This is a flock of birds you do not want to see. Sharing a Splinterlands battle with Carrion Shade
Was I going to have to force this battle?
I was a bit concerned when I saw this weeks share your battle challenge was Carrion Shade. Death is not the first, or second, splinter I default to and I was concerned I would have to force the card a few times to have a battle worth sharing. What actually ended up happening was a battle that flowed naturally and I wasn't even thinking about the challenge until I came back later to study the battle.
CARRION SHADE
💀 Level 1
⚔️ 1 Melee Attack
🏃 2 Speed
❤️ Two Health
🅛🅞🅡🅔
Tales whispered by the elder wise women claim that if you see a single carrion shade perched outside your home, then someone you love will die that night.
THE BATTLE
Ruleset
Odd ones out - 13 Mana cap
MY TEAM
Card
Strategy
Free to play Summoner. My hope was there would not be much health on the table due to the low mana count. If I am right, the -1 ❤️ debuff should help win the day by softening up the opposition even further
Low mana meat shield that can hopefully get one shot in before its demise. The one mana cost is Carrion's best quality
For a low mana match five health should go far. The Sneak ability will allow it to get a few good shots into a hopefully soft back line
My hope is that the Life Leech ability will absorb enough extra ❤️, before becoming a tank, to outlast the opponent. The one magic damage is an added bonus and should help if the enemy tank has any armor
Carrion Shade did get one chance to strike before being taken out. Unfortunately Living Lava's Shield ability made that strike as good as a miss. Living Lava had a huge miss in round three that set up my team for the eventual victory. It was a close match but the health debuff and Life Sappers Life Leech turned the tide in my favor. Carrion Shade fulfilled its duty and lasted a round, protecting the backline just long enough.
FURTHER INSIGHT
I'm not sure if this is a new feature on Splintertools, or I haven't noticed it before, but there is an option to view battle logs of the calculated win/loss. It gives a round by round analysis of what happened during the simulation and presents it in an easy to read format that you can see to the right. I mention this because after the battle I turned to Splintertools to analyze the battle and was surprised to find that swapping out the Silent Sha-Vi for Pelacor Deceiver actually leads to a higher predicted win percentage. I was stumped until I found this feature and found that the higher health and flight ability Deceiver offer made the opponent miss more often. Since Carrion is knocked out in the first round nearly every simulation, the fact that Silent Sha-Vi has the Sneak ability is not a major factor in a win/loss scenario.
CARRION SHADE
Carrion Shade fits in well with my overall strategy for the Death splinter. That strategy works best at low mana and Carrion Shade only costing one mana is a great fit. Gaining flight at level three would make it an even greater threat. I currently own two copies, but at under a dollar for a gold foil or roughly $0.04 for a regular foil I may be looking to upgrade in the near future.
