I'm on a tight budget these days. Honestly, I wasn't but, I went all-in on Land 😅 Anyway, it's seldom that a card catches my eyes enough to wanting to have it. Then, I got beaten up several times by the same card - the Darkguard Ironwing.
If you haven't got it yet, I got a maxed copy for 11$. But it's usefulness starts already at level 4, which is around $2,50 (25 CC). Let's get into it.
So, at level 1 it gets the "new" ability called "Apex Strike". That means, the Ironwing attacks the monster with most power first. Isn't really useful when you only do 1 damage - but then comes level 4 with Halving. That changes this card to a must-have, as I will explain.
It later gains repair (awesome with EMP for example) and then, also pretty awesome, armored Strike. With a base armor of 7, that's a lot of possible damage. And Armored Strike does not count as attack, so it doesn't make it the target of other Apex Strikers.
Trivia: Halving was created in honor of a Bitcoin-Halving event, together with a card called "Halfling Alchemist". Currently, only 6 monsters have it:
Now, the best one of those is certainly Fyatt in modern, as he gets an Ambush attack and has the randomizer "Scattershot". But the Ironwing is a LOT better.
Why?
Well, it strikes the enemy monster with the most power - and halves that power on successful attack. So, with the next attack, it does that to the next most powerful monster. And so on, until the enemy's attack is halved.
Of course, I'm first going to show my own first battle using the Ironwing, and having it win me the game. Nothing beats bragging about winning a game against a bot...
Now, the Ironwing also has a nice speed of 4, which generally lets it attack quite early in the game. To enhance that, I used the Fyatt ability - Ambush.
Honestly, I got a bit lucky that Slade got hit. The bot used Lookout, saving the life of the forager.
In the course of the match, it manages to create a few more halvings. Even the fast and flying Reaper gets hit, though cleansed by Zarin.
This battle made me more interested. It seemed quite evened out, tough, but possible. But the Ironwing made the difference.
No chance. Halving doesn't stack, but it's still powerful enough to cripple the whole team. I had another battle around, using Lorkus with Barashkukor and Ballista Deadshot. That strategy didn't pan out until both of them were halved in attack.
It's hard to beat the Ironwing. Even at level 4 it's very powerful, but at level 8? Almost unstoppable. I'll have to figure out counter-strategies, too.
I'm very happy with my purchase. I hope it'll win me a lot of games. We'll see!
5% of the rewards will go to 
Calculating Land part 1 - How to get your ROI
Calculating Land part 2 - Are pools worth it?
Calculating Land part 3 - Organic Growth
Land Plot Efficiency for non-whales
Card-Production-Coefficient - Combining LPE and ROI
Renting for Land - at what cost?
What do refined resources cost?
Calculating Totem and Title boosts
Calculating Plot Rarity Boost
Setting up a Rare Stone Plot
My perfect plot - Conclusion of my calculations
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!
If you don't play the game yet, you can use my referral: Click here for referral :-)
Dividers by Saydie - Click here. Always grateful for those!
