It's been weeks since the new soulbound reward cards were introduced into the game. And this has added a few dozen additional cards each with its own new and interesting abilities. In general, this has been received positively by the community and I for one has felt a renewed excitement for the game. I eagerly anticipate my daily quest rewards and hope to get more of these soulbound cards.
But among these changes, there is one new ability that in my opinion is going to shake up the meta in the near future. I'm talking about the martyr ability and I can say that it's insanely good, even borderline a broken mechanic.
So what does martyr do? Martyr's abilities states, "When this monster dies, adjacent monsters get +1 to all stats." This basically is like giving one level of bloodlust to nearby ally monsters. And this may eventually lead to Voltron-like meta strategies in the future. The term Voltron pertains to a card strategy, especially in MTG, where a player summons a single creature and then focuses on buffing it up with various cards and making it a giant threat, just like how Voltron lions combine into a single mech.
Last season, I actually received a few of these martyr-capable monsters and decided to test how it goes. And throughout my matches, these three cards are what I often use, the Venari Marksrat, Fungus Flinger, and Firecaller. There are a few things that make them ideal to use, in my opinion. First, they have Martyr as a default ability which makes them useable in any league.
This is contrary to life splinter's Iziar which unlocks the martyr ability at the gold level. In this case, Iziar has taunt which makes it easier to position it in the lineup since it's more than likely to die first in the match. But I haven't had the chance to test it out yet since it's hard to pull a legendary out of a chest. Secondly, they have cheap mana cost. Although Firecaller is a bit of a stretch at five mana, Venari Marksrat and Fungus Flinger are at three which makes it easier to fit them in most lineups.
Lastly, they have low health and are easy to kill. In most instances, I needed them to die right away and before the beneficiaries of the martyr ability are damaged. There are some rulesets that allow for this. Let's take a look at two battles where martyr is hightly effective.
Kron the Undying + Two Martyrs
You can check the link to this battle here.
The first shared battle is a 27-mana match with the Holy Protection ruleset. My strategy here is basically just to power up Kron the Undying to insane levels and all other monsters are there to stall for time.
I made a gamble in here since I wasn't sure if the enemy will assign creatures with opportunity and sneak. Should the Venari Marksrat somehow surive long enough, Kron the Undying will not be able to activate the last stand skill. Luckily, this wasn't the case. The result of two martyr powerups and last stand is an outstanding 8 magic damage, 6 speed and 21 health.
Jared Scar + Martyr-Resurrect
You can check the link to this battle here.
This one is an interesting discovery that I realized while playing. The martyr ability works really well with resurrect. Here I have a Venari Marksrat on the front which hopefully will get taken out in the first attack. Then Adelade Brightwing's resurrect will trigger and revive Marksrat. This will cause a second martyr ability to proc once the Marksrat dies again.
So with this strategy, it's equivalent to Jared Scar triggering bloodlust two times before it even does his first attack. Imagine having multiple resurrect abilities in your lineup. It might look something like this and that would be interesting to see unfold.
The new soulbound reward cards are still slowly entering the game and with it comes a shift in the meta. I believe that the martyr ability will be a game changer once its potential is fully realized. Fun times ahead for Splinterlands.
If you guys are still new to the game and want to join, you can click on my link here to start playing. Thank you for reading and see you on the battlefield.
