Another week, another Share Your Battle Challenge. This time the Monster in the spotlight is one of the decent Magic Attack Monsters for the Fire Splinter from the Chaos Legion set, namely the Djinn Apprentice. Recently I've been using it a bit more frequently since it sometimes makes sense to be paired with Jacek.
Now before we get into the stats discussion of the Djinn Apprentice, let's have a sneak peek into its LORE
So it turns out that the Djinn Apprentice and the Djinn Inferni are the good guys while Djinn Muirat has sided with the Chaos Legion and is their sworn enemy now. That's not that surprising.
Alright, we've got some idea of what an Djinn Apprentice is, after glancing at its lore. Let us have a look at its stats and abilities at different key levels now.
Our Rare Monster starts off without any special abilities. Its base stats are 2 Magic Attack, 2 Speed, 0 Armor and 4 Health points.
At level 3 it gains an additional health point for a total of 5.
At level 4 it gains an additional point in Magic Attack which is pretty important, however, it's at the cost of 1 hp it previously gained.
At level 6 it gains its only ability - Deathblow (the Monster does 2x damage if its target is the only Monster left on the enemy team. Deathblow is usually just a "win more" ability meaning that it's triggered when its team is already clearly winning but it could be clutch in those rare moments of a 1v1 Monster face-off.
Finally maxed out at level 8 it has 4 Magic Attack, 4 speed, 0 armor and 5 health. These are very good stats for the 5 mana cost of the Djinn Apprentice.
Now that we know what the card does (or doesn't do) at the different levels of play, let us have a look at the battle I have chosen to showcase.
The ruleset for this battle is Explosive Weaponry (All monsters get the Blast Ability which does additional damage to Monsters adjacent to the target Monster. Additional damage is equivalent to main damage/2 rounded up). The mana budget is average - 32, so I have to choose carefully what Monsters I pick. The Splinter choice is limited to 2 Splinters (Fire and Life), and the whole point is to showcase the Djinn Apprentice so I will have to go with the Fire Splinter.
The main tank for this battle will be the most expensive Monster from the recently released Rift Watchers miniset - the Coeurl Lurker. I like it for two reasons - it has taunt, so all enemy damage (apart from Scatter Shot Monsters) is directed towards it, which means I can easily mitigate the incoming damage by placing a Reflection Shield Monster immediately after it; secondly it has Dodge which is great for this ruleset as every dodge enemy attack is of vital importance.
The 2nd place in the line-up is for a Reflection Shield Monster as I have already mentioned. It this case Venator Kinjo has been chosen to bear this burden. I'm sure it will do a great job.
The 3rd place in the line-up goes to the Tenyii Striker. It's one of my favorite Fire Monsters so I play it in almost every Fire setup I create. I think it will be very useful this time around as well.
The 4th spot goes to our protagonist for this week - the Djinn Apprentice. I find this spot suitable for it in the current setup since it will be sufficiently well protected by enemy Sneak Monsters and the enemy has to take down the Taunt Monster in the first spot before jumping on the back-line anyway.
5th in the line-up is Uraeus. It's another Sneak Monster I throw in every line-up I can. I really enjoy playing it, especially with the Fire Splinter.
The last spot is reserved for the Scorch Fiend. It's a great Monster for taking a hit or two from the "Sneakers" or Monsters with Opportunity Strike.
It is time for a quick round by round analysis:
The Summoner I am going with for the battle is Jacek. The battle is from one of the Splinterlands Silver tourneys so even though I have a level 3 Jacek, it will be downgraded to level 2. I've decided to pick him instead of Tarsa or Skargore cause I think +2 Speed is really important in battles with Explosive Weaponry. The Piercing Ability is not to be underestimated at all as well. My opponent has picked Ilthain, which is an interesting pick, however, unfortunately for them I do not have any Ranged Attack Monsters, so Ilthain's Return Fire buff will be redundant this battle.
After 1 round, I have not lost a single Monster while my Sneak duo has managed to take down two of the enemy's ranged attack Monsters.
At the start of Round 3 only the enemy tank remains standing. So it was a pretty easy victory for me but I think it's all due to the fact that I picked my line-up pretty well in relation to what the ruleset was.
The Djinn Apprentice is a decent Magic Attack Monster for the Fire Splinter and it definitely sees play when it fits the ruleset(s) of the battle. The Djinn Apprentice is currently valued at $0.12 per BCX, so there is literally no reason not to pick it up and level it to the level of the league you compete in.
