Full card Analysis: Fliandar

Okay, so while there are the featured weekly danians, I'm also gonna start doing full card analysis', for the more complex cards that have a bit more depth in them and need more focus than what they get in the danian of the week articles. This week, its one of the two danians who have been dominating my mind. I really want to make a deck around them. For now, I'll just show you one, Fliandar.



So this guy is the Rise of the Oligarch Ultra Rare Danian. This really is a "Full card analysis" as I'll be covering every aspect of this guy, formatted like so:
1: Stats
2: Elements
3: Energy
4: Mugic ability
5: Ability
6: Rarity
7: Subtypes
8: Flavour text
9: Cardart

Yes, I'm even gonna review the art.. I know it seems like a lot but some of it will probably only be one sentence or two.. So let's get started with the first full card analysis!

1) Stats: 85 Courage, 45 Power, 75 Wisdom, 35 Speed. High courage, typical of the danian tribe, and high wisdom, also useful, probably the danian secondary discipline. Attacks like directed bravery and Charge of the Brave are perfect for Fliandar.

2) Elements: Earth and water, staple elements for the danian tribe, he fits with almost any danian attack deck. Cards like swarming destruction and Ice Disks are perfect for fliandar.

Discipline/element crossover attacks like Deluge of Doom and Geyser gush are also must-haves for fliandar decks.
So far it's a typical danian. From here on is where fliandar distincts himself.

3) Energy: An average of 60. Pretty beefy energy all in all, coupled with an evergreen tunic and it can soar to spectacular heights.

4) Mugic Ability: One mugic counter. Not bad, it makes him very balanced. Two elements, two strong stats, high energy and a mugic. The mugic can give him an edge by letting him bring a simple one cost such as song of symmetry or unisong.

5) Ability: Here's where Fliandar really sets himself apart. Uninfect 3 Infected Creatures: Activate Hive and heal all damage to fliandar. There are quite a few levels to the depth of this ability, so let's take it in small steps. Uninfecting 3 creatures. This might seem pricey, but when you think about it, with current cards like a brainwashed tabaal, illexia, topar and ode to obscurity, infecting three is really pretty easy. Since tabaal's brainwashed ability is "Sacrifice a Mandiblor: Infect 3 creatures", for all intents and purposes it becomes "Sacrifice a mandiblor, heal all damage to fliandar and activate hive." This is definitely worth it, sacrificing a mandiblor who can't fight to heal your deck's main supporter, in full, is monstrously good.
Also note, if you are facing another infection army using, say, nimmei, you can uninfect the creatures they infected to heal fliandar and bring down nimmei's ability. Just another useful bit.

Second, let's look at the commonly overlooked part of his ability: Activate Hive. Fliandar himself doesn't use hive, so this is rarely implemented. But use a card like stingblade or unisong with it, and you have yourself an awesome combo.

Finally, heal all damage to fliandar. No other card just yet can heal "All Damage" to a creature indefinitely. So let's say Fliandar has 65 scanned energy, he's equipped with an evergreen tunic and the location is doors of the deepmines. That's 95 energy. Fliandar is brought down to 5 energy. You have nine creatures infected. Heal him to full, that's a 90 energy heal. You can do this three times.
All in all, that's a 270 energy heal. While it was done in an idyllic situation, which you won't have all the time, it's still pretty serious stuff. That's the equivalent of over 5 husk armours.
So you can see how devastating an ability Fliandar has. If used right, it can be an absolute game-changer.

6) Rarity: Definitely deserves ultra rare. Why you ask? Did you not just see the "270 energy heal?" That is reason enough in my ever humble opinion.

7) Subtypes: Danian creature squadleader. Pity, he's not a mandiblor so can't benefit from compost. Still, who needs compost when you can heal like that? Also note that he isn't loyal or unique. If you are lucky enough to be able to get two, Do.

8) Flavour Text: "Part Squadleader, part Parasite, all Danian." Gotta love this flavour text. Fills you with danian pride.. xD So we can see his a Squadleader who not only uses parasites, but is actually bonded with them, interesting. So maybe fliandar isn't a "he", but a "them".

9) Cardart: I'm gonna post the full art. I dunno if blogger will downsize it enough to make the difference barely noticeable, but oh well.

Clickify for full art.


Eh, I guess it's a bit better than what you can make out on the card. Seeing it like this lets you see more detail though, sucha s his eyes and the massive bull-horn like mandibles he has. It's currently my desktop wallpaper.. xD But this art is really awesome, and it inspired me to actually analyze the art too. Props to Khary Randolph. So he has 8 limbs - Your typical mandiblor has 6, four legs, two arms, but some nobles, controllers and squadleaders have another set of arms. Fliandar here is one of them, but his arms are actually a bunch of parasites. It makes me think of how ants work together with "swarm intelligence" to make a ladder out of ants or something to bridge a gap. He draws power from the parasites.. He's like a giant symbiote. Plus, we can see him owning two guys simultaneously with his supreme bugginess. Hence I really like this guys art.

