own. And every upgrade just makes him even more of a beast. Axemaster is a truly great card, and well worth the price if you aren't lucky enough to get him from rewards.
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