Chaos Knight ~ Splinterlands Share Your Battle Challenge

This week's Splinterlands Share Your Battle marks the fifth Chaos Legion card featured in the challenge. Out of the previous four Chaos monsters, I was particularly impressed with three of them. None were initially eye-catching, but I discovered their true strength once I got to know them deeper through the battle challenges. This week's Chaos Knight seems basic at first glance, but will this be another Chaos Legion hidden gem?

Featured Card: Chaos Knight

Chaos Knight is a Life Splinter melee monster. Its primary skill is Shield which halves damage from both melee and ranged attacks.

The Giant Killer skill is unlocked at level 5. It deals double damage on monsters with a ten mana or up cost, but since there are only 15 monsters like that out of hundreds, the skill doesn't seem that useful. The melee attack buff skill, Inspire, that's unlocked at level 9 is far more appealing.

I'll be renting Chaos Knight at level 5, the maximum level allowed for common monsters in the Silver league. I'm not really after its level 5's Giant Killer skill, but since the rental price is so cheap at 0.687 DEC a day, I decided to go with it.

Battle Prep: Melee Mayhem

Melee Mayhem, is a good match to a monster with Shield ability. The ruleset allows melee monsters to attack from any position, so using more generally stronger melee monsters becomes compelling. The Chaos Knight's Shield becomes much more relevant in this situation. The skill may also nullify any splash damage from Explosive Weaponry. I got two of this type ready for battle.

Boosting armor is also a good move if an upcoming battle has a high probability of having more physical attacks. I'll be using Tyrus Paladium as the summoner for its armor buff (and because I really have no other choice as it's my only leveled Life Splinter summoner). Defender of Truth will also pitch in by boosting everyone's armor by two points.*

Since it's a melee monster fest, Silvershield Knight's Inspire will be incredibly handy. It would have been epic if Chaos Knight unlocks its Inspire skill at earlier levels, so I'd get a +2 melee attack buff. But alas, Chaos Knight only gets it at level 9 in the Diamond League and above.

The universally useful, Creeping Ooze, also joins to fill up that one mana left available from the pool.

The Battle: Staunch Defenders Prevail

The opponent's team has a strong team composition. It's solid, but I'm wondering why they didn't utilize the Melee Mayhem ruleset much by adding more melee monsters. Anyway, that's good news for me.

Check out the live battle here.

After all the buffs and debuffs were activated, I got my two tankers' armor up by six points. The investment in armor really paid off in this battle since my opponent doesn't have a single magic attacker.

My team is surviving well in the first round since the opponent had to go through thick armor before dealing any damage. Pirate Captain sniped a hit on my feeble Creeping Ooze and dealt damage to two adjacent monsters, but Chaos Knight fully nullified the splash hit. Round 1 ended with my opponent losing its main tanker, Sea Monster.

With its sturdiest defender out of the way, more monsters from the enemy team were eliminated by round 2. My opponent is down to their last monster, but most of my team is still in full health. Silvershield Knight dealt the final blow to the disarmed Pirate Captain and finished the battle in round 3.

Bonus Battle: Exposing a Weakness

Chaos Knight performed great in the previous battle; the rulesets really worked in its favor. But a few battles later, I had a chance to face Chaos Knight on the other side of the field. That battle uncovered a possible fatal flaw in the card.

I'm using Malric Inferno from the Fire Splinter this time. The magic monster, Goblin Shaman is quite vicious, imposing a double debuff on all enemy monsters. Its Weaken skill revealed how fragile Chaos Knight could be.

Check out the live battle here.

Chaos Knight will start the battle with a very vulnerable three health points. It had decent armor, but the Flame Imp and Goblin Shaman duo would 100% knock it out in the first round. While it's true that Chaos Knight's health is especially low in this battle since it's only at level 1, it really doesn't get much higher. Its health peaks at 6 points and lingers on 5 several levels in between. I realize the card won't be a good primary tanker as it could get easily eliminated by magic attacks.

To End

Is Chaos Knight a good card to play? Yes and no; the answer is highly dependent on the battle rulesets. It delivers on Equal Opportunity and Melee Mayhem where it can attack from any position. But in terms of being a tanker on the first position, as most basic melee monsters function as, it wouldn't do much tanking because of its low health.

Is Chaos Knight better than older edition cards? No. The predecessor which resembles it the most, Silvershield Paladin, is a bit more reliable. Paladin has a lower mana cost and higher health which suits a tanker role better.

It can be argued that Paladin is a Rare monster while Chaos Knight is only Common, so a comparison may not be valid. But there are several new common-type Chaos Legion monsters that rival and, sometimes, even outshine their older counterparts. This isn't the case for Chaos Knight.