So there you have it, the first full card analysis. Some cards to remember that go well with Fliandar:

• Unisong
• Evergreen Tunic
• Stingblade
• Tabaal + Deep Dirge
• Ode to Obscurity

And that's that. Expect another assimilated article, branching out and danian of the week before we get another full card analysis.

Adapting to your enemies!

So by now, in the metagame, each tribe has a very defined role.
Overworld has it's defensive qualities. Heal the energy, up the disciplines, give the elements. Overworld is all about being constructive - They win the battle by pumping up your creatures instead of bringing down their creatures.

Underworld is the destructive side of things. Where Overworld gives elements, underworld removes them. Where Mipedians manipulates battlegear, Underworld destroys it. Stat and energy destruction helps the Underworld - Instead of making up for their own flaws, such as exhaust and recklessness, they just give their enemies bigger problems to worry about. Their abilities are the opposite of overworld - Intimidate brings down your opponent whilst support brings up your skills. These are outdated examples, but look at Maxxor PoP and Chaor TF - Maxxor is all about making himself hit back harder with a good defense, and Chaor, with fire 10, is all about making monster attacks.

Mipedians are quite unique in that they control the game. With cards like notes of neverwhere, melody of mirage, melodic might, they can control your attack deck, locations, your opponents attacks.. Most of all though, is their supreme battlegear control. Gear glissando, Disarming Theme, Armament Adagio, Tune of Xerium... They can use invisibility to shut down your opponents gear with disarm, or gain initiative with surprise, and manipulate attack damage with strike. Not to mention air is the "control" element. Look at sirocco, ravanaugh ridge, tornado tackle, aerodrone, etc., and they even control the battleboard positioning with things like switch riff and vigorous gust Mipedians are most comparable with the overworld, both of whom share "control"-esque strategies, such as garv, viqtarr, rhyme of the reckless and lomma.

=====================================

So I don't want to bore you with a massive article, and I don't want to go on and on about the other tribes. How do danians work? First thing that comes to mind is teamwork, the individual working for the group. But how does it show in the actual gameplay? Danians are about adapting to your opponents. Look at some DoP cards, which are some of the most telling cards there are. Danians have hardly any jumpers or swift-users in the tribe, so they adapt to their weaknesses with song of surprisal. But how else do we do it?

Elementproof

Ahh, Katharaz. The guy revolutionised Danian Elementalists. But what's important here is his elementproof. Elementproof is pulled off the best by danians, and it's because we can adapt to our opponent's strengths (their elements) and use it to our advantage. It started off simple (with cards like kelvedran, song of resilience, HammerDoom Assimilated) but even in modern sets there are great examples of elementproof users (klencka, aureban, tarbok, lobanne)

Illexia

Illexia is an amazing card, for a bunch of reasons, but for fear of being side tracked, I'm going to stick to her first ability. "Adjacent creatures gain "Defender.""
The reason this is so good, is because danians are very resource-dependent. Our muges can be integral to the whole game, and leaving them unguarded is chaotic suicide. Sad, but true, our decks can often (but not necessarily always) have this as a main weakness. Illexia gives all adjacent creatures defender, meaning your nimmei or katharaz can step in instead of your lobanne. This is, again, adapting to a weakness and making it a strength.

Infecting

Infecting creatures - How is this adapting to your opponents? Simple. If you are outnumbered, outgeared, outmugiced and outdone in every seemingly possible way, how do you fight back? You take your opponents creatures and turn them into resources for your creatures. Taking opponents and using them for your own benefit couldn't be more danian.

And finally..

Compost

So you are losing a battle bad, half your creatures are in the discard pile and you have one little mandiblor left. How do you turn this situation around? You tap into the power of the fallen - You use your opponents victories to defeat them. Talk about using their skills against them, huh?

So this is an article on the nature of danian gameplay. Use your opponent's strengths against them, and you'll be in sync with the hive! Sorry it was so long, but I wanted to write this for a while.

~Mandible

A very late Danian of the Week: Makrabon!

This week is a favourite of mine! Makrabon!



