Hello Splinterlands Summoners! We are now in the middle of the season with the new Modern sets. Consequently, I can no longer use the card combinations, strategies and synergies I was used to in the Chaos Legion set. It's now the era of Conclave Arcana and we have to find new strategies to win battles. It's part of the fun in playing Splinterlands, finding the best card combinations and building your deck.

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Building My Deck

Yesterday, I added to my deck four BCX of Fithe Bladestone. I was lucky to find one for $5.10 or $1.28 per BCX. I'm still waiting for a good deal to buy another BCX so that I can upgrade him to level two.

I also bought one BCX of Thragrun and will keep an eye on lower prices so that I can level him up to two.

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New Card Combos

I have several fun battles this season. The Earth splinter has been growing on me and I like the combinations that I'm playing. The Earth archon's Bloodline ability, Execute comes in very handy in battles.

Battle with the Earth Splinter

In this battle, the ruleset was Born Again and Need for Speed.

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My Team

Kaylia Silverleaf (archon)

Kaylia debuffs the enemy magic attack by one and grants the Execute ability to all elves. My Kaylia is at level three and is my highest level archon. Others are still at level one and two.

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Folen Flameeye (tank)

Folen Flameeye is not much of a tank. If you look at his stats, it's pretty standard with no special abilities or defense to make him stand out as a tank unlike Commander Slade or other tanks in the Chaos Legion. However he has the Flank ability which grants the Reach ability to a melee unit in the second position. This allows me to put another strong tank.

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Warborn Chieftain (second position)

I didn't appreciate the Warborn Chieftain before since I had other tanks that I prefer to use in the Earth team. Now this unit shines with his strong abilities and stats. He deals four melee damage and three speed. He also has seven health and for additional defense, he has Phase and Shield to defend against attacks. In addition, he has Dispel ability.

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Silverleaf Warlock (third position)

Silverleaf Warlock is an elf so I will be using this when I play the Earth splinter. He deals two magic damage, has four health and three speed.

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Thanalorian Blade (fourth position)

Thanalorian Blade is another elf. She deals two melee damage and has three speed. For defense, she has one armor and five health. She already has the Execute ability herself so I'm not sure what the effect is if she gets another from the archon. She also has the Opportunity ability to hunt low health units.

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Blackmoor Wild Elf (fifth position)

Blackmoor Wild Elf is another unit that can take advantage of the archon's bloodline ability. She does two magic damage, has three health and three speed. Her health is rather low so it helps that she has the Camouflage ability.

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Halaran Huntress (sixth position)

The Halaran Huntress is four mana unit that deals two melee damage. She has four health and four speed. I often use her in Earthquake ruleset because of her Flying ability. She also has Charge which allows her to do melee damage from any position.

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The Opponent Team

My opponent has a higher level archon that can use two splinters: Earth and Fire. His units are also higher level than mine but I must say that I don't agree with his team combination and unit positioning.

In the tank position, he has a ten mana ranged unit. While it has an armor and nine health, it cannot do damage. It's true that he has high damage dealers in the third and fourth positions but it won't be enough since he only has four units with only three units doing damage against my six units.

My opponent has two legendary units that he depends on to do damage. His level two Lord Thanalor deals three magic damage and is very fast with four speed. It has sufficient defense to play as a tank with two armor and ten health. Lord Thanalor also has the Scavenger ability for further sustainability. My opponent's other legendary card is a level two Rush Townsend who does five ranged damage and has five speed. It also has two armor and four health. It has the Ambush ability giving it an extra turn before the first round of battle.

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The Battle

In round one, the opponent quickly made his first kill with Rush Townsend eliminating my tank. Luckily my sniper, Thanalorian Blade also made her first kill thanks to her combination of Opportunity and Execute abilities. Blackmoor Wild Elf also did her job and took advantage of her Execute ability gained from the archon. Soon it was Lord Thanalor with twenty one health thanks to his Scavenger ability against four of my units. The battle could have gone his way but Lord Thanalor's magic attack was debuffed by my archon, Kaylia by one. It helped decrease the damage received by my team and soon the battle was won.

Link to Battle

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Final Thoughts

It's fun to discover new synergies and effective team combinations again. It's like starting the game from scratch. It's a nice sort of reboot for Splinterlands and the new abilities and Bloodline buffs bring another level of strategy to consider. Archons can also summon units of the same bloodline aside from the same splinter so I would consider this when building my deck.

I'm still far from my desired state of my deck but it's part of the fun. Slowly building my collection and bringing it to a competitive state rather than having a complete deck at the start is much more exciting for me. It gives me more pleasure to level up my collection day by day rather than having an overpowered collection from day one.

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