Elven Rider
Here we have the unusual Elven Rider – unusual because he looks more like a Dwarf than he does an Elf.

The Elven Rider is a fairly sturdy card, with 4HP, and 2 Attack Power using the ‘Lancer’ Attack Pattern. This makes him very good at clearing out weaker enemy creatures and striking without fear of Counter Attacks.
The Rider comes with a very interesting choice, however. Placing him on a Wood Field will give him a very respectable 6HP, making him tough to kill. Placing him on a Non-Wood Field however, means that when your enemy destroys the Rider, he will have to discard cards from his hand equal to the number of Wood Fields on the board (2 in most cases). There are a number of ways you can exploit this ability.

Using Fieldquakes to bring all 4 Wood Fields into play will mean that destroying the Rider means your opponent will have to discard 4 cards instead of 2. If you have Green Erlking Zomba on one of those Wood Fields as well, that 4 is increased to 5. In most cases, that will be your opponents entire hand, or close to it, leaving them in a very sticky situation. This becomes even more useful if you have more than 1 Elven Rider in play and it will seriously make your opponent sweat trying to break out of Check.

As with most cards, the Elven Rider has a couple of minor issues. With a Summoning Cost of 4, it might seem a little expensive for a card whose ability doesn’t kick in until they die. Depending on your ability to maximise the number of cards your opponent has to discard, this is a valid concern. Additionally, while its Lancer Attack Pattern can be very potent, it also leaves you open to attacking your own cards during a counter – the AI is very good at exploiting these situations to break out of Check, so be mindful of where you place your Rider and any cards near by.

Dealing with an enemy Elven Rider safely can be tricky, and in most cases will end up being very expensive for you. There are a few options.
1 – Trying to remove all of the Wood Fields from play before you destroy it will make sure you don’t have to discard any cards upon its death, although this will likely end up costing you a lot of Mana, as well as the cards you play flipping those Fields.
2 – Fieldquaking or Exchanging the Riders field to a Wood field will nullify its ability altogether, but will also give it 2 extra HP, which means you will likely have to spend more Mana/Turns to destroy it.
3 – Destroy it before your opponent has a chance to get any more Wood Fields on the board. This will ultimately end up costing you cards, although if you’re lucky, you can minimise the number by acting quickly. If your opponent has Zomba on the board, try taking him out first if possible.

Ultimately, the best option is simply to leave the thing alone. Try and neutralise it by using a Beguiling Fog, or a Bewitching Elf Archeress, to make it face the edge of the board so that it can’t attack, and just leave it be. Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible, and in those situations, all you can do is grit your teeth and pay the cost.

The Elven Rider is a nice card as it can throw your enemy off – they either completely ignore it, which means you have a creature your enemy is too afraid to destroy, or they kill it and pay what will hopefully be a pretty heavy price. However, if cards which need to be dead before they kick in aren’t your thing, you should consider using either the slightly cheaper Partmole Flame Guard, or the slight more expensive Taurus Monolith, both good, solid Lancer cards.

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Posted by Fartwinky on Fri, 14th Dec 2007, at 04:03
the card isnt for me but thats ccuz its not useful to my deck but i fear this card in a discard/fieldquake deck. In that kind of deck just flip to show 3 green fields and then he makes you discard 3 and will help as that kind of deck would also prbly have at least 1 winds of juno to do 3 dmg.
Posted by Alex on Fri, 14th Dec 2007, at 10:48
I always doubt about this card. Sometimes it's in my deck, sometimes not. At this moment it is. Sure it's a useful card, but it's too expensive and it doesnot avoid your allies. But it powerful and that your opponent loses cards is very cool.
Posted by drackmire on Mon, 17th Dec 2007, at 02:49
It's very good to run one of this card in the deck. Often your opponent will forget about it's discard penalty when it dies. Putting it in the bottom or top left corner is the ideal location for this guy. He hits two squares for 2 damage, which is not bad for 4 mana. I'd recommend one in a deck which focuses on discard, but not more than that.
Posted by Pessimism on Tue, 18th Dec 2007, at 17:12
drackmire, have you tried making a discard deck? There are a few options, but trust me, to get it flow is quite annoying! That was my focus initally, however I found that (at least, playing against the PS3) it tends to avoid things like Leapfrog Bandit, and when it finally DOES kill them, it has a 7-card hand which tends to reduce the effectivness.... also, was running 2 of these in there, and trying to find the mana to actually get them out was...well, frustrating due to mana costs. They are sturdy cards on a wood field though- consider playing them on wood, then field-quaking later in game, as this gives you a little more control over their effect- especially if the opposite is an earth field....
Posted by krisfairholm on Fri, 4th Jan 2008, at 22:35
What a card, I love this card, often use away from a wood field so when destroyed opponent has to discard a few cards in there hand, and so often does the opportunity occur I find to finish as 2 enemies in one move with this card, a real invaluable asset I feel to my deck I would not go without.
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