Makrabon

A common controller from Silent Sands, makrabon is like a reversed form of tabaal. Instead of spending a mugic to infect, he gains a mugic to infect. Makrabon is sorta like the poor man's Illexia, when you think about it. He can gain lots of counters with cards like Strain of Infection, and you benefit from it. He and strain of infection are a deadly combo. Infectious melody and tabaal infects four cards, uninfect three and Makrabon gains 3, and then you reinfect them. Then sacrifice a balladeer's flute, and use Rao'Pa Sahkk Chimegrid, or Dibanni, or Inner flood... The possibilities are endless and you can have mass infection in no time. He is a great partner to Illexia. Either you can let him activate hive and allow Illexia's counters to be used for your mandiblor count, or use Elna for hive, keep Makrabon for mugic like adaptive progression or choral of the apparition, and use Illexia for the mandiblor count. I'm currently running a pretty sweet infection deck using the latter combination, and he works a treat.

So here's to Makrabon, he's versatile, he's deadly, and best of all he's just a common! Hats off to one of the best controllers out there, and most controllers are to do with infecting (Dubin, Yondaf, Makrabon) so this guy is no exception.

My Blog

Please check out my blog.

Fight for the Hive and Thrive!

Check out the tourny!

Check out the tourny held by Kerberos' blog Chaotic Campaigns! Take part and do your best. I'm going to try my hand in it, so I hope to see you there :D

http://chaoticcampaigns.blogspot.com/2009/08/ccampaigns-tournament-join-fight.html

Assimilated Articles: Kolmo

Time for the second Assimilated Article! Kolmo!


C|75
P|70
W|30
S|60
E|60

Kolmo is the second Assimilated creature to be featured in Silent Sands, and he fills the "scout" role of the Assimilates. First off, he is a mandiblor, like all of the Assimilates, which makes him handy for hive decks right away. Second, he is the only danian to have invisibility. Surprise is good, granting him immediate Initiative in any location against a non-invisible foe, and his second ability is a reverse of the old kolmo's power. Where the old one got strike 20 against danian nobles, This one has strike 20 against Mipedian Royals. So most royals have invisibility themselves, which means it is negated instead of him gaining strike 20. This guy is great for shutting down cards like Iflar the Crown Prince, and when he goes up against cards like Owayki or Marquis Darini, he gets the strike. All in all, these two abilities are pretty sweet.
However, since he is a scout more or less, the mipedian version had range and swift 1, I believe, but not many danians have that jumper ability. Daj Huun is one of the few that comes to mind. Since danians have a better muge lineup than a scout lineup, he got this relocate ability for one mugic. It's awesome that he has a counter which you can use for mugic, but if there is a spot next to their muges, let him jump over there in a heart beat. The great thing is he can still move from that spot, so it's a lot like being able to move twice in one turn. However, as far as I know, that ability is still bugged in the pad...
After that, we can see he has the Earth element, which is always useful, and it goes great with what is almost his signature gear, the DoomHammer. If you can't get Hammerdoom, this guy works just fine with it, adding earth 5 to his earth. Lastly, he has killer stats. Mine has max courage and max energy, which is probably why I like this dude so much. Going as high as 85 courage, 80 power, 40 wisdom, 70 speed and 65 energy if all are maxxed, this guy is a force to be reckoned with. One of the first real, solid combatants that the danians were graced with, and remains useful today. Some great match-ups with him are Enlightened Tenacity, DoomHammer, Or the stingblade, Oipont's lookout and thundershout. A truly solid fighter for the danians, and the second installment of Assimilated Articles

Danian of the Week: Yondaf

So it's Wednesday again, which means another danian of the week!


C|50
P|35
W|65
S|20
E|30

If you saw ReiHaku's video on the deck of the month for February, you'd see his Fliandar deck, using Yondaf. In the video, he mentioned Armament Adagio - An awesome mugic for Yondaf, because it's two infection for one counter, which is almost impossible to do any other way. Yondaf himself has a counter, so right there you can do two things at once - Burn and infect. Now most danian mugic either targets your own creature (Like song of mandiblor, draining dirge, unisong) or doesn't target any creature specifically at all (katharaz's composition) but some old favourites like Song of Symmetry can be really effective. Gain 10, deal 10, infect. It's all about doing two things at once with Yondaf. If you are packing a heptadd's crown, or if you are in a mixed deck, it can be handy to use other tribal mugic, like rhyme of the reckless (which targets a creature and an attack) or canon of casualty.
Also, Yondaf has two elements, including one (fire) which is not all too popular in the danian tribe, so he would go well in a mixed deck, with cards like loderool, kamangareth UA, and Vunhra. However with low stats and a minimum of thirty energy, he's clearly not a combatant.

So that was this week's Danian! Yondaf, the infectious controller!

