Hello there.
Welcome to my Rentals post. I am structuring my post based on abilities, and looking at cards that have good value at Bronze levels to help newer players get started. I usually follow a personal filtering system in my rentals, where I look at the price, CP/DEC, abilities, and other things. I went through it in Part 1.
In my last post, I discussed about cards with the Dodge ability, this time, I'll be discussing the cards with the Double Strike ability.
Let's get to it.
Double Strike is an ability that lets a monster attack twice each round. If the monster has two attack types like "The Vigilator" it can attack up to 4 times if able; two times for each attack type. While attacking twice is already good, there are other benefits to double strike. If the target has Divine Shield, then the first attack triggers it, and the second attack can deal damage. In a blast ruleset, both attacks deal blast damage separately. If the monster has Trample, each attack can trigger it separately. In the Equalizer ruleset that grants Opportunity, if the first attack kills the lowest HP, the second attack will target the next monster with the lowest HP. If the monster has Shatter, the first attack can destroy the armor, and the second attack can deal damage directly. There are other strong strategies that work well Double Strike. It would be easier to just consider each of the double strike as separate attacks that apply attack modifiers on its own. The cards below are the ones that fall within my level requirements of [3 2 2 1 Common Rare Epic Legendary]:
The Vigilator is a Legendary Dragon card that costs 9 mana, with 1 Range attack and 2 Melee attack, has 4 Speed, and 8 HP. It is a very strong card that I try to rent when I can get a good deal. Having two attack types [Range and Melee] is already good. Having the Double Strike ability on top of that makes it broken. It can attack 4 times in a favorable ruleset like Super Sneak or Equal Opportunity. Since it has two attack types, it can also be used in both Going the Distance, and Up Close and Personal. The downside is that it can't be used in both Broken Arrows, and Keep Your Distance. There are a lot of rulesets where having 2-4 attacks is very strong, and there are only a few where its stats are bad. This is a card that can win a player a lot of games.
Carnage Titan is a Legendary Dragon card that costs 11 mana with 2 Melee Attack, 3 Speed, 7 Armor, and 8 HP. I think it is a strong card but not a must rent. If I can find a good deal, then I will include it my rentals. The reason why I think it's not a must rent is because of the 2 Melee attack. In Bronze, it is very common to use Demoralize, and use a Shield monster as a tank. Both will render Carnage Titan ineffective. Unlike the Vigilator that costs less and has two attack types, Carnage Titan is not as flexible. But in high mana battles, or if you can provide Inspire monsters, it is definitely still a strong card to use. The 11 mana makes it weak against Giant Killer, but the 7 Armor and 8 HP make it an ideal secondary tank.
Dhampir Infiltrator is a Rare Dragon card that costs 4 mana with 1 Melee Damage, 2 Speed, and 3 HP. It gets the Double Strike ability at level 1. Since it was a reward card with lots of copies, it is very cheap to rent even at level 2. It gets +1 HP from level 1 to 2, and that 3 HP can help it survive an extra turn in Earthquake or Noxious Fumes rulesets. Having the Sneak ability makes it playable in a lot of matchups. I've used it a lot in my teams with Vruz and Katrelba, together with an Inspire monster like Thane Newsong. It can still work with the Life team since they too have a lot of sneak monsters and an Inspire monster.
Grund is an Epic Earth card that costs 10 mana, with 3 Melee Damage, 3 Speed, and 10 HP. It gets the Double Strike on level 1. It only got +1 HP from level 1 to level 2 but it gets a jump in rental price between the two. I think the level 1 card is already pretty strong, so unless you can find a great deal for level 2, it should be enough. The Double Strike of Grund works really well with Immortalis, because of the shatter. Stats wise, Grund has a good amount of it. 3 Speed is above average in Bronze, and the 10 HP is really high. The high damage potential solves the lacking physical damage of Earth, and the high HP works well with the tank heals of Earth. It is a really strong card, and I always use it in my Earth teams.
Axemaster is an Epic Water card that costs 7 mana, with 2 Range damage, 4 Speed, and 6 HP. It gets the Double Strike ability on level 1. It only gets 1 additional HP from level 1 to level 2, and the rental price goes even higher than the already high level 1. This is a card that I rented a lot when it wasn't as popular with the bots. Right now even the level 1 card is above my filters, but I still check its rental price for any good deals. Its stats are really good, and is a really strong Sneak tank with its 4 speed, which gets buffed to 5 with Kelya. The high speed also means it won't miss a lot of its attacks, and that is a consistent 4 damage every turn.
As seen from above, there are a lot of viable options for Bronze level cards with Double Strike. These are just the monsters that I usually try to rent. There are monsters like Hobgoblin and Undead Minotaur that I think are pretty weak at low levels. Pelacor Arbalest is a starter card, so I don't usually rent it. And then there are those like Raa and Silvershield Assassin that are very popular and tend to be outside of my rental filters. The other deterrent for me renting the Silvershield Assassin is that it needs a team for it to shine. A sneak team and inspire is usually needed to immediately kill the opponent's team.
While Double Strike is a very strong ability, I think its biggest weakness are defensive abilities. Shield/Void abilities halve the damage, partnered with Demoralize/Silence/Headwinds can make it deal 0 damage. Thorns, Return Fire, and Magic Reflect together with Amplify can deal more damage back than what was dealt. I included magic damage because there is a Soulbound reward card that has double strike as well.
That is it for my Double Strike Rental post. I plan on making one for every ability, and the next one will be on Enrage. Don't hesitate to let me know what you think, and if you have suggestions for improvement.
And as always, these are Not Financial Advice, and Do Your Own Research.
If you want to start playing Splinterlands, you can use my link:
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