It's been a few seasons now since Escalation, a Conclave Arcana mini-set, was released, which introduced new cards and new abilities that once again shake the game's meta. The mini-set has consisted of 43 cards in total, with 12 commons, 12 rares, 8 epics, and 11 legendaries, not including the promo cards that can only be acquired by participating in the set presale and the additional Archons that will be airdropped through conflicts soon.
In this post, I want to take a look at all the Water units from Escalation.
The Escalation Water units consisted of cards under different bloodlines, so, depending on what their bloodlines were, it is possible for them to be used by Archons from other elements and benefit from their Bloodline Dominion abilities. But aside from that, they had these new abilities that could affect the result of the battles.
Phlegmost
Phlegmost is a magic unit with the Divine Construct bloodline, making it a good card to have when playing Elanor Bravefoot, as it gains an additional attack from every Divine Construct unit. It's on the slower side, but it has a decent amount of health and magic damage for a 9-mana unit, which at max level has the Heal ability, allowing it to restore its health when damaged, and as long as it remains in battle, all opponent units lose -1 health with its Weaken ability. Furthermore, it has Fury that will inflict double damage on units with Taunt.
But what makes this card something to look out for is its Reprisal ability that will give the Taunt ability on an enemy unit that inflicts 5 or more damage, making its Fury a much more threatening ability.
Shadowfocus - If an enemy unit deals more than 5 damage in a round, it gains Taunt and, if camouflaged, is Revealed.
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Blue Wyrm Travesty
On the other hand, Blue Wyrm Travesty was a melee undead unit that allowed it to be used by the Fire Archon Hanv using its bloodline skill, and gained the Deflect ability, making it immune to blast and reflected damage. As a melee unit, it costs 13 mana to use, but it compensates you with its high melee damage and good speed, which can even be faster with Hanv's tactics ability, which includes Swiftness. Not to mention, it also has the Slow ability that will reduce the speed of all opponent units by -1 as long as it remains in battle.
Its other ability is also something to be wary of, because with Invigorate, allied units cannot be exhausted, so Weary debilitation will not take effect, and it was a good card to have when you are using units with Soul Siphon.
Drifting Manatee
Moving on with the rare units, we had Drifting Manatee, which is a 3-mana non-damage unit, so the only way that it can attack was if it was placed next to a card with Weapon's Training ability to capitalize on its Stun ability. But even without attacking, this card can still be a good support since it has the Cleanse Rearguard ability that allows it to remove the debuffs placed on backline units and Amplify that increases the damage received from reflected damage. Aside from that, it has the Dodge ability that will allow this card to evade melee and range attacks.
This card can be used by the Earth Archon Elowen Sylphie and gain the Charge ability to allow it to attack regardless of its position if its weapon's trained with a melee unit and gained melee attack.
Darkguard Ironwing
Darkguard Ironwing, on the other hand, was a range unit with the Avian Bloodline, making it another unit that can be summoned by Elowen Sylphie and gains Charge ability that can work pretty well with its Armored Strike ability to use its armor to attack the opponent. But even without it, it can still attack with its armor, as long as it targets the opponent with the highest attack using Apex Strike, and even reducing their attacks with Halving.
It was also a good support unit as it has the Repair ability that not only can restore its armor when damaged, but also the armor of any of its allied units.
Apex Strike -Targets the enemy unit with the most power.
Saltwraith Corsair
For the only Epic Water unit, we have another range unit with Saltwrait Corsair, which has a Tideborn bloodline, making it a card that can be summoned by Captain Frankie and gains the Inspire ability that increases the melee attack of all allied units. Its abilities include Fury that will inflict double damage on units with Taunt, along with Reprisal that gives Taunt on units that inflict 5 or more damage in a round. Furthermore, it has the Kindred Spirit ability that will give the unit with the Kindred Will ability, the Stun ability.
By the way, for an epic card, this unit only costs 3 mana to use, so it can be used on low mana and little league battles.
Maud Stonefoot
Moving to the legendary units, we have Maud Stonefoot, which is a magic unit with the Dwarf Bloodline, so it gains the Void ability from the bloodline skill when used with the Fire Archon Fithe Bladestone. It does not have much health and damage, but it still deserves to be a legendary unit, since it does not cost any mana to use, and can attack regardless of its position as it was a magic unit. Aside from that, it has the Bloodline Pact ability, which is kind of similar to Bloodlust, but will trigger if any of the cards that share bloodline with this card defeat an opponent, which will increase the damage of all the cards with the same bloodline.
Bloodline Pact -Allied units that share this unit's bloodline gain +1 power when any of them defeats an enemy and take 1 true damage when any of them is defeated. If this unit is defeated, allied units that share its bloodline take 2 damage and lose all power gained from this ability.
Malthraksis
And finally, we have the Undead unit Malthraksis with both melee and range attack, for only 7 mana, that can attack the opponent unit with the least health regardless of its position with Opportunity, and when placed with a unit that has the Kindred Spirit ability, its Kindred Will ability will give that unit the Deflection Shroud ability that in turn will give Malthraksis the Deflect ability. It can also serve as a good support unit since it has the Protect ability that gives +2 armor on all allied units, making it a good card to have when playing a team with Armored Strike or when you use Ellias Max Pruitt as an Archon.
Lastly, in case it was poisoned, burned, or damaged by an ally, its attacks will increase as an effect of the Painforge ability.
And that was it for my early assessment of the Escalation Water units. All of the cards look really great and have some amazing synergies with the later cards. But if I were to choose which of these cards was my favorite, I think that my choice would be Darkguard Ironwing. That combination of its abilities is just too good for a rare unit, as it can play the part of support and attacker at the same time.
Thank you, and see you on the next post!
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![[ES/EN] Splinterlands - Escalation – Water](/assets/noimage.svg)