Good day Friends

Welcome to my weekly Splinterlands post. Everyweek I write two splinterlands posts, they are my journal from playing this amazing game. Splinterlands is one of the best TCG and blockchain games in these days, not sure for how long, but I plan to play it as long I can enjoy it.

Currently we are in the 3rd weeks of a new modern era, which we are no longer able to play the oversupplied Chaos Legion cards. Things change very much, we have to play with new cards that we are not familiar with and the cards are not as plenty as Chaos Legion, which lead to less of players who come with maximum level.

Because most of the cards are new, I recently often to talk about cards with others. either in discord or telegram. Everyone are relatively new and unfamiliar with the cards, so who will be right or wrong we can not guarantee yet because the better player sometime can be wrong.

For example, recently I have some discussion about cards with some Indonesian players, one of them is @arveno who currently the most active and possibly the current best Indonesian Splinterlands player. One of the talks was about disagreement on some cards, one of them is my new favorite, Aerial Shieldmaiden.

Arveno thought this card was a so so one, and I believed this card was great. So there was the disagreement there. I could not say I was the right one, because I could be wrong, so did he.

So after some days playing this Aerial Shieldmaiden, I would like to share more detail information why both of us are right on this case.

1. Overall this card has everything but all seems like formality. The attack damage are not bad, but not great either, a so so one. He has armor and health, which are great for backline tank. But a backline tank that focus on defends won't be favored by most players. Lastly the speed is 3, a decent one but not good. So this card is like a jack of all trades, which for this reason I believe Arveno is right.
2. On the fourth level or at silver league level cap above, he has Armored strike ability which makes him able to launch secondary melee attack which the melee damage will be based on his remaining armor. This means his damage will be big due to double attacks. For this point, I am pretty much sure that I am not wrong that this is a great one.
3. As I have played this card several time, I found that we can exploit his amrmor strike with adding more armor from protect ability, As his armor increases, his secondary attack damage increases too. So It is easy to push his total damage to reach 10 damage per round.
4. Regarding to point 3 above, the sad thing is that I tend to see this card is more like a solitary one, so it is hard to blend well with some meta. Most of the time I see this card plays solo, let the team does the meta and he stands there doing his own show which is delivering damage.
5. As I have said great, there is a big weakness too. It tends to get weakened as time progresses. When he starts loosing armor from incoming range and melee attacks, his attack damage drops too. And this trait is easily countered by some Thorn ability and Retaliate ability. Backfire works too, because Aerial Shieldmaiden speed is so so.

So based on those words, do you think Shield Maiden is still a good one? For me Aerial Shieldmaiden is a great one, not because of I can debate and spill some argument here, it is more on the condition of some meta that demands a DPS guy, you know in old school RPG it refers to character who can hit hard only, and sometime I just need one or two cards that really hit hard!

HIGHLIGHTED BATTLE

So to back my argument up, I need this battle. This is not a great battle, but it is the perfect mini battle to explain why I need this Aerial Shieldmaiden and why I think he or she is a great card for my meta(s).

This is a small mana cap battle, we can only use 21 mana and it is not about whose meta is better. I believe both of us are trying to do something here, so our formation is a bit funny.

Anasth Soothsayer will be the core of my meta. She has cleanse and heal, and with that 21 mana cap, I believe whether I win or lose, she could buy me some rounds by holding up the tank and herself. So this is a perfect simulation for my turtle meta, which I usually come with super defensive line up and rely only on 1-2 attacker (s).

So here is my negative line up, which is not built to attack, and Let's see how this battle goes

• This time I would not talk about meta and strategy. I pick this simple battle solely to show you why I like Aerial Shieldmaiden

• Her range attack destroys the Moxian Rebel armor. I don't know why my opponent puts moxian rebel in front, I believe he is over drunk lol

• Then Aerial Shieldmaiden throws her armor and killed moxian Rebel. That'
  s 5 damage!

• Now she is aiming for the Argarux Magus that hides behind that hippo.

• However Argarux survives the first attack due to divide shield ability from the holy protection ruleset.

• The second armor attack lands on Argarux, damaging 3 health point. I will skip forward this battle

• This battle lasts till the 6 round. That hippo, Ulundin Oversees is hard to kill.

This battle is very simple, every round Aerial Shieldmaiden alone deliver 5 damage. It is a good one, and my shieldmaiden kills everyone there without the help or some supportive meta from the team.

This is not something that outstanding, but in meta and team wise, it can be great. There is not many strong hitter in Conclave Arcana... well there are many actually, but most of them demands PAINFORGE activated to become strong. So this leaves a room for Aerial Shieldmaiden to shines...

So what about you, do you agree with me, or you agree with my friend Arveno that this card is not a great one? feel free to leave your feedback below, and Thank you for your visit here. See you in Splinterlands Battles!!!

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Thank you for visiting my Splinterlands post here, don't forget to leave your comments and feedback below. There are credits in this post for these people:

• @splinterlands : for holding Social Media challenge events
• carrieallen : for ultimate markdown tutorial
• thepeakstudio : for wonderful divider art

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