This week's community engagement challenge involves sharing favorite two (or more) cards which work synergistically or in other words they very well together. There are a few such combinations of cards in the current Tofu-dominated meta, however, a recent favorite of mine, due to the fact that these cards have recently become available is the synergy of Commander Slade and Rune Arcanist supported by Cryptic.
Let's have a look at the two cards first and then we'll visit a battle featuring them.
Commander Slade is a part of the currently active reward set, therefore his easily obtainable, however, for the synergy to work at it optimal potential, you definitely need him at max level. He is a very decent tank even at lower levels though. He starts off with 3 attack, 4 Speed, 5 Armor and 8 HP at level 1, as well as 2 abilities - Enfeeble and Dodge at the hefty cost of 10 mana. Even though the mana cost is prohibitive for most lower league battles, he does have his use in particular cases. At level 4 he gets more interesting with the added Reflection Shield ability. Now he makes sense as an off-tank for those lower league Possibilus plays or when the ruleset allows for melee attackers to attack from the backline. Finally at level 8 he gains his final ability - Backfire. This is what makes the synergy I'm about to demonstrate so much fun. Other than Backfire, his final stats at level 8 are 5 Melee Attack, 6 Speed (very important), 7 Armor and 10 HP. His Speed + the Dodge ability + Cryptic who debuffs the enemy units with Blind make him a very hard target to hit for all Melee and Ranged (non-magic) attacks. So his only susceptibility is Magic Attack. Enter Rune Arcanist:
She is one of the promo cards which got sold in the last few months, therefore she already is rather hard to obtain. Good news is that due to the way the synergy works, you only need 25 copies of her (that's how many I also own). At level 1 she starts off with 2 Magic Attack, 2 Speed, 0 Armor and 5 HP + Enfeeble. Level 4 is the target budget level - there she gains Phase Ward - this is the ability we're looking for. If you're feeling like splurging, you can get her to level 6 for that Cripple or max her for the addition of Scavenger and max stats of 2 Magic Attack, 3 Speed, 2 Armor and 8 HP. What Phase Ward does is that it provides Phase to the friendly unit in from of the Rune Arcanist, in this case that would be Commander Slade. Once he gets Phase, his main counter is no longer that potent at all, in fact he often becomes the bane of existence of all sorts of slow Magic Attackers.
Okay, enough talking, here's the BATTLE
My opponent came at me with an usual Tofu line-up for the mana range, even though he does seem to underestimate the power of the What Doesn't Kill You ruleset. He should know what might come his way when such a ruleset is active and the Water element is available.
The battle seems to start off well for him, he starts picking off my backline with his Sneak team.
Still no lost units for him, and I have already lost 3.
I'm down to 2 units in play, however, Slade has also been doing some work and I've managed to take down his Pelacor Conjurer.
I'm down to Slade - the last man standing.
Slade - still standing - the enemy unit count is going down.
Slade dodging like Neo in the Matrix.
The enemy realizing he's already lost. Well... I'm sure he did realize that just a couple of rounds into the battle.
Commander Slade (with Enrage) dodged a total of 20 Attacks this battle - so that alone is a total of 40 passive damage inflicted to the enemy units by Backfire.
So, thank you for attending my TED talk on how to cheese the game with Commander Slade and Rune Arcanist, especially if there's also an Enrage ruleset in play, and, of course, with the kind help of Cryptic's Blind. Come back next week for more entertaining content.
Over and Out,
Referral
Thanks for sharing! - @yonilkar
