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.