Splinterlands | Weekly challenge: Ant miners

Not signed up for splinterlands yet? Make sure to use this link and sign up!

Link to battle

I normally don't enter these weekly battle submissions, but I would like to make an exception for the ant miners card. It's one of my favourite low level cards and if I remember correctly my first (or at least one of my first) golden purchase.

Let's take a closer look at the card:

Summary

Edition: REWARD
Rarity: COMMON
Element: FIRE
ATTACK: MELEE
ABILITIES: Scavenger at level 1 / Shield at level 6

The most amazing thing about ant miners is the scavenge ability in combination with the low cost. This allows you to get a very strong tank for a very low cost... If you can keep it alive long enough ofcourse!

As you can see the card gets his second ability at level 6, which is the shield ability. Shield and scavenger is an amazing combination because the shield ability benefits from having high health.

Sadly enough, my ant miners is not level 6 yet so I just have to focus on the scavenger ability.

When to play ant miners

There are 2 summoners that are great with ant miners:

• Malric
• Yodin

Not that this little guy is bad with other summoners, but it's especially strong with these 2!

It's strong with Malric because he gives the ant additional damage. Lot's of small mana creatures means that you will get more benefit from the malric buff than if you would go with only 1 or 2 high-mana monsters in your lineup. Additionally, if your ant miners gets really big, but he only has 1 damage, he is still not that scary. I mean, he would still be harmless against the shield ability. However, once you buff him to 2 damage he can become a real beast, espiecally if you consider that he only costs 2 mana.

What you might not expect straight away is that the ant miners is also really good with yodin. Even though he does not gain a damage buff and we don't really care too much about the other buffs either. What we care about with Yoding is to buy time for our ranged damage dealers to do the work. While this is "easy" in high mana fights with cards like Living lava and Fineas rage etc. It can be a bit tricky in lower mana fights. Ant miners is a really good solution here, just make sure to place some very low mana stuff in front off him so he has time enough to become big and function as a true tank. Also, you will not only be "sacrificing" your furious chicken, creeping ooze and flame monkey, you will also kill lot's of enemies by the time that your precious ant miners reach the first position (at least, that's the idea).

Positioning

So, I have mentioned that it's really important to keep this card alive long enough. Well, it's not always 100% in your hands, but there are a couple of things you want to keep in mind.

In terms of positioning, you don't want to put him in the first position simply because he would not be able to get any benefit from the scavenge ability. Sometimes it's acceptable if the battle condition is equalizer, because he would start with higher health, but even then it's usually not ideal.

I like to put him in second or third position, depending on the situation.

Except for the actual position you should also be careful for enemy monsters with the opportunity ability. Since this card has a low starting health he will often be the target. The solution to this? Use cards like furious chicken, creeping ooze, flame monkey to take the hit.

All this results in him being usually chosen in low mana fights, at least, that's what works best for me.

How popular is ant miners

He is used in 1.76% of the top 100 games in bronze and has a win rate of 34.38%. Okay, I have to be honest, this is a lot lower than I expected. However, keep in mind that this is only based on 32 games, so I don't feel like you should care too much about the win rate. The % of games he is used in is a lot more interesting. It may seem like he is barely used, but 1.76% is more than it seems. It's still less than I would have expected because I simply love the card.

It is howeve remarkable that ant miners sees the highest amount of playtime in the champion league. Okay, it's only a bit more (1.88%), but still... Also, in champion he has a win rate of 52.41%!

The actual battle

I turned a weekly battle report into a tutorial, Oops...

Anyway, let's start talking about the actual battle!

As you can see I decided to go with Yodin for this game, let's go over the lineup.

1 - In first position we see the furious chicken, this guy is basically a sacrifice. However, this does not mean that it's not an important card. In fact, if you like to use ant miners in low mana fights I would say that furious chicken is the second most important card!

2 - The second spot is for flame monkey. I'm not the biggest fan of using him, but sometimes I just want to have an additional sacrifice before ant miners takes over. Also, there isn't any other 1 mana creature that I could use instead. The alternative would be to go with an additional 2 mana ranged monster and leave this guy + the ooze at home, which felt like too risky for my liking.

3 - The third spot is obviously for the ant miners. This position allowed him to become really strong before he had to enter the spotlights. In fact, by the time he reaches the first position he has 8 health.

4 - The ant miners card is awesome, but his main goal is to buy time for the real damage dealers. Therefore I brought a Goblin fireballer to the party. He may seem weak, but yodin buffs him to 2 damage and grants him the blast ability. All that for 2 mana? I'll take it!

5 - The same arguments brings the firebeetle to the fifth position. Important to note that this is one of the first cards I upgraded after buying Yodin because he gains 1 damage at level 3. Add to Yodin buff to that and you get a 3 damage monster, with blast and with snipe for 3 mana... that's just ridiculous.

6 - I finish my lineup with creeping ooze in the last position. Usually he takes the second spot, but in this game it made sense to put him last. He provides a buff for the entire game and he protects the damage dealers from sneak attacks.

Conclusion: is it a good card?

Ant miners is one of these underated cards in my opinion. The fact that he only costs 2 mana and can become so strong can be brutal for your opponent. Also, the fact that this is a common card means that the price is pretty low. Yeah, definitely a good card both at low levels and at high levels, as long as you play him right!

Want to earn more money with blogging? Start cross-posting to publish0x!