Huff and puff, a giant foot he steps,
Tick and tock, your time's running down instead.
Beware who you strike as you might regret,
When you anger the giant, as Magnor takes the set.
The card we will be discussing today is Magnor.
Magnor is a remainder of the Titans and Giants that used to thrive in the Splinterlands, before nearly all of them destroyed themselves through war. He resembles a Human, but stands about fifteen feet tall with far greater strength and more durable flesh. Several hundred years ago, Magnor retreated from the public eye to tend the rivers and dams of lava that are always flowing beneath Molten Mountains. Without Magnor's constant and diligent maintenance of the lava, many of the great Ferexia cave cities would have collapsed long ago.
We would rate this card based on:
Cost to buy/rent this card. How affordable and accessible is the card.
Card Stats. How balanced the card is based on its role.
Card Effect. How useful is its effect based on the role of the card.
Strengths and Weaknesses. If the card can counter other cards and/or be countered easily by others or not.
Positioning. Adaptability of where the card can be placed.
Compatibility. How useful it is on its current element.
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Rental/Buy Cost ||
Below is the rental of the card at the time of this writing.
Despite Magnor's low usage, the price of Magnor can be considered high with how low the value of DEC right now. You can rent one at 9 DEC per day but every DEC will be worth it considering how powerful the card is.
Below is the buy cost of the card at the time of this writing.
The price of Magnor right now averages to $80 and it's not exactly cheap. However, the combination you can do with the card and the leveled up version of Magnor can break through a lot of defenses and tank huge amounts of damage making it a worth buy in my opinion.
Magnor's stats are on the high side along with its high mana. He also have high health, damage and decent speed. This is definitely a very strong card overal. A definite buy for me as long as I can get my hands on a healer for support.
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Card Effect ||
Taunt is one of the best tank abilities in Splinterlands as it negates a lot of effects that targets or affects your back row. Sneak, Snipe, Opportunity and such would target Taunt monsters instead and negating the whole idea of prioritizing your supports instead.
Enrage || Has 1.5x increased Melee attack and Speed when damaged.
Enrage is another great ability for Magnor as he has both of the factors it increase. Decent speed and high damage allows you to maximize the effect of Enrage and produce better results than normal.
Trample || When a Monster with Trample hits and kills its target, it will perform another attack on the next Monster on the enemy Team.
With Enrage unlocked, Trample becomes deadly as you would be striking high damage with high accuracy as well due to increased speed. Combined with Rule Set like Stampede and watch Magnor goes killing everyone in one round.
Return Fire || When hit with a Ranged attack, Monsters with Return Fire will return reduced damage back to their attacker equal to the damage of attacker divided by 2, rounded up.
Return Fire is a good added bonus since your Magnor has Taunt. That means your range opponents with Opportunity and Snipe abilities would target Magnor instead due to his Taunt, then strike them back due to Return Fire.
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Strengths Weaknesses ||
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Positioning ||
POSITIONING:
The best position for this card is at the front. You can also put Magnor towards the back. Since he has taunt, he'll still be prioritized except for the 1st positioned monster. This gives you a bit of breathing area for your main tanks to survive longer as less cards would be targetting him.
ROUND 1:
By end of Round 1, Shieldbearer dies while my Magnor goes down to 2 health.
ROUND 2:
By end of Round 2, Radiated Brute dies. Pelacor Arbalest also dies from my back row attackers.
ROUND 3:
By end of Round 3, Serpentine Spy dies taking Celestial Harpy in the process.
ROUND 4:
By end of Round 4, Time Mage also dies leaving Venari Crystalsmith alone in the battle.
ROUND 5:
Since range monsters cannot attack while in first position, I skipped round 5 and just showed that the game ended on Round 6.
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Compatibility ||
The best combo with this card for me is with Tank Healers like Beetle Queen at Level 5. His immense health provides higher tank heals as the heals scales off max health. The heals are certainly required as Magnor would be taking most of the damage due to his Taunt abilities. Without any supports, Magnor might go down in a few turns which eliminates the positives provided by his other abilities and great damage.
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Lastly...
Before doing the final verdict, here is the sample of a battle using this card.
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Final Thoughts
With all the evidences that we gathered, we could say that Magnor is a very powerful card given proper situation and support. Without them, he is still good but the high mana cost might not be good enough as a trade off for a monster that might die in a few turns. However, once you're able to get the proper gears, Magnor is one of the deadlies cards in the game that I've seen so far.
