I'm somebody who is obsessed with Splinterlands. I like learning all about the super powerful and super expensive cards. But, what about those Hidden Gems? What about the cards that are affordable, practical, and can still help lead to victory in the right circumstances? I think those cards deserve more attention. So, in today's video, I want to talk about one of my favorite hidden gems from the Conclave Arcana Reward Set, Ironwing Juggernaut.
There are tons of really cool, really powerful, and really expensive cards in Splinterlands. At the time that I am writing this, threre are currently several cards listed on the martket for thousands and thousands of dollar.
With so many rare and expensive cards on the market, it can be tempting to overlook a common card that's worth just a few cents....but that would be a huge mistake. Ironwing Juggernaut is a relatively affordable card that can be a decisive unit on the battlefield.
At level 3, Iron Wing Juggernaut is a 3 mana unit from the neutral Splinter that has 2 melee attack, 3 armor, 4 health, 3 speed, and comes with the Charge ability and Weary debilitation. For only 3 mana, this is a pretty impressive combination of stats. Ironwing Juggernaut can use its melee attack early on in the battlefield to deal damage to the opponent, and by the time it gets exhausted towards the end of the match, it can serve as a valuable damage sponge that soaks up damage and protects your other units.
To show just how valuable Ironwing Juggernaut can be, I'd like to compare it to one of the other cards that I used to use as a damage sponge back in the day: Kelp Initiate. Kelp Initiate only costs 2 mana, and although it does have an additional health, it doesn't have any armor, and it has absolutely no attack.
Although I do think both cards are valuable assets to have in my collection, if I could only pick one, I would have to say that Ironwing Juggernaut probably has the better stat line. It is a neutral unit, which means it can fight in almost every match, and it has 3 armor, whereas Kelp Initiate doesn't have any. Unless I was playing against an opponent that was only using magic units, I think I would rather have the 3 armor and 4 health, as opposed to just the 5 health. Finally, the huge advantage of Ironwing Juggernaut is that it does have a 2 melee damage attack. True, it does have the weary ability, which means that its likelihood of attacking will decrease as the battle goes on, but there's a very realistic chance that it will at least get several attacks in, whereas Kelp Initiate wouldn't have gotten any attacks.
To show how powerful Ironwing Juggernaut can be in the right context, I'd like to share an exapmle from a recent match that I played. This was a 45 Mana match with both the Water and Life Splinters available. As you can see, I put Ironwing Juggernaut in the first position. My thought process was that it could use its Charge ability to attack and deal a little bit of melee damage during the first few rounds and that by time it started getting exhausted later in the match it would still soak up some damage and protect my other units.
Well, things didn't exactly go as planned. In the opening attack of the match, my Shock Trooper was instantly knocked out of the fight, so Ironwing Juggernaut moved into the first position, but here's where the magic started to happen. It absorbed an attack from my opponent's Chaos Battle Mage.
It then absorbed an additional three melee damage from my opponent's Commander Slade.
Then it was finally finished off by a magic attack from my opponent's Mystic Scaleweaver.
The point I want to emphasize is that even in the "worst case scenario" where Ironwing Juggernaut didn't get to deal much damage to the opponent, it still served an immensely valuable purpose. This three mana unit absorbed three different attacks and protected my more valuable units so that they cold stay in the five ans secure the victory.
Speaking of securing the victory, I do want to point out that I was able to win some SPS as well as Glint for winning this match. In fact, that's one of the things that I think is super cool about Splinterlands. It allows players to earn cryptocurrency and NFTs for winning matches. So, if you like action-packed trading card games and you're interested by the possibility of earning rewards, I'd like to invite you to join me in Splinterlands using my referral link.
As a US resident, I am required to disclose that I might receive a benefit, such as reward or incentive, if you join using my affiliate link. All image credits belong to Splinterlands. Nothing is financial advice.
