Arka Sodara

 is a heavy unit attacker and blocker  with prompt.

Strategy
With its impressive stats and unique costs,  is a powerful unit that requires preparation to buy and use effectively. Although costing only gold, its blue and red costs and a hefty 7 attack for one turn prevent it from being bought in the early game. Unlike some other large units, the low gold cost and prompt ability make relatively easy to buy and defend comfortably on the same turn. Players should still account for the tech cost, since those red and blue resources won't be available to buy other defense, though much cheaper than 2 Walls and a Rhino.

Arka Sodara has the interesting property of strongly countering itself if you go for it first and your opponent can also build it, as they can then deny you absorb on 's first turn easily by building it too. Let's illustrate that with an example:
 * 1) You and your opponent both have 7 constant damage
 * 2) You go for  on your turn, resulting in no damage going to your opponent
 * 3) Your opponent builds . Your Prompt  is ready to absorb up to, and yet it receives none.
 * 4) Both you and your opponent start absorbing on  for full, but your opponent got it from their 's first turn and you didn't.

As a result, the only way to avoid this issue is to wait for your opponent to get to roughly, so even if your opponent substracts 7 to their attack, you still get to absorb 6 on your prompt. Again, this is only a concern if they have the required tech to build and at least. If you get it and the opponent cannot immediately get it afterward, you can deny their absorb while still getting absorb of your own, making it an incredibly powerful play.

Although is a strong attacker, it is usually better to leave it on defense, because if you attack with it you ultimately break even on value since you gain 4 attack and lose 4 absorb but you lose out on tempo because you have to buy 7 more defense right now and the opponent doesn't have to buy their 4 defense until half a turn later. Even if you have another absorber bigger than Wall such as Infusion Grid it is usually better to defend with Arka (Energy Matrix is big enough that it's probably better to attack with Arka). The only hard exception is if your other absorber is one that must be kept alive at all costs such as Centurion.

Change log

 * February 19th, 2015
 * Added to the game.