Share Your Battle: The Carrion Shade!

It’s not so strong. It’s not so tough. But it can take a shot, and that’s a lot. It’s the Carrion Shade!

This week’s “Share Your Battle” feature is the Carrion Shade. This death-splinter card is another mainstay within the Chaos Legion starter deck. With its minimalistic 1-mana cost, it often finds its way into bronze-league matches, especially in low-mana affairs where death teams can be hard to beat. However, one mana point doesn’t buy you all that much bite. In its level-1, starter-deck configuration the Carrion Shade has just two health, two speed, a 1-damage melee attack and no armor. But power isn’t the Shade’s game. Instead, this card is usually used as cannon fodder. It’ll take a shot or just get in the way and protect more powerful players.

And the Shade’s role isn’t destined to change much as it levels up. Even at level ten its heath and attack only rise one point each to three and two respectively. And it never gains any armor at all. However, at level three, the Carrion gains the flying ability which allows it to evade attack and stay in the way ever longer. By the time the Carrion Shade maxes out, it will be a 4-speed flier which makes it cannon fodder that’s harder to hit.

Recently, I used the Carrion Shade in a match that had a mana cap of 21 and was played with “odd one out” rules meaning only odd mana-cost-cards could be used. Further, only the death, light and dragon splinters were allowed.

With the interestingly restrictive ruleset, I didn’t think I could gain much useful information from my opponent’s last five matches.

Playing in the Bronze-II league, I almost always find myself playing against cards from the starter deck, and occasionally reward cards.

Knowing that many of the most played cards in the light splinter are even, I decided to try to form a team to counter death’s odd cards. My biggest concerns were death’s two 3-mana cost magic users (the Death Elemental and the Life Sapper) and the sneaky 5-mana cost Silent Sha-Vi.

I chose to lead my team with Thaddius Brood, mainly for his -1 health debuff to my opponent. The -1 magic attack debuff would most likely be wasted as neither the light or dark starter deck cards have cards with magical attacks greater than one.

For my tank, I used the 7-mana cost Bone Golem. While this tank is slow it will be facing off against cards that are mostly slow themselves. Further, its void ability defangs the death splinter’s magic attackers and its 3-damage melee attack is the best available under the ruleset.

In second position, I placed the Chaos Agent. This 1-mana-cost card is playing sniper guard to provide one turn’s worth of protection to my next card.

Third in line is the Scavo Hireling. I used this card for its armor repair ability. This is an odd play in the death splinter which is certainly armor challenged. But the Bone Golem is the rare death splinter card sporting armor so… In retrospect this play was a total mistake. Anticipating my opponent playing the Death Elemental, I should have first expected that my tank would not be damaged before the Hireling acted in round one, and then for my Scavo to be killed before it could do any repairs first thing in round two. But the rules were a surprise and I didn’t have time to think things through completely.

Next, I played the 5-mana cost Silent Sha-Vi. I chose this card for its 2-attack powered sneak attack. Besides my tank, the Sha-Vi is my only other legitimate attacker.

And bringing up the rear is the star of the show, the Carrion Shade. I placed it last expecting my opponent to play a Sha-Vi as well. Here I just want the Carrion to become carrion while protecting my Sha-Vi for a turn.

Life! That’s a surprise to me and I am very curious what my opponent played.

At first sight, my opponent’s team strikes me as odd. Its most tanky card is guarding its rear flank, and its 2-ranged-attack-powered sniper is placed second where it will lose its ranged attack quickly.

But looking more closely, the team has potential in the expected match. The rear guard is going to be able to hold off either of light’s or death’s sneak attackers while the rest of the team works. However, perhaps from being rushed, the team is one mana point short and the sniper is very poorly placed. Including the 1-mana cost Chaos Agent in second position and dropping the sniper back to fifth position beats my team running away, with the sniper killing my support staff and getting three more shots at my front line before my Sha-Vi could possibly bring it down.

Luckly, that’s not the team I’m facing. As it stands, defeating my opponent’s tank in round two and also taking his sniper out of play at the same time, I should have this match well in hand.

How did it turn out? See for yourself here.

As expected, my Carrion Shade falls to a sneak in the very first round. But it did its job and offered a bit of protection to my Sha-Vi.

And at the end of round two, my opponent’s tank falls also neutralizing his sniper’s ranged attack.

And my team rolled to victory from there.

This match presented a very restrictive ruleset that forced both me and my opponent to construct teams that we normally wouldn’t use. And we both made critical errors in the process.

While I was lucky to scrape out a victory despite my errors, part of the reason I prevailed was due to the lowly Carrion Shade doing its part and protecting my secondary attacker enough to allow it to survive for the whole match–thus casting shade on my opponents chances of victory.