After Chaos Legion – Crack a Pack #1 Radiated Brute got the most attention. While not extremely powerful, as a cheap common currently at 6 cents/bcx, I really think it's an enticing option for anyone who's getting started playing #Splinterlands, or are building a modern Tarsa deck.

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Lore

The radiated brutes are native inhabitants of Praetoria – the continent that is to be colonized during the land expansion – who got corrupted by the blight, and as a result mutated, grew stronger and became consumed by an uncontrollable rage. Those who managed to temporarily control their anger – before slaughtering their own families and friends – ended up fleeing to the Jade Thicket, to avoid harming their close ones.

Monster Stats

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Lvl	Bcx	Attack	Speed	Armor	Health	Abilities
1	1	2	1	0	5	reach
2	5	2	2	0	5	reach
3	14	2	2	0	6	reach
4	30	3	3	0	5	reach
5	60	3	3	0	6	reach
6	100	3	3	0	5	reach, enrage
7	150	3	3	0	6	reach, enrage
8	220	3	4	0	6	reach, enrage
9	300	3	4	0	7	reach, enrage
10	400	4	4	0	6	reach, enrage

Relevant Rules

Reach

• Melee attack Monsters with the Reach ability may attack from the second position on the team.

Enrage

• When a monster takes any damage to their max health, the Enrage ability will be activated.
• Enrage boosts all Melee attacks by 50% (rounded up), and Speed by 50% (rounded up).
• Ranged and Magic attacks aren't affected by the Enrage ability.

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Analysis

General

At lower levels before the monster gets enrage, it's not very impressive in my experience. Still it might be worth including in your Tarsa lineup as a filler, especialy if you are a bit short on options. It got pretty average stats overall, and with enrage in gold it gets better. In particular his enrage can trigger easily if you expect some blast – but unfortunatly he doesn't survive very long, so just expect it to get in a couple of enraged hits. You can even try to build a Yodin counter in low- to mid-mana cap fire mirrors!

All melee increases have great synergy with his enrage. In order to increase his survivability, you would rather want to add more health compared to speed or armor, as you want his enrage to trigger. Increasing his speed is preferable to armor, as it also gets increased by enrage.

As with all monsters with reach, there is really only one placement for it, which is behind the main tank. Given that the cheap CL tank option Antoid Platoon or the earlier released Ant Miners, it might make sense to place several 0 and 1 mana cost monsters in front, though. Here is a battle example:

Battle with 'chickens' in front

You might of course just place it behind a more beefy tank like this as well:

Battle with a heavy tank

For ideal mana ranges, I mosty consider this a mid-range monster – so in most rulesets that would mean a cap of about between 25 and 35 mana.

Comparable Monsters

Gaint Roc is obviously the monster that Radiated Brute is intended to replace in the modern format, but how do they compare?

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Lvl	Bcx	Attack	Speed	Armor	Health	Abilities
1	1	1	2	0	4	flying, reach
2	3	1	2	0	5	flying, reach
3	5	2	3	0	5	flying, reach
4	12	2	2	0	5	flying, reach
5	25	2	3	0	5	flying, reach
6	52	2	3	0	5	flying, reach, trample
7	105	2	4	0	5	flying, reach, trample
8	172	3	4	0	5	flying, reach, trample
9	305	3	5	0	5	flying, reach, trample
10	505	3	5	0	6	flying, reach, trample

Giant Roc starts of with flying in addition to reach at lower levels, making it more likely to survive even with it's slightly lower health. In bronze and silver I prefer this to the brute overall.

At level six in gold the roc gets trample, compared to enrage for Giant Roc. In general I prefer enrage for a tank, but it's slightly more difficult to trigger for a secondary tank. I think it's pretty close here, and it would depend a lot on ruleset (e.g. armored up is better for the roc), and potential lineups for the opponent (more likely to choose brute vs magic attacks or blast). Overall I think the brute is a nice option to roc, even in wild.

When maxed out in diamond the Brute gets an extra attack, which is very important for his enrage. I would consider him as probably better than the Roc on average here.

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Synergies

Inspire / Increased Melee Damage

Anything that gives increased melee attack is of course great. This include the following summoners:

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I would say that Tarsa pretty much is optimal, as she also increases his survivability to blast damage. Getting access to dragon monsters with Daria also seems nice, as fire is still a bit short on melee sneak and opportunity monsters, when neutrals aren't open – which you are insentivized to build around, with a summoner that gives increased melee damage. However, most of the time I would probably rather play Gloridax Guardian, Manticore or Twilight Basilisk, in that role, if I first have access to them.

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You could try to go for a double enrage build with Djinn Chwala in rulesets that favours that. Especially in combination with rust and shatter as discussed bellow.

