HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Welcome to yet another week of the "new" iteration of the Splinterlands Weekly Challenges 😜. The "old" Battle Challenges are now a thing of the past (at least for now?) and they have been replaced with the "Splinterlands Community Engagement Challenge: New Promo Card Battles".

For any old Hivers/Splinterland players who've just come back and are confused, fret not! Even with the name and format tweaks, right at it's core, battles are still the foundation of these posts.

In this week's edition of my New Promo Card Battles, I will attempt to showcase how one (or more) of the NEW promo cards play a significant role in turning the tides of battle for my team in order to secure a win!

No matter! I present to you the card — Night Stalker.

I will take advantage of this card in my battle showcase today to show how my team becomes a lot stronger than one would expect with Night Stalker. So without further ado, let me introduce that card to you! 🎉

When the Belurocian Empire joined the rebellion, Barashkukor sent a contingent of the Darkguard to Necrulencia to liberate the city. Among them was the onyx orc Jasch Mochmul. They devised a plan to assassinate the legion's commander there, but Mochmul argued it would only solidify their enemy's resolve and make it that much harder to mount a resistance. The others scoffed. They were the Darkguard. They would succeed, no matter the civilian casualties.
Before they could strike, Mochmul betrayed his compatriots. They were hung, and he was welcomed into the commander’s inner circle as a true faithful of the Chaos Empire. He rubbed elbows with the legion’s senior leaders and the influential Necrulencians who backed them. Then, late one night, he went house to house and executed each and every last one of them.
The sun rose, and there was no one to rally the legion. No one to organize a counterattack. It fell into disarray. A panic. They called him the Night Stalker. “The Night Stalker has come,” they cried. “And the Night Stalker don’t quit.”
And Mochmul did not quit. Not until the streets ran red with legionnaire blood and the city was liberated. Only then did he return to New Beluroc and tell the Lord of Darkness what he had done, saying he was ready to face whatever punishment Barashkukor saw fit to give him.
Instead, the archfiend pinned a medal on his chest.

From Splinterlands Lore on Night Stalker

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Night Stalker is an Rare card released during the Promo Rebellion expansion. At LEVEL 1, it has 3 ⚔️ ATTACK⚔️ and 3 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 0 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 2 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the SNEAK ability. It's summoning cost is 4 🧪MANA🧪.

As a unit itself, Night Stalker might look lacklustre. It has a pretty low casting cost and impressive Melee Attack Damage for that cost. However, it comes with a shockingly low amount of health which means it will likely die in one hit. For those kind of stats, you might be better served with a much better card in it's place.

However, what is often overlooked is it's SNEAK and EXECUTE ability! These 2 abilities combined would elevate the Night Stalker to a level which I would consider to be on par with, or even better than some Legendary units. It can almost certainly be slotted into any team that wants to target the backline, and it'll shine even more in low mana battles! Taking this into consideration, it's "low health" stats suddenly make it look like a monster instead!

This could make all the difference if the battle comes down to the wire where the slightest advantage is the fine line between victory or defeat! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 This is definitely what I'd consider game changing! 😱😱😱

⚔️🛡️My Battle Showcase🛡️⚔️

Let me present a battle I fought recently in which the Rebellion Reward Card Night Stalker was in use. My opponent used the Chaos Legion edition Summoner General Sloan from the LIFE splinter as his main pick, while I used the Chaos Legion edition Summoner Thaddius Brood from the DEATH splinter.

At first glance, it would seem like I was at a distinct disadvantage.

• My opponent was using a Summoner which was at focused on ranged damage while I was focused on anti magic.

• His units were however completely devoid of any magic users.

• Even my anti melee unit, Dark Arborist, with it's DEMORALIZE ability would be rendered useless with the lack of almost any melee units.

• To exacerbate matters, the ruleset for this match gave CLOSE RANGE to all units, which would mean the opponent's ranged units would not even suffer any disadvantage should the tanks be taken down as they would still be able to attack from the front line.

