Welcome back to another awesome and exciting Splinterlands post guys, and I hope all of you are doing pretty well in your lives and enjoying an energetic and thrilling day with your family and friends while eagerly waiting for the weekend. Now, if you are one of those brave souls who are actively playing this amazing Web3 strategy game and trying hard to improve your NFT card and asset collection, I think most of you are currently engaged in the ongoing season's ranked battles and trying to squeeze every possible reward before the ongoing season finally reaches its conclusion. If we take a quick look at the season timer, there are only around 1 day and 20 hours left before the current season comes to an end. So for those players who are still pushing for their goal, be it to reach a higher league tier, chase more reward chests, or even grind for a leaderboard position, I wish you all the very best in your remaining battles.
Now, let's take a peek at my own activities in the frontier mode of this game. As usual, I am currently playing in the highest Gold I league and my trophy count has climbed to 4,140. My immediate goal remains the same as usual, reaching the 4,200 trophy mark and then trying to push as far as possible on the leaderboard if time and battle energy permit.
On another interesting note, after a long time, I recently visited and spent 70,000 Glint points in the Glint Shop and decided to try my luck with a Legendary draw. Thankfully, fortune smiled upon me and I pulled Kervik, a Water element melee Sneak monster. In my opinion, it is one of the strongest reward cards available from the Conclave Arcana edition, so I was definitely happy with that result.
Moving on, if we take a look at the weekly Frontier raffle, I currently have 39 entries collected. With around 1 day and 19 hours remaining before the raffle draw, I will continue pushing toward my usual target of around 54 to 57 entries. Apart from that, I also opened 5 Foundation packs today that I earned from the last two days of battle rewards. The results turned out quite decent because I managed to pull 1 Epic card, 7 Rare cards including 4 Archons, 1 Gold Foil Common card, and the remaining cards were Common foils. Not a bad haul at all.
Now moving forward, let us come to the main topic of this post, as today I will be talking about another interesting monster from the newest Escalation mini card set. As you have already seen in the title and thumbnail above, today's featured monster is the Ignited Alchemist. So if you are interested in learning more about this card, let us take a closer look without any further delay.
The Ignited Alchemist is a monster card from the newest Escalation mini card set. This monster belongs to the Death element and comes from the Dwarf bloodline. By rarity, this card is a Rare monster, which means you need a total of 115 CC cards in order to upgrade it to its maximum level. One of the most unique things about this monster is that it possesses no attack power at all. However, what it lacks in direct damage, it more than makes up for through a collection of powerful and unusual abilities. This monster costs only 5 mana to use in battle, making it suitable for low, medium, and even certain high mana limit matches. At maximum level, this monster gains a total of five abilities, which is quite impressive for a card that cannot attack on its own. Let us now take a closer look at its league-wise stats and abilities below.
At level 2, this monster possesses 3 speed with 3 armor and 4 health. While it lacks attack power, it immediately gains two abilities from its initial level: Incendiary and Flying. These two abilities already make the Ignited Alchemist a very interesting utility monster.
INCENDIARY โ At the beginning of round 2 and each following round, applies Burning. Burning has a 33% chance to spread to an adjacent unit at the beginning of each round, then all Burning units lose 2 health. Burning can be cleansed.
FLYING โ Grants a 25% chance to dodge physical attacks from non-flying units and provides immunity to Earthquake damage.
When upgraded to level 4, this monster improves to 3 speed with 4 armor and 4 health. At this stage, it unlocks a new ability called Scattershot. This ability becomes particularly interesting if you manage to grant this monster an attack through external effects such as Weapons Training.
SCATTERSHOT โ Magic and ranged units target a random enemy unit.
As this monster reaches level 6, its stats improve once again and it now possesses 3 speed with 4 armor and 5 health. At this level, it also unlocks another useful ability called Affliction. Again, this ability becomes extremely valuable whenever the monster gains attack power through other cards.
AFFLICTION โ 50% chance to apply Afflicted after a successful attack. Afflicted units cannot be healed.
Finally, when upgraded to its maximum level of 8, this monster reaches 4 speed with an impressive 6 armor and 5 health. At this level, it gains its final ability called Flame Fed. This ability works beautifully together with its Incendiary effect and creates a very unique interaction that can make the monster surprisingly difficult to eliminate.
FLAME FED โ When Burning, instead of losing health, this monster gains 1 health at the beginning of each round.
Last but not least, I think the Ignited Alchemist is one of the most interesting no-attack monsters introduced in recent times. First of all, for only 5 mana, you get a monster with a solid armor and health combination along with decent speed. This already makes it a respectable defensive option even before considering its abilities. Another thing I really like is how well this card performs when paired with Weapons Training monsters. If you are able to provide it with attack power, then abilities like Scattershot and Affliction suddenly become extremely valuable. The random targeting from Scattershot makes it difficult for opponents to predict where damage will land, while Affliction can completely shut down healing strategies. The Flying ability is another great bonus because it increases the monster's survivability against physical attacks while also making it immune to Earthquake rulesets. This alone can sometimes provide a huge advantage. Finally, the combination of Incendiary and Flame Fed is what makes this card truly unique in my opinion. On one hand, it spreads Burning throughout the battlefield and slowly damages enemy monsters. On the other hand, when Burning affects this monster itself, Flame Fed actually converts that drawback into a benefit by restoring health instead of losing it. It is a very clever synergy that fits the theme of the card perfectly. Overall, I think the Ignited Alchemist is an excellent utility monster packed with abilities and strategic potential. While it may not attack on its own, the amount of value it provides through its abilities makes it a very interesting addition to many lineups. What do you think about this monster?
