Small and medium mana cards are useful and nice. Put together in proper order with a strategy in mind, they are effective in helping us win battles. But it is the beast-like cards that really get me excited about going into battle.
First we need to define what makes one Splinterlands card more of a beast than another card. Here are my criteria:
1 - High Mana cost:
As the saying goes there is no free lunch, so generally there is going to be a higher mana cost the stronger a card is.
2 - Cannot be killed off quickly:
A combination of high health and shields as well as abilities such as Void makes defeating a monster a real chore for your opponent.
3 - Strong attack(s):
The monster cannot just sit there playing defense.
4 - Self-preservation:
If a monster can self-heal or repair its own shields without the help of another monster or summoner.
The monster that fits my criteria the best is the Agor Longtail. It is a Legendary Dragon card released as part of the Riftwatchers edition of cards.
Riftwatchers promised to focus a lot on high mana cards for high mana matches and it certainly delivered. There are eight cards in the RIftwatchers set with a mana cost of 10 or higher.
Let’s analyze how it fulfills my criteria.
1 - High Mana cost:
If you sort all the cards in the game by mana cost you can see that the Agor Longtail is the largest mana card in the game at 15. The next highest being 14.
2 - Cannot be killed off quickly:
The Agor Longtail boasts high health and shields. In addition, the monster has the armor ability where magic attacks must go through the shields before affecting health. The monsters ability to stay alive for a long time could be further increased by a shield repair monster since that is where all types of attacks will go first.
3 - Strong attack(s):
The Agor Longtail delivers a Melee attack of 3 at all levels as well as a Magic attack of 2 at the first three levels and a Magic attack of 3 at Level 4. There are Dragon summoners that can increase these attacks by 1.
4 - Self-preservation:
At Levels 3 and 4, the Agor Longtail has the Self-heal ability. The monster also has the Flying ability. This will make it more difficult to hit. The monster is good fit for an Earthquake ruleset. This monster would be the perfect card for the ruleset ‘Earthquake’ and ‘All cards start off poisoned’. It is immune to earthquakes and it has the self-heal for the poison or it could even be ‘Cleansed’ by another card.
To top it all off, the Agor Longtail has the Taunt ability. Though this was not one of my criteria for a beasty card, it is fitting that a card like this is saying I’m strong enough to take on your entire teams attack.
At the end of the day, remember that strategy is more important to winning than simply placing cool beast-like cards into your lineups. But playing beast cards sure is fun.
Agor Longtail is definitely one of these cards that you need in high mana battle. Imagine if you pair it with a resurect card... ! I love this tank but unfortunately I don't own it yet :-)
I have picked this post on behalf of the @OurPick project and it will be highlighted in the next post!
I should have mentioned that Resurrect works really well with Void Armor. It's a real pain for your opponents to have to go through the full shields again.
These days there are so many different cards that it seems impossible to own them all.
Thanks for commenting!
Thanks for sharing! - @alokkumar121
