Hi guys, this weeks Battle Challenge is all about the Disintegrator and I'll show you how I utilized it.

You can watch the full battle here, if you like.

The Card

The Disintegrator is a neutral melee attacker from the Chaos Legion edition with several abilities.

Level 1- Demoralize, reduces the melee attack of all enemy monsters by 1
Level 5 - Trample, attacks again when it kills a monster
Level 8 - Knock Out, deals double damage when attacking an enemy that is stunned
Level 10 - Retaliate, has a chance to strike back when attacked

I think this card has different use cases depending on the league/level you play it in. In Bronze and Silver the stats aren't the best. It's a little to squishy to be a tank and doesn't quite pack the punch to function as a damage dealer. I'd say it's main task is to debuff the enemy team with Demoralize.

In Gold and higher this changes quite a bit. With 3 attack I do think it can get kills and make use of the Trample ability. At the highest level this also gets amplified by the Retaliate, giving the card more chances to attack and kill something.

The Ruleset The Ruleset was a bit tricky. All ranged and magic attack monsters had Snipe and melee attackers could attack from any position. With 50 Mana and Water, Earth and Dragon playable I felt like I had no chance to accurately predict what my opponent would play.The Line Up & Strategy

So my strategy with the line up consisted of preparing a bit of a defense against everything, while still dealing good amounts of damage.

Alric Stormbringer

• Because of the Melee can attack from any position ruleset I anticipated them maybe playing a Disintegrator or defend heavily against melee in other ways. Therefore I went for magic damage and Alric works really well with that.

Diemonshark

• The Diemonshark has decent stats with some good armor to protect against melee and ranged attacks.

Djinn Oshannus

• Because of the other ruleset, Snipe, my second position monster needed to be strong enough to soak up magic and ranged attacks. Oshannus does that perfectly with his high health, speed to dodge range and Void ability to tank some magic. He also benefits from the Alric buff.

Nerissa Tridawn

• Another high health, heavy hitting magic attacker.

Disintegrator

• For the Demoralize, in case my opponent goes full melee, because of the ruleset. I put him in the middle, where he's safest.

Axemaster

• Threw him in because he deals good amounts of damage and in case my opponent had a similiar plan with a Void monster in the second position tanking the magic attacks.

Serpent of Eld

• I still had quite some mana left so I decided to put Serpent of Eld at the back. For one he's got good stats with a decent attack and was able to attack from back there due to the ruleset. On the other hand his speed, armor and Dodge ability made him a good protector against sneak attacks.

Round 1

Here we go. Turns out they didn't go for a melee team nor did they heavily prepare for anti melee. They went with a magic deck, but that's what we put Oshannus in the second spot for, because all their magic attakers in the backline have Snipe and will attack him.

First round we exchange hits with me taking out the Mycelic Slipspawn and hurting the Regal Peryton and my opponent damaging my Oshannus and taking away a bit of Armor from the Diemonshark. We both also have a miss.

Round 2

We start off with Oshannus taking out the damaged Regal Peryton. Axemaster sadly only hits armor, but Nerissa takes care of the rest with her huge 4 magic damage and takes out Goblin Tower. My Diemonshark tanks their melee attacks and still stands strong with 5 health and Oshannus also easily tanks the Goblin Psychic Snipe hit, which also does heal the Mustang back to 6 health, though. Round 3 & 4

Round 3 I have the clear speed advantage and instantly kill his Goblin Psychic with Oshannus and Axemaster. Diemonshark and Serpent of Eld then take out the Unicorn Mustang, reducing my opponent's forces to a lonely Mycelic Infantry which also misses it's attack. Sad story.

Round 4 is over in a heartbeat and I take home the win without losing a single monster.

Conclusion

Everything worked as planned I guess. They didn't bring heavy melee attacks, but the Disintegrator still proved it's worth, reducing the attack of two enemy monsters. Oshannus worked perfectly as a tank against magic snipes and with the buff from Alric I had so much damage. While I had Alric and Axemaster, which btw are super cheap to rent, my opponent did have a leveled up summoner and a couple of leveled up monsters. Proves to me, that this game fortunes the tacticians among us.

Like I said in the card description earlier I think Disintegrator at lower leagues works best as a support, debuffing the enemy, instead of a tank or damage dealer, which I tried to prove in this battle. I really like the card for having that ability at level 1 and as a neutral card, so it's almost always available. Paired with certain rulesets like in this game or Up Close & Personal, Super Sneak or Equal Opportunity it can work as a debuff and attack from a safe position at the same time, making it really strong. For being this useful at level 1 and the current price, I'd say it's a must have.

Referrals

If you're not playing already create an account over at Splinterlands.com and hop right into battle
Thanks to Carrie Allen for the amazing Markdown Tutorial
and to Chris Roberts for this Thumbnail Tutorial
Background Thumbnail image is from Pexels
Free image editing software used Canva

Also check out my 5 tips for newer players

I hope you enjoyed this read and maybe got some helpful tips or inspiration. Until next week,

Pinkman45