Hello! I have been watching the latest Splinterlands Town Hall - a fancy name for the weekly AMA and it appears we have been shown the stats of the upcoming airdrop card. It is looking extremely interesting, with a combination of keywords that we have not yet seen in the game. This will be a shorter post, but I was just so excited to see it that I want to go over the potential of this card and the kind of teams it can potentially fit in.

Carnage Titan

Just in, the newest addition to Splinterlands will be released to the players when we hit 8 million packs sold - so come on guys, let's get this thing going! So is this powerful? Will Carnage Titan take over all the games.. Or will it just be a situational card?

First of all, before I review everything about this card, I'd like to mention that Yabapmatt had mentioned wanting to potentially increase the chances of getting high mana cap. I do not know if it was a serious remark or a sarcastic one, but perhaps something to keep in mind - if you can use this more with higehr mana caps, it definitely gets better!

11 mana is a lot, so you are looking for the card to be powerful to justify allocating such a big share of your "team budget" to one monster. When it comes to sheer stats - and I am talking silver level, as that is where I have any sort of idea what is happening - it is fairly weak. 11 mana for stats pretty much equal to a Diemonshark simply means its abilities need to pull its weight and make it worth the additional 3 mana.

Reach and Double Strike are an extremely interesting combo, as Double Strike in general is already pretty rare. There are only a handful of cards able to do so, with most of them having no other Keywords in silver - the exception being Silvershield Assassin, who is one of the most powerful melee cards in the game. Melee unit that has Double Strike, but also Reach is unique.

What makes it really powerful is that Carnage Titan can abuse this Double Strike, while staying out of harm's way in the second position. Even if it gets into the first one.. It will still be alright, because of the high Armor and Health values. I absolutely love how it can dish out 6 damage per turn, while being a great off-tank. It is like a new evolution of Fineas Rage and it's unlikely that it will not see much play. I absolutely love Carnage Titan - I have a soft spot for high mana cards in general!

Teams, Synergies and Weaknesses

The most obvious synergy in the game currently seems to be Daria Dragonscale. Getting your attack buffed on a Double Strike unit is crazy, as it essentially doubles in value. That also means that any card with Inspire works for Carnage Titan as well. I find especially River Hellondale to have a great synergy, as it can both Inspire, as well as Resurrect whatever frontline you have, giving even more time for Carnage Titan to wreak carnage in the enemy lines.

Byzantine Kitty is another great way to play Carnage Titan - You don't want it to miss, and the True Strike will make sure that does not happen! Additionally, the speed buff could help it dodge a few more attacks to - you guessed it - be able to deal even more damage!

The great part of being in the Dragon splinter is that you do not miss out on anything - you can play every single card with Carnage Titan! One of the bigger weaknesses of the card is Thorns - Mylor Crowling, as well as simply those pesky tanks with the ability. This is even worse when combined with Amplify. It can, luckily, be counteracted fairly well by using Triage, or especially Repair - Adelade Brightwing comes to mind as a great pairing for the Titan!

Closing Words

Overall, I am quite hyped for this card! Not only is it high mana, which makes me hyped up by itself, but it is also a combination of keywords we haven't seen before that seems to make a ton of sense together.

Do I see Carnage Titan being a meta-breaker? Not really. I do definitely believe, however, that it will become a great addition to the Dragon splinter and I'm curious to see the impact it will have on the game, especially when Modern comes around. A lot will also depend on what the new Dragon legendary summoner will be!