Undead Minotaur – Ruler of some rules (and possible investment)

in Splinterlands4 years ago

Dear @splinterlands fans in this article I would like to show sleeping powerhouse card:
Undead Minotaur

Undead Minotaur.png


On first glance Undead Minotaur’s stats are very low and his tankiness is mediocre at best.
But first glances are often deceiving so let’s have another look…

On second glance Undead Minotaur have very powerful innate ability – Double Strike.
It is one of the most powerful abilities in game, but there is still low attack stat
and only mediocre durability, it would be hard to get full value of this ability,
but there is potential, so let’s delve deeper.

Now we start seeing something completely differently…

Silvershield Assassin is well known and rightfully feared card and under right
circumstances Undead Minotaur fill same role, but 1 mana cheaper.

That is complete madness. Do we need stars to align some crazy way to make this happen?
Not at all, we only need rule that allows Undead Minotaur attack from other than
first position.
Any Melee Mayhem or Super Sneak will do and they are very common.

This makes Undead Minotaur not only ok-ish card, but actual powerhouse
still undiscovered by many players.

Undead Minotaur’s most important power spike is level 4 where he gets +1 attack.
Other major power spikes are at level 6, where he gets retaliate ability (but also -1 health)
and level 9 where he gets additional +1 attack.

hive_divider.jpg

Let’s get into match analysis, its ranked match from low gold at start of season

Minotaurrules.jpg


Relatively simple, yet very interesting ruleset, from spying we suspect that opponent will
probably play life splinter
and we expect shielded tank in front, maybe even two.
We also expect some armor on opponent’s monsters.

Due to this we have 2 main options on what our plan should be.

We can build magic based composition and try to neutralize impact of armor.
This have good surprise value if used sparingly, but it is quite risky plan.

More common and safer approach, which will be our choice here is to build
composition that will brute force its way
through opponent’s defenses.

We will be almost certainly facing at least one monster with Shield ability
(physical damage reduction 1->0, 2->1, 3->2, 4->2, 5->3, …) so small creatures
with 1 attack lose quite a lot of value
. Another think we must take into account
is that even single point of armor stops any amount of non-piercing physical
damage for a turn, so very large monsters also lose a bit of value.

hive_divider.jpg




Perfect summoner for this match.

+1 to melee damage is amazing buff in almost every Melee Mayhem match and when we plan to play Double
Strike
monster(s) it takes this to whole new level.
We will gain a lot of damage potential from her.

Positive effects are in general stronger than negative
ones, because if we buff our melee attack we
will benefit from it every game,
while debuffing opponent’s melee attack might
miss in case he makes magic based composition.





We need strong tank in front to take focused fire.

Chain Golem with his high durability
and Shield fits this perfectly.

Void provides decent defense against surprise
magic compositions and native 3 attack means
he will be able to dish out damage to monsters
with shield even if we get attack debuffed.





Secondary tank for just 2 mana.

3 health and 2 armor means very high durability
in this weight category and problem with having
just 1 melee damage is largely mitigated by our summoner’s buff, which can turn our small
creatures into dangerous damage
dealers if it is not contested.





Speed is very important and this monster
debuffs opponent for just 1 mana.

1 attack and +1 buff from Daria even allows it
to deal damage to shielded tanks.

Crazy amount of value for 1 mana.
Very fragile though so we place in safe spot.




Superstar of our composition.

If everything works as we hope he will be able
to deal 4 damage per turn to shielded tank.

That’s more than most mana expensive creatures do.
And way more than what’s common around his mana cost.

He is also decently durable, so he will not
die to counterattacks or thorns
easily.
And all this for just 6 mana.





Our sniper with mission to kill opponent’s support units.
Most notably truthspeakers and armorsmiths.

Slow, but enough attack to shred armor in
one hit and kill with second.

It will be good versus composition with 2 tanks,
otherwise quite mediocre.





We don’t expect much from Undead Archer
in most situations, but he is great contingency
plan
if opponent use melee attack debuff.

In that case Affliction ability is highly valuable,
because our damage to shielded tanks would
drop to just 4 per turn so we need a way
to stop possible healing.

hive_divider.jpg

here is link to battle.


Plan worked well, Undead Minotaur went on rampage and opponent’s frontline
was decimated so fast
that I am starting to feel sorry for his monsters.

I haven’t been using Undead Minotaur before, but that changed and he is now my staple
monster for Melee Mayhem and Super Sneak with death splinter.
Can’t believe I missed such powerhouse for so long.

hive_divider.jpg

I actually strongly believe he is interesting investment opportunity too.
I bought 1633 BCX + 10 GF BCX for $21.014, that’s actually every card at
$0.012 or lower and every GF at $0.452 or lower.

Can’t believe they were selling for just a bit above burn value.
Still quite a lot available at $0.013/$0.47

Here are some Undead Minotaur investment facts:

All 400k BCX was already printed, there will be no more of them ever.
118,694 BCX was burned, that leaves 281,306 BCX in existence.

Burn Value is 15 DEC/BCX on regular ones and 750 DEC/BCX on gold foils.
That means 31,995 DEC worst case scenario (everyone will think
I am crazy for beating them with Undead Minotaur over and over
again and dump every single copy or some nonsense like this),
which is guaranteed $31.995 in upcoming land presale
(in which I wanna participate) so risk is pretty low.
Any regular one purchased under $0.015/BCX or any GF purchased under $0.75/BCX
actually guarantees profit for people who want to participate in upcoming land
presale, only risk is not profiting more from other investment.


GF to regular price ratio is high so regular one might appreciate faster if I am right and
card proves to be good. GFs on other hand have stronger safety net.


Downside might be close to non-existent rental market for this card (yet?)
so for passive income there are better opportunities atm.


My goal with this investment? After keeping one maxed (+possibly getting GF one maxed too)
sell about half of the rest around 3x and second half around 5x, it may change.


Disclaimer: not an investment advice + as hodler I obviously profit from pump.

Thank you for reading and good luck in @splinterlands

hive_divider.jpg

images owned by splinterlands, divider made by overkillcoin_jr

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