Introduction

Hey fellow summoners,

This week's challenge is about the Phantasm! The Phantasm is one of the newly released reward cards and it has a lot of potential in my opinion as a cheap tank for the death team. Before the death team's mid-mana tanks consisted of mainly haunted spirit but ever since that went out of print, it has become less affordable to new players so I congratulate the Splinterlands team on making a more affordable substitute.

Card Levels

A first glance at the Phantasm's stats makes it already seem impressive but let's dive even further shall we? The Phantasm's attack of 2 starts off mediocre and doesn't get much strong after leveling it up and at level 4, its attack stops increasing. It has and ever increasing health and at max level it has an enormous health of 10! It also has a high speed of 6 making it super useful in evading enemy attacks. Coupled with its flying ability, the high speed means a lot of misses for the enemy. Return fire and retaliate are also super useful stats that the Phantasm boasts and will probably prove very useful once you level it up.

Ruleset

The ruleset was super sneak and up close and personal. That means all but 1 of my opponents monsters will be attacking my backling and that means that I will need a sturdy backline. The mana cap isn't very high but it isn't too low either. I think I can make do with this.

Battle Analysis

You can follow the battle here: https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=9c42159141d309ee3653273d578185360a82b014

Summoners and Monsters

Daria Dragonscale

Since the only monsters that are allowed in this battle are melee monsters, I want to chose a summoner that will buff the attack of all my monsters. Daria fits the bill perfectly and in addition for 1 mana, I can access the helpful dragon splinters to help me win my battle!

Phantasm

The monster of the week gets to be up front in this battle. People tend to put a strong damage tank in first position so the flying ability along with its high speeds allow Phantasm to dodge any attacks that may come its way.

Corrupt Pegasus

Its reach ability is nulled in this ruleset but even so, I put it here to act as my second tank. I am also doing this so I could heal my Phantasm in case it takes any damage.

Mighty Dricken

I wanted something cheap that could do a lot of damage in this battle and Mighty Dricken fit the bill. With Daria's +1 melee effect, this 1 mana monster can now do 3 damage per attack!

Manticore

This will be my backline tank. I am hoping its flying ability will allow it to dodge some enemy attacks and its high health will prevent it from dying too quickly. It also does a lot of damage and its thorns ability will take out the low health monsters.

Furious Chicken

This will help absorb this first attack that the opponent monster makes allowing my manticore to survive a bit longer in order to deliver its attack.

Battle

Turn 1

It seems that my opponent is using lots of low mana cards in order to get the most from the buff and using the rest of the mana on the Chian golem tank. It is a good strategy but one weakness is that the monsters are very susceptible to thorns from my manticore.
The round starts as the Phantasm hits the Chain Golem and my monsters finishing off most of my opponent's backline. The thorns as I mentioned earlier did a lot to kill most of the monsters. My chicken was placed well as it absorbed an otherwise deadly hit from the cerberus. The Phantasm did its job and evaded the Chain Golem's attack. If I can keep the chain golem from destroying my tank, I can finish off my opponent;s backline and then focus on the Chain Golem.

Turn 2

I managed to destroy the Cerberus and do some damage to the Chain Golem. The Chain Golem again failed to hit my Phantasm.

Turn 3

A few more hits by my monsters and the Chain Golem falls. It is a victory for me.

Conclusion

I'd admit in this battle that Phantasm could be replaced with another tank like Haunted Spirit but as I mentioned before, new players my not have accesss to that kind of thing and the Phantasm did its job quite well in this battle. It also does quite a high amount of damage with the Daria boost so it can certainly be useful. My verdict on this monster is that though there are alternatives to this card, there are also alternatives to other cards and Phantasm is very good at its job as a tank. It should not be underestimated and fellow players should use it more often.

That is all from me today and as always, BATTLE ON!