SHARE YOUR BATTLE Weekly Challenge! CARRION SHADE

The Carrion Shade is a low-mana Monster and as its name suggests, is a part of the Death Splinter. Even though it does not shine at first sight with either its stats or its abilities, a second look actually reveals a bit different story. Cards such as the Carrion Shade play an important role in match-ups of all levels since they are often used to fill in mana gaps, and also serve to protect far more important Monsters. I would even go as far as call them the "bodyguards of the VIPs"😁. But more about this a bit later.
Now before getting into the stats discussion of the Monster, let's have a sneak peak into its lore: A Carrion Shade is a dark-winged bird that feeds off of the dead bodies of animals and people. They often flock to battlefields and dangerous parts of the wilderness where there are sure to be corpses. They travel in small groups and have no natural predators. Most people fear the carrion shades, though. For to see a group following you is to know your life is in danger. Tales whispered by the elder wise women claim that if you see a single carrion shade perched outside your home, then someone you love will die that night.
Well if that did not make you look out of the window and to see if a Carrion Shade is staring at you from a branch of the tree across the street, I do not know what would. 😝

Okay, now that we have a vague idea of what the Carrion Shade is, let us have a look at its stats and abilities at the key different levels.

It starts off with no abilities at level one but for 1 mana it does have +1 melee attack and 2 health, which are not bad stats for the price.
At level 3 it gains the Fly ability which is actually the game changer for the spooky bird since Fly enables it to have the chance to dodge 25% of the melee and ranged attacks (archers, not magic), which is great for the bodyguarding utility it has I mentioned earlier.
At level 10 it is the same bird but a bit tougher to deal with with 3 health, a bit more elusive with 4 speed and a sharper beak with 2 melee attack.

Now that we have gotten acquainted with the stats of the Monster and its abilities (or lack there of), let us have a look at the BATTLE I have chosen to showcase.

Let us begin with the line-up:

For the tanking position I have chosen the most often used Death Splinter tank in the leagues I lurk in, namely the ***Chursed Windeku***. It is a versatile tank, which shines in almost all situations, apart probably heavy magic attacks, but even then it still has a decent health pool (10 at level 3), which does help it soak a at least a couple of hits. Its ***Thorns*** ability is incredibly effective against low health melee attackers. They basically kill themselves, and our Monster buddy here does not even have to move a finger (or claw 😁).

The 2nd place in the line-up has been assigned to another "never-leave-home-without" monster from the modern Death Splinter line-up - Silent Sha-Vi. At level 4 it sports 3 melee attack, 6 health and 4 speed, which is pretty good for a Sneak monster in Silver league, so it basically is a must-include as long as the mana pool allows it.

The third spot in the line-up has been assigned to a neutral Monster - Creeping Ooze - which does not seem much at first sight but its Slow ability is a huge deal since who goes first and who goes last often decides the outcome of the battle. I have put it in the middle of the line-up so it is harder to reach by Sneak/Sniper Monsters.

The forth spot in the line-up is for Uraeus which has the Sneak ability but for 3 mana, so it is easier to play in most line-ups, and has +1 armor which is really good for enabling it to take an extra hit.

The fifth position is for the main protagonist of our short story - the Carrion Shade. I have placed it in the last spot even though it is a melee monster so it can soak the hits of the enemy Sneak Monster (if they have any), and hopefully dodge as many as it is lucky enough to. The idea is to buy enough time for the damage dealers to do their thing and eventually win the battle. Moreover the

It is time for a quick round by round analysis:

As we can see I chose to use my Level 3 Thaddius and my opponent, on the other hand, was sporting a Level 4 Kelya so they should have had an edge over me in general. However, a quick glimpse at the battlefield tells a different story. My Monsters are all max level for my level 3 Summoner - level 4 commons, level 3 rares and level 2 epics, while my opponent has only 1 level 4 monster and all the rest are level 1s. This does not automatically mean that I am winning for sure but does make the outcome of the match look brighter for me. Moreover the Slow of my Ooze is a good counter to Kelya's +1 speed.

After 1 round, I dis not lose any Monsters while my opponent had parted with their backline keeper - the level 1 Ice Pixie.

At the start of round 3 my opponent had lost their Xenith Monk and Elven Mystic, and my Cursed Windeku was still looking as pretty as a Cursed Windeku could look... 😝

Round 4 saw a single avian still standing and it was not my Carrion Shade but the enemy's Albatross.

It took a whole additional round for my merry band to land enough hits on the elusive Albatross before they plucked its feathers and grilled it for dinner - a tasty meal for the victors (actually the Cursed Windeku swallowed it whole 😝)

The Carrion Shade is a great filler Monster, most useful for protecting your main damage dealers from the pesky Sneak Monsters in the enemy line-up. In the match showcased above it did not have any work at all but life for the spooky bird is not always that easy. Do not underestimate its utility when equipped with the Fly ability at level 3.😉

GhostlyBG, over and out
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You can check out some other stuff from my recent Splinterlands blogging venture: