It has been more than 3 weeks since we had the last Splinterlands Challenge on Hive, and until now, we do not have a clue when it will be resumed or if it will ever be. From the little information that I got, the team has been doing some internal restructuring. They may be setting new guidelines on how the curators upvote a post, and on what kind of post to upvote. They may be setting up new challenges that will allow more hive creators to participate, or make challenges that will be in line with the team's marketing approach. Or maybe they deemed it completely unnecessary, so they are offsetting the program. Regardless of what it may be, we still need to wait for the official statement from the team.
But regardless of whether there are challenges or not, if you really like to write something about the game, you can write it without worrying about the upvotes or the rewards. And better start engaging with other creators, and you may get support from them (note to self).
Anyway, for this Splinterlands post, I want to take a look at the Conclave Arcana Neutral Rewards, and see how each of the cards will fare in battles.
The Conclave Arcana Neutral rewards have the 2nd least amount of units available in the rewards set. In total, it only has 5 units, which is fine since they offer more utility than other elements, and they also fall under different bloodlines, so they can benefit from Bloodline abilities when conditions are met. But just like all the other reward cards, they had an interesting set of abilities that, if used wisely, can help players to win their battle.
Oh, why did they do dirty Oshannus and make it seemingly the worst card in the reward set? Oshannus Unmade costs 6 mana, which is 2 mana less than Djinn Oshannus, but its health has been reduced, and it becomes a range unit, which makes it unable to attack in the first position, and unsuitable to function as a tank. It maintains the same speed, but its abilities are completely reworked to mainly support abilities, such as Dispel, which removes buffs on the target, Snare, which removes the Flying of the target, and Lookout, which reduces the damage of adjacent units from opportunity attacks and halves the damage that an ally received during Ambush.
Since this Oshannus Unmade was a neutral unit, it can be used on most rulesets, but as a Djinn, there was no Archon yet that this card could benefit from. However, you can use it along with Prophet Rosa and maybe use its tactics ability to give this +2 boost on range damage, or it can benefit from the global abilities of Risqruel Drath, which will give it +1 range damage and Flying ability. May as well give it the True Strike and Impede ability through tactics so that its attack can 100% hit the target, and reduce the target's speed each turn. I guess it could also benefit from Razi Clanktrap in certain circumstances, like during the Taking Sides ruleset, and only range units can be used, by having the Close Range ability.
While Oshannus Unmade seems to be quite disappointing, Ironwing Juggernut is one of the best low-mana card in the rewards set. For only 3 mana, this card has 7 health and 5 armor, which will make it quite a decent tank, add with that 3 speed and 3 damage that would not fall behind some cards with higher mana cost. Furthermore, it has the Void Armor ability, which makes magic attacks to deplete all of its armor first before they can damage its health. But it does not need to be a tank because it has the Charge ability that allows it to attack regardless of its position, aside from the True Strike ability that guarantees all of its attacks to hit 100% of the time. The only downside to this card is its Weary debilitation, which can make it exhausted and unable to attack.
As a unit with Avian Bloodline, Ironwing Juggernut will not really benefit from the Bloodline Dominion ability of Elowen Sylphie, since it already has the Charge ability, but it can be a really compatible card with Ellias Max Pruitt, as it can get an additional melee damage and armor, which if you gave this card the Armored Strike and Piercing ability during tactics, then it can be a very powerful attacker as long as you know the risk that it comes with its debilitation.
Moving on, we have the Mindless Thrall, which is a rare magic unit and what I call as the definitive "Grimbardum Smith Destroyer", with its Oppress ability that inflicts double damage on units with no attack, along with Relentless Strike that deals true damage + 1 on units with Void, Shield, or Forcefield. And since it is a magic unit, it could easily bypass the armor of Grimbardum Smith, making sure that it would not even last a round. At the same time, it has the Phase ability, which allows Mindless Thrall to evade magic attacks, which is very much possible since it has 5 speed.
Since it was a magic unit, this could really work well together with the Fire Archon Lorkus where it can get an additional magic damage, and if you give it the Life Leech and Affliction ability during tactics, this card could very well gain health as it attacks, while also preventing the target from being healed.
For the only Epic Neutral reward, we have the melee unit Saltwraith Pirate, which is a Rodentian unit with 3 melee damage at only 4 mana, and it also has quite decent stats with 6 health and 2 armor, so it can take a few hits before it is defeated. And once it was defeated, any units that share the same Bloodline with this card will gain +1 to health, speed, and armor, as well as +1 to damage if they share the same attack type. It only has 2 speed, which makes it to the slower side, but it has the True Strike ability that makes sure that all attacks using this card will hit the target, along with Relentless Strike that inflicts true damage and +1 damage to units with Void, Shield, or Forcefield.
As a Rodentian unit, this does not benefit from any of the Bloodline abilities of Conclave Arcana Archons, but this could really fit well in any of the little league and low mana battles. At the same time, when Shapeshift Happens was an active modifier, this could benefit all of its ally units.
Moving to the final card, we had the legendary unit, Kaori Matsune, which is a magic unit with a Drakoshan Bloodline, so it gains additional speed from the bloodline skill when used along Kravorn Skarn. Given its set of abilities, it can be a terrific card to face during magic-only battles, aside from the fact that it will also target the first non-melee unit that is close to the first position with Snipe. And most of all, it has the Immunity ability, which prevents it from getting negative buffs.
In terms of Archon, I often see this on Earth teams using Kaylia Silverleaf, which makes sense since it reduces the magic damage of the opponent team, and I am very much have been destroyed by that team a couple of times when I am against Liquidity bots with max rewards.
And that was it for my early assessment of the Conclave Arcana Neutral rewards. So far, the most used card for me was Ironwing Juggernut and Mindless Thrall, but gradually, I will be able to upgrade all these cards to levels where I can already use some of them competitively in battle within the league where I play.
Thank you, and see you on the next post!
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