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Card Highlights #24: Black Dragon

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Black dragons are known as the most dangerous and fearsome of all dragons. Their eyes hold an endless darkness that terrifies even the bravest souls.
by An excerpt from 'Dragon Chronicles,' by Kael Greydon
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This was actually in one of my tests when I was doing the Bronze to Champion run last April 12-April 16. The original idea for this one is having Runemancer Rye accumulate health through Life Leech and have another unit with Tank Heal to support her and carry the game. This build is a little bit different while trying to retain the same idea of that strategy. Enter Black Dragon.

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Lore

The Black Dragon of Mortis is the only Dragon that has ever been convinced to sign the Dark Contract. His name is Korjack.
Korjack is greater in size by far than all other living Dragons, and he could rule them all if he had the ambition. Instead, he focuses on his own progress toward the Dark Eternity.

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^{For full lore of this card, visit this website:
https://next.splinterlands.com/card-detail/108/regular/3/?tab=lore}

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Buy and Rental Costs

Given that Black Dragon is a legendary unit and a Beta set unit, his price is way up there. He's not particularly used but since there's no supply for it, the price is still high up and won't be going down anytime soon.

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Rental-wise, Black Dragon is a little bit affordable. You can get a max level one for 15.63 DEC per day. The max level is better since it gives him 3 damage which means that the health you gain from Life Leech also increases.

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Card Stats

Black Dragon is weak. There's no way to hide it. He doesn't have any defensive abilities and his stats are quite low even for a 6 mana unit. Being weak though does not mean Black Dragon is useless. It just meant that he will be more tricky to use, which I would tell you how to fix this weakness at the later part of my blog.

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Card Effects

Flying

Has an increased chance of evading Melee or Ranged attacks from Units who do not have the Flying ability

Most older dragon units have Flying abilities. This is a good ability in case you encounter Earthquake rule set, which would be problematic if your units don't have this ability.

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Life Leech

Unit's health increases each time it damages an enemy Unit's health in proportion to the damage dealt

This is the main ability we need. You can only gain health by inflicting damage to enemy's health. Fortunately, Black Dragon has magic attack which strikes directly at the enemy's health.

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Slow	Reduces the Speed of all enemy Units

A support ability to reduce the enemy's speed. I really don't know why this unit have it but it's a good addition.

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Strengthen

All friendly Units have increased Health

Instead of giving an extra health, they gave it this ability instead which increases the health of everyone in your team.

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Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths

I already mentioned this part which is Black Dragon's magic attack accompanied by Life Leech. This makes sure that your unit gains health every attack. In addition to this, you only need 6 mana to use it. This means you can use it more often than the original counterpart, Runemancer Rye. Black Dragon is also from the Dragon element which means you can use him along other elements as long as dragon are allowed. This gives flexibility so you can use him in almost every fight you have.

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Weaknesses
Unfortunately, the glaring weakness is Black Dragon's stats. His stats is comparable to Xenith Monk who is a rare unit with 4 mana. You need to get into late game in order to make Black Dragon strong enough to survive from the heals of your units.

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When To Use

Earthquake

Non-flying Units take 2 Melee damage at the end of each round.

Black Dragon's Flying negates the earthquake damage which makes this a really strong unit in Earthquake rule set.

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Wands Out

Only units with magic attacks may be used.

Black Dragon and Oshuur Constantia, the two units required in the combo, both have magic attack and is enough for the strategy to work.

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Equalizer

The initial Health of all Units is equal to that of the Units on either team with the highest base Health.

Black Dragon has low base health and it would be more helpful if he starts at higher health. This increases the Tank Heal effect that is used by the other units to him.

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When Not To Use

Weak Magic

Magic attacks hit Armor before reducing Health.

You can only get health from Life Leech when the unit hits the enemy's health. Life Leech does nothing when it hits the armor.

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Reverse Speed

Units with the lowest Speed attack first and have the highest chance of evading attacks.

Slow decreases enemy speed which is advantage in Reverse speed. This means you are giving the enemies advantage by playing Black Dragon in Reverse Speed rule set because of his Slow ability.

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Healed Out

All healing abilities are removed from Units and Summoners.

This rule set removes any form of healing, including Tank Heal. The second part of the strategy is increased healing from the health gained from Life Leech. Black Dragon still gains health from Life Leech but does not gain health from Tank Heal.

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Battle Sample

^{https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_dd2bac2e9aac0df2236a8b75eab2e9ea&ref=kpgamingch}

To be honest, I feel bad since my enemy was not able to get pass through my second line of defense. The main idea for this strategy is to delay the opponent's advance as Black Dragon gains health from Life Leech and use Tank Heals to have increasing heals to Black Dragon. <br><br> You could say that this has the same idea as Gelatinous Cube but instead of using Scavenger, you use Life Leech.

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Final Thoughts

The idea for this combo is a good solid one. If you have high enough mana, the low health of Black Dragon won't be a problem as long as he survives the first 2-3 rounds. It would be best to abuse the rule sets favorable to you and avoid the unfavorable ones since the rule set has a big effect on whether this strategy would work.

Due to the low number of units required and mana needed for this combo, Black Dragon and Oshuur Constantia are really good monsters to put in your back pocket. This can give you a lot of opportunities to pull off on low mana battles and will give you wins that are normally losses.

Lastly, after a lot of tests, one very good way to solve the weakness of this unit is using Lily Shieldpaw as your summoner. This forces your enemies to attack the units on the front first and deal with this unit as long as you put it far back. This allows your Black Dragon to gain significant health before finally reaching the front line. By the time he gets to the front line, your Black Dragon has high enough health from Life Leech to even heal 10 health or more every round from your other unit's Tank Heals.

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If you have suggested combos or questions, feel free to comment it down below.

If you are planning to play and is inspired by my post, please consider using my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=kpgamingch

I do not own any of the photos in this post. All credits goes to:

• Splinterlands
• Peakmonsters
• Canva
• Giphy