I want to talk about a few character + God Power combinations that can really elevate your gameplay with war decks when using the Enrage God Power. Y’all know that I love talking about God Powers because I truly think they are one of the most crucial factors in gameplay that can often be overlooked. However, when it comes to War decks, I almost always talk only about Slayer. So when I ended up using Enrage for 5 of my 25 Weekend Ranked battles, I knew I had to give it some coverage, and also share one of my favorite gameplay strategies I found with it.
The Enrage God Power gives a creature +1 attack and -1 health for only 1 mana. This makes it incredibly powerful in many scenarios (did I mention that it's also the cheapest War God Power?!), but most of all with the war creatures Bladecaster and Tamed Mammoth, and also with any creature that has armor. Let's take a deeper look!
Bladecaster:
Bladecaster is a 2 mana war creature with 2 attack and 3 health. But the real magic of this card is that every time it attacks and survives, it gains one health point. This means that any time you attack a creature with 1 attack, you literally take no damage, because the health point you lose is recovered by the card’s special feature. But that’s not all, because every time you attack a God or a creature with 0 attack, you gain a health point and become a lot better protected. So, as you run up the health of your Bladecaster, Enrage becomes a great option to increase the attack points of your creature at the same time, especially since you’re only sacrificing health points that you already gained on the creature, not the crucial health points that are barely keeping your creature alive. I found this to be extremely attractive of a trade off especially once you’ve run up the health of your Bladecaster to 6 or 7, and a good way to get there is to use a fellow war card to give Bladecaster twin strike (like Echoing Fury or Tartessian Skirmisher), and then focus on attacking the opponent God or structures with 0 attack points. This can quickly increase your health and allow you to start applying Enrage to strengthen your Bladecaster, while keeping enough health to keep in the game for longer.
Tamed Mammoth:
I believe this to be one of the most underrated creatures in war decks, and it really shows in a number of scenarios, such as when paired with Enrage. Tamed Mammoth is a 4 mana war creatures with 3 attack and 5 health. However, that’s not all, as the Tamed Mammoth gains one attack point every single time a creature on your team loses health but survives (including itself). That means that when you use Enrage on Tamed Mammoth, it gains one attack point and loses one health point from the God Power, thus gaining a second attack point for its unique character trait (since it was damaged but survived). Thus, simply from using Enrage one time after playing War Mammoth, you can take your creature from 3/5 all the way to 5/4, thus making War Mammoth an upper tier attack creature in one quick swipe! And you have a number of health points to play with, so if you use Enrage again, you’ll have a 7/3 creature on your hands! I usually like to pair this with using a Trial Spirit or Aging Veteran to add +1 or +2 health points (respectively) to my Tamed Mammoth, thus giving it more protection and potential tradability for more attack points.
Creatures with Armor:
Ok, now this takes the potential of Enrage into the absolute stratosphere. Any creature with armor is able to block the -1 health point effect that Enrage normally carries, and simply gain the +1 attack point without any downside. Thus, you literally strengthen your creature with no negative effect at all. Given that this God Power is so strong that they had to add the -1 health point effect in there to balance it out, using Enrage on creatures with armor is like the ultimate cheat code. Some great examples of creatures to pair this with are as follows. The 3 mana 2/3 Bronze Gate with armor 1, to make it not only a barrier to protect your other creatures, but also a dangerous “Do Not Enter” that can kill many attacking creatures once it has 3 or 4 or even higher attack points from multiple uses of Enrage. Additionally, Strix Conscript is a 3/2 creature with armor 1 that immediately rises to 4/2 with armor 1 thanks to Enrage, which is quite powerful for a 3 mana creature. And remember, the attack potential is endless with these creatures because every turn that you desire, they can add +1 attack points without losing any health.
Additionally, since there is one regen +1 creature that is available for all decks (the 1 mana springbloom hunter), it is worth mentioning that this creature can also benefit from Enrage in a similar manner as creatures with armor, as it can gain an attack point and then simply regen the health point it lost from Enrage at the end of your turn.
I hope these examples give you something to think about in your war deck gameplay, as they did for me! I still love using Slayer with my war decks, but I do think that Enrage will definitely be making an appearance more often from now on…now that my eyes have been opened to its potential! Do y’all have any other creatures that you think could benefit greatly from being paired with the Enrage God Power? If so, drop them below in the comments and let’s talk!
Also since this is my first post of 2022 just want to wish everyone a happy new year! Let’s make this year a great one!
-Jumpmaster
