Commander Slade is one of those units that feel scary the first time you face him. He stand in front like a wall and move like a blade. With high speed, thick armor and heavy melee damage, he look like a boss more than a normal monster. Many players use him despite of the high mana cost because in real matches he often become the core of a winning line. When battles turn into long fights, Commander Slade slowly take control of the field. This unit fit well in games where you need a strong tank that can also deal damage. He is not just a tank and not just a damage dealer. He is a combination off both that punish enemy for trying to fight him head on. Every round he weaken enemies, dodge hits and deal damage back from every miss. When built around correctly, Commander Slade force your opponent to play uncomfortable lines.

Stats

• Commander Slade is a front-line unit that mix tank power with strong damage. With 5 melee attack, 6 speed, 7 armor and 10 health, he can both hit hard and stay alive for many rounds. He excel at wearing enemies down over time, not by one big strike but by making every trade bad for the enemy. Enfeeble reduce enemy melee attack, Dodge and Backfire punish misses, and Deflect protect him from reflect kind of abilities. This make him very strong against melee and range attacks. He work best with Archons that boost speed or armor and with support units that heal or repair him. Pair him with a healer or a repair unit and he become a moving fortress that still cut through front lines. Commander Slade is both an attacker and a tank that can slowly win the battle for you.

Abilities

Enfeeble: Each successful attack reduces the defender's melee attack by 1.
This ability lower the melee attack of all enemy units. It is very strong against melee heavy teams. Since Commander Slade can dodge a lot of attacks, Enfeeble stack value over many rounds. Each miss mean Commander Slade survives longer being able to use Enfeeble more making him more impactful as the fight go on.

Dodge: Has a 25% chance of evading melee or ranged attacks.
Dodge work perfectly with Commander Slade's high speed. Many melee and ranged units will miss their attacks often. Every miss save his armor and health and also trigger other abilities that he have. If this happened a lot, this turns him into a nightmare for your enemies especially with slow units.

Deflect: This Unit doesn't take damage from Blast, Magic Reflect, Thorns, or Return fire.
Deflect stops reflected damage like Thorns from hurting him. This is important because it could unnecessarily lower the health or armor of this unit. Commander Slade can keep attacking without fear of any reflected damage. However, it does not stop Retaliate, Execute or abilities that is considered as an attack but it removes one of the biggest risks for melee attackers, Thorns.

Backfire: If an enemy misses this Unit with an attack, the attacker takes 2 damage.
Backfire punish enemies when they miss. Combined with Dodge and high speed, this deal free damage without even swinging. Against units with low speed or units with status like Blind, Backfire can slowly kill them. It can turn defense into offense and make every failed hit hurt.

Battle

Link to battle

In this battle, even though Commander Slade wasn't at max level, he is still very tanky for the enemies that doesn't have big damage except for Saltwraith Bulwark. The catch though is that Saltwraith Bulwark is a melee unit so not only his attack gets decreased by Commander Slade's Enfeeble for every attack, he also has good armor and Dodge to protect himself against his attacks. Commander Slade also has very high speed. This makes him attack first before anyone else. This means he can reduce the enemy's attack first before they can act. These compounding advantages from Commander Slade made him look tankier than he is and allowed him to live until Round 3, Turn 8 of 17. This isn't before my team took out 2 out of 6 of their units and 2 more of them are in the red while my units are all fully healthy. With this overwhelming advantage, I was able to handle the win with grace.

Images were taken from Splinterlands, made in Canva, drawn in Krita and animated in Photoshop.

Support me by joining Splinterlands using my referral code.