Mar Toren Trader AI Art by Night Cafe Studio
Mar Toren Trader
Mar Toren Trader is a common Rebellion reward card that can be bought from the Glint shop. At level 1, she is just a so-so unit that you will probably use to fill empty slots if you don't have better cards to use. At 3 mana, there are better cards than her in the Water Splinter like the Pelacor Bandit, Merdaali Guardian or Angelic Mandarin to name a few. At level 4 she gets the Headwinds ability. Now this ability allows her to "Reduce ranged attacks of all enemy units by 1". Being a ranged unit herself, she is now a great unit to use in one particular ruleset--Going the Distance.
Going the Distance Ruleset
Only allows ranged units to be summoned in battle. In this ruleset, the Mar Toren Trader shines in the backline. She deals 2 ranged damage while decreasing the enemy attack. It's optimal to place her in the back so that her ability will be in effect as long as she is in battle.
Teams
In Going the Distance ruleset, I often use her with Quix the Devious who also decreases the enemy's ranged attack. If Quix is not available then Kelya will be a great summoner for her. Kelya provides her with an armor and extra speed which the Mar Toren Trader lacks in her stats. Other cards to use with her are Zyvax Vuul and Drybone Raider which both have the Close Range ability. For the Water Splinter, the Wavebrood is a great ranged unit with Close Range ability. Others that can synergize well with her are Gargoya Devil and Swamp Spitter.
For Little League ruleset, the Water team has a lot of good ranged units like Kulu Swimhunter, Merdhampir, Igor Darkspear and Angelic Mandarin.
Sample Battles
Battle 1
In this battle, my opponent has Ilthain as summoner. He gives the Return Fire ability to all his units which is a great ability in this battle. He also has a level 2 legendary Gladiator card Tatiana Blayde as well as Drybone Raider. In the back he has the Supply Runner giving his team additional speed complementing the speed also provided by Ilthain. Completing his team is the Pelacor Arbalest who is a great damage dealer because of his Double Strike ability.
My team was composed of Zyvax Vuul who is a great tank in these battles. I also have the Drybone Barbarian, Gargoya Devil and Edith Emberstar who deals 5 ranged damage.
My opponent has the stronger team and summoner in this battle but his ranged attacks was decreased by 2 because of Quix and Mar Toren Trader. His Tatiana Blayde was also taken out quickly so her power was not a factor in this battle. With the greatest threat gone, I easily won the battle.
Battle 2
In addition to Going the Distance, the ruleset in this battle is also Little League which gives the players very limited choices. For one, there are not many units with 4 mana or less that has the Close Range ability in Modern.
I picked the Angelic Mandarin in first position but probably should have chosen the Venari Marksrat. My trumpcards in this battle are the Mar Toren Trader for her ability and Kulu Swimhunter for his 3 ranged damage. My strategy was to put the units with highest health first and hope that my damage dealers in the back do their job.
My opponent also picked the Water Splinter and has the better positioning as he placed the Venari Marksrat in front. On the other hand, he should have probably placed his Angelic Mandarin in second position because it only deals 1 damage and has high health to tank.
Like in the first battle, the decrease in his damage potential was a great help to my team. My opponent's team was eliminated quickly while mine was staying in battle longer.
Final Thoughts
It's important to have a lot of cards in Splinterlands. The rulesets limit the cards that we can play in battle so more cards means more choices that we can use. In the above review, we can see how a 3 mana card with Headwinds ability can be mundane in usual battles but become a keycard in some rulesets. That's why it's important to strengthen and increase the cards in our deck. The card that you ignore now can be important in the future.
Thank you for reading and have fun playing Splinterlands!
Image Credits
Cover image created by Night Cafe Studio.
Other images are from the Splinterlands game.