This is my submission to the Splinterlands Weekly Battle Challenge. This time it is featuring the "Molten Ogre".
About the Card
Molten Ogre is a Promo card from the out-of-print Wind of Change edition. You can still unbox them from Orbs when buying them from Hive-Engine, where they are currently trading for $5.50.
With 3 ATK, 10 HP and Demoralize, the Ogre is already pretty tough at level 1. When maxed out it is a beast with 5 ATK, 14 HP and in addition to Demoralize, also the mighty Trample ability. With 5 ATK the Ogre is likely to score a several kills in battle, so the chance of Trample triggering is a mighty ace up your team's sleeve.
The only real downsides of the Ogre are its high mana cost and its slow speed.
Card Use-Cases
- Reverse Speed: In this ruleset the Ogre's slowness turns into a strength. When attacking first, depending on the choice of your opponent's tank, you may already score a kill and continue to Trample.
- Stampede: This one of the newer rulesets is made for cards like the Ogre. In Stampede rulesets its Trample ability can trigger multiple times, so you may wipe out your opponent's team in a single turn. I like combining the Ogre with the Giant Roc (which also has Trample) to maximize that effect.
- Melee Mayhem/All Sneak with High Mana: When playing low mana, I would prefer filling the monster slots with several low-mana monsters instead of using one big one. But with high mana, the Ogre can be a good choice, because your opponent is likely to use many melee monsters putting your Demoralize ability to its best use.
Note that I am not including Unlimited Mana matches in my list of preferred rulesets for the Orc. That is because if none of the conditions above apply, there are other, better choices for the six monster slots.
This week's match
Click on the video ^ to play or view the original match on Splinterlands.
I played the Ogre in my favorite combination with buffs from Plado Emberstorm and punching support from Giant Roc.
This week's line up:
Molten Ogre: The beast itself! Prominently placed in the front as giant tank.
Giant Roc: What Corrupted Pegasus is for Lord of Darkness, Giant Roc is for Molten Ogre. In my line up the two always got together.
Kobold Miner: Having to compensate for the Ogre's high mana cost, I usually follow up with low-cost but strong melee monsters that have the Sneak or Opportunity abilities and thus can also profit from the summoner's buff.
Serpentine Spy: The Kobold Miner's younger brother.
Sand Worm: Another powerhouse. While Ogre+Roc will break my opponent's fronline. The Sand Worm, with support from Kobold Miner and Serpentine Spy, will demolish my opponent's backline.
Cornealus: This may look strange because Cornealus is not consistent with the rest of the team. But as this was a Target Practice ruleset I used Cornealus as bait for my opponent's ranged and magic attacks that would reflect off of it and damage the attacker.
Conclusion
The Ogre+Roc combination worked nicely wiping out my opponent's tank cards one after the other with heavy punches and trample.
Truth is, I am having a hard time in the higher leagues lately as competition has become fiercer. This time my opponent wasn't really a match, but somehow this dude snug in to Diamond league with his Gold-level deck - Kudos!
Want to join the fight?
Create an account at the Splinterlands today and fight me in next week's battle challenge!