INTRODUCTION 🎮✨

Hello Splinterlands friends and family! 👋 Today, I want to talk about the latest change in the meta: the release of Tofu and the impact it has had on the game. 🌀
This post is part of the Splinterlands Social Media Challenge! you can participate as well by following that link!

Background:

So far, VENKA has been the most powerful unit released in the Rebellion set. 💪 Until very recently, we've seen VENKA in almost every battle where it was possible to include the unit. There were very few counters to it. Even the release of Cryptic helped consolidate its reign, making it even more powerful by being able to bypass Forcefield and Shield. 🛡️

One of my favorite options to deal with VENKA was using these guys:

These two were able to somehow deal with most VENKA lineups, but they were an unreliable option since the team would be strong against VENKA but weak against everything else. 😅 Still, it was one of the few options I had to counter such a powerful monster. 🐲

But... Tofu was released: 🍃

On August 21st, Tofu was released into the game, and everything changed: 🚀

In my opinion, Tofu arrived to completely disrupt the meta and nullify most VENKA teams. 🛑 There’s a lot of fuss against this card, mostly because people are spamming it in ranked battles whenever they get the chance. The funny thing is that people actually spam it because this unit is the best VENKA counter. 😂 As most people know by now, and the reason why the previous combo I mentioned was very successful against VENKA, is because of Thorns: 🌵

Thorns is the ultimate counter to VENKA, and being able to use it in most fights really removes VENKA from the top picks. 🎯 This summoner isn't just good because it has Thorns and can deal with VENKA, but also because of Corrosive Ward: 🛡️💧

Corrosive Ward is a great ability to deal with melee-armored units, and when you combine it with Thorns, it becomes even stronger because the battle system will apply Corrosive Shield first and remove the attacker’s shield before applying Thorns. This basically means that most of the time, a unit with 2 armor attacking another one with Thorns and Corrosive Shield will lose its armor and then take the damage! ⚔️ The way this mechanic works is insane! 🤯

Battle highlights: 🥊

I know this post is already getting quite long, but I couldn’t end it without at least sharing one fight proving what I’ve been talking about all this time. 📜 Honestly, it’s not so easy to find a fight of Tofu vs VENKA these days because people are already aware of the strengths of the new summoner, but I did manage to win one the other day: 🎉

I chose this fight because it really featured all the things I’ve been talking about. 📊 As you can see at first glance, this fight doesn’t look very good for my opponent. 😬 It’s actually quite an interesting fight to study because my opponent managed to remove almost all my armor, making my units kind of weak, while theirs had a ton of armor. 🛡️

The funny thing is that from turn 1, I started removing most of the armor of my melee enemies. 😎 As you guys know by now, Mantaroth is not really effective without armor, and as you can see in the clip, VENKA attacks, gets his armor removed, and dies for the second time in the fight. 💀 This is exactly what I meant earlier when I said Corrosive Ward was such a good ability. 💥

Is releasing such a powerful card good or bad for the game? 🤔

I guess this is the biggest IMO part of this post and probably the most controversial. ⚖️ There are a lot of people who will argue that introducing strong cards into the meta makes for boring gameplay. 💤 I disagree a little, but not completely. I wasn’t a fan of the Grimbardun Smith meta after Rebellion was released, and I wasn’t a fan of VENKA’s reign after that card was introduced to the game. 🚫 I think having cards that are overpowered compared to others can be really boring and bad for the balance of the game. ⚖️
I think in the case of VENKA, things got way worse because VENKA was really good and fit into most rulesets. Honestly, if the mana allowed it and there weren’t any Thorns, VENKA was generally the answer. 🧠
Tofu is really strong because it negates most melee units. This can be a lot, but Reflection Shield can be used to counter him. 🛡️ I really hope the last dragon summoner doesn’t give out Reflection Shield to units, as I think that would probably bring VENKA back to number one, making him impossible to deal with. 🐉


I know some people don’t like when the meta changes, but I think changes in the meta are healthy for every game. 🌟 It makes the game more dynamic and entertaining, keeping you on your toes most of the time. 🕹️ I do agree that having to buy the most meta stuff all the time can be quite expensive, but this is how things should be if we want to succeed as a game. 💰🎮

Conclusion: 🏁

At the end of the day, I really like the Tofu card. 🥳 I was even very lucky in the airdrop:

I had 6 guaranteed chances and got 12 cards. 🎴 Of those, one turned gold. 🥇 I can’t really complain about it, and I’m very happy I was this lucky. 😊 I already sold my GF card and maxed my copy. I’ll probably keep this guy for a long time. 💼


I hope you guys liked this post and find this kind of content entretaining. Ive been a gamer my entire life so I love discussing meta and battle strategies.

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