I was honestly expecting this to be a really bad matchup for me 😜🤣. This was a team who had an innate advantage in this ruleset. His team had one purpose only and that was to counter my team and destroy me completely. Would I be able to turn the tide of battle against such an opponent then? Victory or defeat would lie in the small details.

I would say that the Rebellion Night Stalker was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. The advantage it gave my team resulted in me outlasting my opponent in this battle. It definitely provided the edge that I needed to overcome my opponent.

This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆

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LINK TO MY FIGHT

👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

1st CARD SLOT

The Xenith Monk is chosen for this slot. He plays the role of the Main tank perfectly with his great stats. His high Health and Speed stats AND the HEAL ability will also allow him to have much longer staying power on the battlefield. This allows all other units to be kept safe until he is taken down.

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2nd CARD SLOT

The Dark Arborist occupies this slot. It's main role here is to be a a melee debuffer with DEMORALIZE. It will also take on the role of the backup tank when the main tank falls.

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3rd CARD SLOT

Revealer occupies this slot. It's purpose is to stun opponents with the STUN ability.

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4th CARD SLOT

The Death Ranger occupies this slot. Safely protected in the middle, it's role is to attack the opponent as a ranged dps unit

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5th CARD SLOT

Night Stalker occupies this slot. It's role is as an assassin unit targeting the opponent's backline with SNEAK and EXECUTE.

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6th CARD SLOT

Grifzi occupies this slot. It's role is to be the backline tank with it's low cost and good stats.

I hope you're starting to see the pattern here in my team setup. 😉

⚔️🛡️Battle Action Report🛡️⚔️

As you can see, both of us fielded very different units in our matchup. My opponent went mainly for RANGED DPS units, while I mostly had a mixed army of low cost units. 😱

LIFE VS DEATH

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The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was a low mana game with 25 mana as the limit. The rulesets were AIMLESS & CLOSE RANGE & LITTLE LEAGUE.

• The first round saw both our sides launch a flurry of attacks. Casualties came fast and quick as my Dark Arborist was the first to be taken down.

• Thankfully, my sneak units managed to take out the opponent's Aria Bandit and Elanor Bravefoot.

• Round 2 saw my SNEAK attacks inflict even more damage as I took down his Venari Crystalsmith and Torrent Fiend

• This left his army down to 2 units as mine still stayed mostly intact!

• Round 3 saw yet again another of his units, Mana Warden, get taken down by SNEAK attacks.

• Round 4 saw his Xenith Monk as the last man standing but even that was short lived as my superior numbers crushed him.

• It was all over for the opponent now as I eventually mopped up his entire army. 💀💀💀

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the Night Stalker Rebellion Promo Card to give me a slight advantage. Individually, on their own, my units would face a huge disadvantage against an enemy which was simply superior to mine. However, thanks to my choice of the Night Stalker, I was able to turn the tide of battle! The opponent simply could not handle all that at all.

Well as you can see here in the link and screenshot of my battle, the results were pretty good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

This was truly an eye opener! 😁🏆

Slowly, but surely, I wore down the opponent's team and the match ended up with me inflicting a crushing defeat. My team selection proved to be the edge I needed to eventually overpower my opponent. 💪🏻

🔮🔮🔮Hindsight is 20/20🔮🔮🔮

Would I have done anything differently? 🤔 This might have seemed like a disadvantage at the start but I ended up winning handily. IF I had to use the same cards again, there would be no better lineup than what I had already used for the match. Any other combination MIGHT have resulted in a loss for me. I'm really satisfied with the results against such a worthy opponent. 🏆🥇

💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

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I definitely can appreciate the Rebellion Reward Card HALFLING REFUGEE and how it changes the dynamics of usual gameplay. This is one of those cards which can be turned into a huge advantage if surrounded with the proper team. The role it brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

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