Branching out, Yterio

Assimilated articles is a series of articles that will only have three posts to it, of course, but this is a new set called "Branching out" which I told you about in the "What's Coming" article. Branching out is all about helping players who aren't using pure decks to cope in the camaraderie of mixed armies, without relying on those old favourites we danian players have come to depend on so much. Nimmei, Hiadrom, Illexia, Swarming Destruction, and so many others. This is all about other cards who can be used well with danians, so let's begin. And no, I won't just be naming off the forged unity cards like majjcan and kamangareth. I'll try to give some creative ideas of mine :)

Yterio,



Stats:
C|80
P|60
W|40
S|50
E|55

This guy happens to be my favourite mipedian, and he can work great in Danian decks, since he is a fairly high end super (from the second latest set) and not loyal. A great guy to pair him with is Gorram. You can get air 5 whenever you feel like it, instead of waiting for your opponent to go after him. And of course, negate an attack while your at it. Imagine your creature can't survive another attack, and might not beat the opponent in another turn. Well sac this guy, stop the attack, and power up your next move for a guaranteed K.O Plus, he has a counter, so use melody of mirage and get rid of two attacks for the price of one creature! Or even three, with a Mipedian Balladeer's flute! He goes great with other danian negation like Adaptive Progression. My personal favourite combination is sacrificing his flute, then using Iflar's Improv. Strike 30, and he can stop an attack, and in a gorram army, give your creatures air 5. Now that's definitely worth it :)

Hats off to Yterio, the mipedian Turn of the Tide Super Rare!

And sorry to those who were expecting a second Assimilated Article. It's coming soon, but I'm trying to space them out!

Assimilated Articles: Raznus

C:50 P:20 W:75 S:30 E: 50

I'm starting a series of articles, each one revolving around an assimilated creature, since they are so very popular. Raznus here is the "muge" role of the assimilates.
Once the Overworld ambassador to the danians, Raznus was, ahem, "persuaded" to join the danian tribe in Zenith of the Hive, when infection came out. By the time Silent Sands was in stores, Raznus was a card-carrying, mandibled, bugged-up danian.

But enough of the aesthetics, let's start the review. First of all, like all of the assimilates, he is a mandiblor, which is really handy. Second, he has the water element, which is very popular - also good, although his stats mean he isn't really prime for battle. Wisdom is his only advantage, whereas most danians prefer to rely on courage. His mugic counter is nice, but the most notable thing about this guy, of course, is his ability.

The danian answer to song of shelter. A universal song of shelter, in fact, if you have a pure danian deck. I think he might appreciate in value with mipedian balladeer's flute today. A great muge if used right, and the first of the Assimilates to be reviewed!

Random info: I pulled both the old raznus and the new one and still have them in physcial! :D

Danian of the week

Alright, this week, it's Ode to Obscurity




Now, I know it's not a creature, but if you read the last "What's Coming" I was planning to do an article on this anyway, and figured I could make it a danian of the week and hit two dractyls with one pebblestorm :P
Anyway, this is one of the most versatile infection mugics I can think of. First off, I love my infection :D In any shape or form, if it assimilates, I like it. I'm glad they brought this card in, as it makes up for the lurch that's left when you try infection in a mixed army. Mixed army infection, for the benefit of cards like Vunhra, often means you need to cut out one of the typical infectors, such as Tabaal. Right there, that's an easy two infection gone. So I assume Ode to Obscurity was made to make up for this gap, and boy am I grateful. But Mixed Armies aren't it's only use. Of course, you could use general's standard or northrange to act like you have non danians, but I don't like that idea. It seems unfair, like we are taking all the benefits from forged unity without actually filling our part of the bargain and mixing the tribes. But even so, let's look at the good this card can do in pure danian decks.

• A one cost, one infection mugic. Sometimes you want to infect just one creature, not two, and since Infectious Melody has to be a cost of two, you may not want (or be able to) go the extra mile. Melody of Infectious Mayhem works, but that's only when they are engaged, so cards like Wamma Hive Ordnance won't work. So with this, you can spend one, infect one.
• A third infectious melody. Run out of room for infection? Don't want to use Tabaal instead of a somewhat meatier creature with two MC? You can use this as a third infectious melody if need demands it.

And of course, in mixed decks, it's a two-fer. Spend one, infect two. Spend two, infect four. Spend 3, infect your entire opposition! If you want to really go mad, max out and spend all 6 (if your mixed deck includes a fluidmorpher) and infect every creature on the board! An incredibly valuable card for infection.

If you read this and other articles, please don't forget to comment ;^)

Rate out of 10!
Mine is a good ol' 8/10 for it's pure awesomeness!

What's coming!

Hi everyone!
Just a small post to show you what's coming up in DanianHall

• An article on all of the assimilated creatures and their uses
• Articles on "top 5 ways to activate hive" and "top 5 ways to infect"
• An Article on the Ode to Obscurity Mugic and how versatile it is.
• Branching out - Non danians that work well with current danians.

So now you have some insight on what's coming up.. Keep checking back! :D

~Assimilated
And proud!