Rebellion Reward Card Reviews - Winning Debut For Surly Drunk!

It's a new edition of Splinterlands Community Engagement Challenge and the theme this week is Rebellion Reward Card Reviews.

Having saved up some Glint over the past months of battling, I thought it's a good chance to use some of them to get something from the Shop. I was thinking which options to go for because there were so many choices...

And I decided to spend 35,000 Glint to do the Legendary Draw! After all, we can only fill up to 6 cards per battle, it's the quality that matters more than quantity right? Haha.

I got Surly Drunk! Haha. A 1 mana Fire Card. I didn't have any expectations so I didn't know if this is a good card or not... And that's the reason why we are here. It's time to test it out in a battle!

So here's the interesting battle that I encountered.

But first, an introduction on Surly Drunk!

On first look, it's an easy and straightforward card to use. I like cards with straightforward abilities that are easy to understand and Opportunity is one of the best abilities to have on a card. The stats are nothing fantastic but definitely it's better than the filler Fiends for sure.

As usual, here's the lore for Surly Drunk for your reading interest:

The Coiled Chalice is a favored haunt of Iazo Dras. Iazo Dras, however, is no one’s favored patron. The more he drinks, the more irritable and sullen he becomes. Combined with his churlish demeanor, it’s not exactly a pleasure to share a table with him.

The barmaid Lysansera Syltheras, however, always welcomes him with a drink and a sympathetic shoulder to lean on. For she knows the extent of Iazo’s losses under the brutal reign of the Chaos Empire.

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Battle Type & Team Lineup

If I didn't plan to try Surly Drunk, I would have gone for either Water or Death lineups, but since I was curious about Surly Drunk's capabilities, I have gone with a Fire lineup. Tarsa fits the bill perfectly because its Melee boost essentially doubles Surly Drunk's attack! That's 2 Melee attack with Opportunity for a 1 Mana card!

With 33 mana on the board (29 after the summoner), we needed a strong tank and have decided to spend big part of the remaining mana on Forgotten One. Given that this was Odd-only cards, the choices were limited after all. Forgotten One is strong enough.

Once again, we went with a Melee lineup to maximise the boost from Tarsa. Radiated Brute is a decent 2nd position card because of its Reach ability.

We needed to use our mana efficiently so Uraeus came in as a Sneak card, also thanks to Tarsa's boost, it now deals a good amount of damage.

Hidden deep within the lineup, Surly Drunk took the 4th spot, and let's see how the Opportunity hits go.

We continued our Melee lineup with another decent card, Tenyii Striker. He will partner Uraeus to attack from the backline with Sneak damage.

We were running out of good Melee cards and I thought my opponent might field cards with Sneak ability as well, so to guard against that, Firecaller took the last spot hoping to earn the team a Martyr boost.

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• Pre Battle: My opponent also fielded a Tarsa-led lineup and the opposing Disintegrator was a massive counter for my almost full Melee lineup. Ouch. Let's see how this battle goes.
  

• Round 1: Both teams had similar strategies, with lineups filled with Sneak and Opportunity attacks. My strategy to get the Martyr boost materialised and this earned my Tenyii Striker a slight boost in stats.
  

• Round 2: With Opportunity hits flying around, there's bound to be casualties. A few cards went off the board and Surly Drunk claimed one kill too. My team continued to suffer from Demoralise and both teams looked evenly matched at the moment.
  

• Round 3: Demoralise continued to haunt my team but finally the opposing Disintegrator went down in this round. My two front cards are still standing and the survivability of Forgotten One will be put to the test.
  

• Round 4: With 5 Melee damage per round, Forgotten One was proving to be too tough for my opponent to handle, and we were starting to have an advantage here.
  

• Round 5: Another 5 Melee hit, another clear. We were almost done but this battle was very close.
  

• Round 6: And we made it! A close shave! And a winning debut for Surly Drunk!
  

If you are interested to watch the battle, you can find it here.

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Post Battle

After witnessing a full battle, it's time to do a quick review on Surly Drunk!

Dive deep into the card’s strengths, weaknesses, and optimal strategies. When does this card shine? Where does it struggle?

Surly Drunk's strengths are pretty clear. It's a 1 mana card and is extremely useful for low mana fights or even in mid mana fights (like this one above) where you want to spend a great amount of mana on your tank. Also, the Opportunity ability is one of the best abilities to have for damage hitters because it's the most efficient way or getting rid of cards on the board. You can see how strong Common cards such as Deeplurker are with that Opportunity hit. And finally, because it's a Fire card, it pairs so well with Tarsa, essentially doubling its damage (unless you are unlucky to meet with an opposing Disintegrator like my battle above).

I personally don't think there are much weaknesses because for a 1 mana card, the stats are definitely good enough. But it would struggle if someone had Opportunity attackers because 2 HP can be easily hunted out. The consolation is that it's just 1 mana card. And of course, it has no use for big mana matches, which means it's more important for players in the lower leagues were low mana battles are more common.

How are you using it in your lineup?

You definitely need to hide Surly Drunk in the lineup. No tank, No last card. Ideally maybe the 3rd or 4th card, so that it can dish out the Opportunity hits to clean up for the team safely.

So that's all I have! What are your takeaways from this battle? Feel free to comment below, as I am always keen to learn and improve!

As always, thanks for reading and have a pleasant day ahead!

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