Dax & Ilthain - A Great Defensive Strategy

After a couple of high-health, high-mana monsters, in this week's Battle Challenge we are going to focus on the little guy for a change. But don't let the stats fool you - there is a lot bubbling under as we pair up Dax Paragon with his new summoner friend - Ilthain.

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Dax Paragon Stats

Costing only 2 mana points, Dax Paragon of the Life splinter is perfect for those low-mana battles.

He is not a major offensive threat(1 magic) but can perhaps survive an attack or two(3 health & 2 speed).

On level 2 Dax becomes a sort of a specialist as he receives a group-targeting ability - Amplify. This means he'll increase Magic Reflect, Return Fire, and Thorns damage to all enemy monsters by 1 making him a valuable asset in the right company.

At the moment one Dax card costs $0.75 on the market so it's not the most expensive one even though being an epic one.

If you feel like upgrading, Dax will receive another ability on level 5. When a monster with Affliction hits an enemy there's a 50% chance of the target becoming unable to heal again. On the maximum level, Dax Paragon will also have his magic attack upgraded to 2.

In the following example battle, I will be using a level 2 Dax and we'll find out what kind of strategy I came up with when utilizing Amplify with the right stuff.

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Ilthain Enters The Arena

A big part of my cunning plan was to choose ILTHAIN as a summoner. Besides providing extra speed to my units, she also gives Return Fire ability to each and every one of the team.

This means that if our troops are hit with ranged attacks they will strike back with a reduced amount of the hit - that is that in normal conditions. However, since Ilthain is now paired up with Dax Paragon and his Amplify, we'll hit back much harder.

To have some real fun with these two abilities we are gonna need ranged opponent units. In the picture below you can see the setup for this 22-mana battle and indeed, there are two ranged monsters totally unaware of the trap that is set for them.

There's another interesting aspect that comes with the ruleset which in this case happens to be Target Practice - all magic and ranged units now have the Snipe ability.

My opponent chose to go with the Water splinter and Kelya Frendul as their summoner. Their tank is none other than our old friend, Djinn Oshannus, a fast and strong magic monster with Void ability.

Other units are:

• Merdaali Guardian - tank healer without the ability to attack by herself.
• Creeping Ooze - slime that cannot attack either but will slow down our team.
• Pirate Archer - relatively weak ranged unit but does have a Blast ability which could pose a threat combined with Snipe.
• Kulu Swimhunter - a little more powerful ranged unit.

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Rest Of My Squad

My "tank" unit is PELACOR CONJURER, a peaceful creature with cool shades.

Conjurer is pretty fast(speed 3) unit with a flying ability. His health is at 5 points and I'm also counting on him dodging an attack or two.

Besides, I got a couple of aces in my sleeve to keep Pelacor Conjurer alive and healthy...

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LENSMASTER is a rented legendary unit fit for low-mana battles because it costs only one mana point.

As for him being so cheap his stats are obviously low too except for the speed which is 3.

I'm usually using Lensmaster with General Sloan to make him more lethal offensively. In this battle, I have a more defensive strategy so we'll have to wait and see how that is going to work out with such low health(1).

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Excellent, excellent monster for a battle like this! VENARI CRYSTALSMITH is one of those aces I was talking about.

Her main purpose is to operate as a tank healer and to keep Pelacor Conjurer alive as long as possible and therefore win some time for our attacking units to do their thing.

Another great thing about this level 3 monster is her good amount of health(5). They'll probably have to waste 3 attacks on her if they wish to her down.

On top of that, she'll also be contributing offensively with 1 ranged attack point.

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Now here is the cornerstone of my whole offense.

Part of the pelacor family but this guy doesn't just fly around doing nothing but instead will attack twice in each round using the Double Strike ability.

Since this is a battle with Target Practice ruleset, PELACOR ARBALEST will be targeting weaker monsters in the back instead of their tank. This is more than fine with me because he can remove the armor and then remove the health of the monster - all in one round.

Arbalest is a bit weak having only 3 points of health but this is when we get to that other ace in my sleeve!

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Just like Dax, THRUTHSPEAKER is another specialist who is bringing to the table an ability that is helpful for the whole team.

Protect gives every friendly monster +2 armor. This is essential for units like Lensmaster and Pelacor Arbalest which have a low amount of health. This is pretty crucial in a Snipe battle when monsters will be targeting other than the tank unit.

Thruthspeakers ability also works great with my amplified return fire -strategy as some of the monsters might get more than one opportunity to return fire!

So let's find out if any of this will work out.

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Battle

I must admit I haven't been this excited about Splinterlands Battle Challenges for a while. I am combining three abilities - Amplify, Return Fire, and Protect to squeeze a victory out of this one. You can check out the whole battle by clicking this link or/and continue to read my battle report!

ROUND 1

Our monsters chose Merdaali Guardian as their target which would have been my first choice as well. Meanwhile, opponent Kulu Swimhunter attacked Dax Paragon destroying his armor. Dax returned the fire doing the same to Swimhunter and then joining the party attacking Merdaali Guardian.

In this eventful round, Pelacor Arbalest finished the Guardian with his first strike and then removed the armor from the Creeping Ooze.

After that, Pirate Archer did something he probably shouldn't have done. He fired an attack against Dax using the Blast ability which then sent shrapnels to both Pelacor Conjurer and Lensmaster. Conjurer returned fire and crushed the armor of Archer while Lensmaster also returned fire(that was amplified) destroying the unlucky Pirate Archer.

ROUND 2

At the beginning of the second round, Oshannus kept on attacking the Conjurer but because nobody was there to give him assistance Conjurer was healed back to full health by Venari Crystalsmith.

Lensmaster then took out the Ooze making our squad move faster again. Crystalsmith, Dax Paragon, and Pelacor Arbalest launched an attack on Kulu Swimhunter making him leave the arena in a body bag. So, after taking a quick look at the situation I noticed that Oshannus was also finished since it was attacking Conjurer who was getting healed the same amount as there was damage done to him. Our whole team would now be targeting Oshannus.

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Conclusion

I'm pretty excited and a bit surprised by the outcome. Amplify-ReturnFire-Protect -strategy worked like a charm and I feel like I could've won against an even stronger opponent! The moment when Pirate Archer shot that Blast attack against Dax was just pure gold.

I have been using Dax many times before and this was the first time I actually utilized his ability. At first, I noticed I didn't have any monsters on the Life team with abilities that could be amplified. That led me in discovering Ilthain who will now become a solid replacement for General Sloan on some occasions.

Dax + Ilthain + Thruthspeaker = excellent low-mana defensive strategy

Thank you for reading!