Arelai the Protector, the Anubis-guard looking Earth Hero is today’s subject.

Arelai is a good, solid little card. All of his stats are reasonable, if not exceptional, and his ability to attack in 2 directions, with no Blind Spot, means he has good offensive and defensive power. Both of these are boosted by his special abilities too.
If at least one of his targets is on an Earth Field, his attack is boosted to 3. Doing 3 Damage is enough to destroy most low-cost creatures without a Field Bonus, so doing that to 2 of your opponents creatures will throw him off his game a little. However, Arelai’s true strength comes in as a defensive card.

He automatically gets protection equal to the number of Earth Fields (2 in most cases) as soon as he is placed, regardless of what element his field is. Additionally, any of your other creatures on Earth Fields will get 1 Protection too. This means you have 2 options; place Arelai on an Earth Field himself, for the Field Bonus, giving him 5HP and 2 Protection and making him difficult to destroy, or placing him somewhere else and giving your other cards that protection bonus. Of course, if you don’t already have both Earth Fields occupied with your own cards, you might as well place him on an Earth Field, as any clever opponent will play take the any empty Earth Fields ASAP once you’ve played Arelai to the board.

Now, this 1 Protection bonus might now seem like a big deal, but it can very easily throw off your opponent’s entire game. Weaker cards such as Verzar Foot Soldier are suddenly a little trickier to remove, which means your opponent has to spend more Mana to kill them. And cards which might already have their own Protection, such as Novogus Golem or Stone Wing Dwarf suddenly become even harder to remove. And remember, Arelai only costs 3 Mana to Summon, so all of this is a great trade off.

Destroying an enemy Arelai can be tricky too, if he is placed on an Earth Field. 5HP with no Blind Spot can be very tricky, especially with the Protection he’s bound to have. The easiest (although perhaps not quickest) way to dispose of him is simply to bombard him with Magic Attacks. A few hits from a Partmole Fire Oracle, or a Aluhja Priestess with Clare Wil’s Banner will do the job, but failing that, you can simply use the brute force approach. Using a Dragon, or something like Pursuer of Saint Dhees, you can punch right through his Protection and his Field Bonus for a one hit kill under the right circumstances.
Another alternative, although a little more drastic, is to Fieldquake any Earth Fields, so that he loses all of his bonuses. With no Earth Fields on the board for him to hide behind, Arelai is little more than a standard grunt, quickly finished by most cards.

With the right card setup, you could also exploit his front-and-back attack pattern. If one of your creatures in front or behind an enemy Arelai has Invisibility, or enough Protection of their own to ignore his damage, and there is an enemy card on the other side of him, use that card to hit Arelai. This will cause his counter attack to damage his own card too, which might be enough to finish off weaker enemies. In a crunch, you could also do this to get yourself out of check even if your own card takes damage from the attack, but make sure it’s you’re only option before trying that.

All in all, Arelai the Protector definitely lives up to his name, and is a great card for a low cost. Shame you can only have 1 per deck.

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Trade for this card at the Eye of Judgment Card Manager

Nice little low-mana card. I pretty much overlooked until reading the BC review.

This card is my corner stone for a relatively small amount of mana. This card along with an earth fortress and an abomination and some healing showers and you have a team that is not easy to take down.

By far the only card i have had in ALL of my decks. him and 2 stone wings 2 g axe dfs and youve got a 5card sub strat attached to any deck. Too easy by far the best of the heroes.

YAY i can post again!

One correction, invisible creatures dont generate counterattacks. Other than that, great writeup and Aralai is definitely one of the coolest heroes around.

Oops, meant to say Perfect Dodge, not Invisbility. Well spotted.

I've been wondering which Hero is the best one to use, and i think i may be verging on this one too. Protection is such an under rated ability that forces everyone to use magic attack creatures.

I use an Earth deck and with lots of fieldquake cards I try to flip up three Earth fields as fast as I can, when that is done Arelai gets 3 in protection and an increased chance for Arelai special ability to kick in, to do one extra in damage as your opponent tries to take the earth fields and doing 4 damage if hitting a enemys blind spot, this takes out most enemies in a single hit and weakens thougher enemies, With the protection Arelai has and gives you can watch your opponents use alot of mana to summon creatures with magic attacks. Throw in a couple of healing showers to make it harder and Arelai is one of my favourites. 5/5

Icepick, you are making an amazing job over here! Congratulation for this great web site. Hope to see lot more spotlight soon! Alex from Spain

Wow. This card looks to have some great benefits, wish I had it. My earth deck is lacking. I have the phantom but hardly any other great earth cards.

This is one of the card spotlights I have been waiting for. Of all the cards I've seen in action, that I've used, this has proven time and again to be a beatstick. His low activation cost makes it easy to clear an entire row in 2 turns or less. Throw a Clare Wi on him, and you've hot a potential 10 damage on one turn. That and he has protection, which is just amazing. He's viable in almost every situation, except for perhaps a very wood heavy deck where you want to flip up that third wood field.

Oh what a great card..... Oh hello im new here! Anyway back on the subject. This is my main card and at a low mana cost of 3 it is a very good one. I tend to give it clair wills banner and kick ass!

This is a crazy card to compete against and causes massive problems only 2 real ways to kill him 1 is use a dragon they other is obviously magic attacks, if played against you use magic on this card whenever possible

Whoooohooooo! Arelai is MY card! Hi`s so amazing - damn! 5 of 5 stars

He is a great asset if your user a protection deck. Is he the best hero from set 1 i'm not sure.