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An honorable mention goes to Qid Yuff, which might be worth a try if you are struggeling with beating (or want to counter) repair locks for instance, but in general I would rather not play brute if I expect a lot of armor and repair.

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For mosters with inspire in fire and neutrals, you got the following to choose from:

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Notice that all monsters except Beetle Queen are available with inspire in gold, and remember that you can stack them! Tusk the Wide is a very nice option to pick up at the moment, as another cheap CL monsters that goes well together with Tarsa. Ferexia General also gets shatter at lvl 6, which is relevant (see bellow).

Strengthen

For increased health the options are somewhat limited, but we can create some other fun synergies as well.

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The only monsters that give us strengthen in gold are Lord of Fire and Scale Doctor, however they got some other abilities that are quite interesting together with brute. If you play him with dragons, then Scale Doctor can potentially heal him as well, and also gets rid of armor – something that's important with brute's enrage, as hitting armor is very frustrating with an enraged melee monster. Lord of Fire give a similar ability in shatter for diamond. Supply Runner also looks like a nice option in diamond, as the increased speed is also usefull with an enraged brute.

Rust & Shatter

As mentioned above, removing armor can be key with an enraged melee monster. In addition to Lord of Fire and Scale Doctor, we have a few other options.

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Worth noting is Fyrexia General, that shows up with several relevant abilities. Living Lava is just a very solid tank in fire that goes great together with brute in mid-range mana battles. Also consider running him together with a sneak and/or opportunity team in lower mana battles – using Battering Ram together with any of Serpentine Spy, Kobold Miner, Tenyii Stiker, Orella Abadon (gladiator), Fina Voxom (gladiator), Dragon Jumper, Uraeus, Parasitic Growth, Sandworm and Elven Cutthroat. A summoner that increases melee is obligatory for such lineups. Battering Ram also got a slightly higher initiative than brute, and might be able to hit a target and remmove the armor before he does (depending on how you have them leveled).

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Radiated Scorcherer fits thematically (also corrupted by the blight....) and can be used as cannon fodder together with zero mana monsters and/or other one-drops, in front of either Ant Miners or Antoid Platoon, in low mana battles (followed by brute).

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Rulesets

Advantageous Rulesets

Explosive Weaponary

This is one of the most convenient ways of triggering enrage for the brute.

Fog of War

Remember that you can use both reach and opportunity monsters in this ruleset, and still create a melee lineup!

Healed Out

This is more of a ruleset that is good for the fire splinter in general, as with the exception of death, it's the splinter with the least heal effects.

Unprotected

One of your problems to overcome with enrage is hitting armor, so a ruleset without armor sounds like a good fit for him!

Aim True

Giving Radiated Brute true strike sounds good. Also it's pretty common to spam return fire in this ruleset, which he gets around (probably have to deal with some thorns, though).

In addition Odd ones Out, Lost Legendaries, Rise of the Commons, Taking Sides, Up Close and Personal, Broken Arrows and Lost Magic are good to decent alternatives for rulesets to use him, when you got a smaller selection of monsters.

Disadvantageous rulesets

Armored Up

Armor is certainly not your friend with Radiated Brute, and for the same reasons that Unprotected is a good ruleset, this is a terrible one.

Spreading Fury

This can actualy be a decent ruleset for him in Bronze or Silver, but as soon as he get enrage he doesn't benefit at all.

Reverse Speed

He is not particular good in this ruleset to start with, as he got pretty average speed. However, with the increased speed he gets from enrage, it makes it an outright terrible one.

He is not allowed for the following rulesets: Even Stevens, Little League, and Keep your Distance.

Other rulesets

With his pretty average stats he is pretty average (...) for the standard ruleset. Neither is he terrible in equalizer, despite his somewhat high health to mana cost ratio, as he has a nice damage output – I would mostly consider this in pure mid to high mana fire mirrors though, as there usually are stronger options involving heal and tirage in other splinters.

He is obviously not optimal for noxious fumes or earthquake, but his somewhat high health might let you use him as a filler if you lack other options (or if you got Brighton Bloom for earthquake).

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Conclution

Overall Radiated Brute is pretty underwhelming, but I think you can find some good usecases for him if you are a bit creative – especially after he gets enrage in gold. Here are my ratings for the monster:

League	Rating
Bronze	1.5
Silver	1.5
Gold	2.5
Silver	2
Overall	2

_{1 = Extremely narrow or useless | 2 = Decent niche monster | 3 = Solid archetype Staple | 4 = Good in multiple archetypes | 5 = Bomb in multiple archetypes}

I hope I have sparked some thoughts, and new ways to experiment with Radiated Brute, for you. What do you think? Do you disagree with any of my assessments, and why? Is there something I have overlooked, under- or overvalued? Let me know in the comments!

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1. Images from the Splinterlands webpage. ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩

2. Images from the Splinterlands and Splintercards webpages. ↩ ↩