This week the Splinterlands Challenge of the Week choose to showcase one of my favorite cards:

Crystal Jaguar 👊 👊 👊

I'm writing this post on the new 1UP front end, a cool looking project from @flauwy. You can read all about it here. As experienced players probably know by now, and new players are still learning most cards in this game can be THE BEST CARD 💪 in certain rulesets. Splinterlands is a well balanced game with a lot of card diversity. The reason I love this card so much is because is probably the best tank in little league ruleset and low mana fights for the life splinter in bronze/silver/gold level witch are the ranks I usually stay in. At lv 4 Crystal Jaguar gains the "Thorns" ability witch is really good to have in a tank. For those who are new to the game the Thorns ability reflects 2 damage back to the melee attacker. Thorns is usually used in the frontlines or the backlines of teams to avoid a sneaking monster to be able to kill our entire backline.

The thing that makes Crystal Jaguar so special is that is a 4 mana card witch is great to fit in any little league ruleset or low mana fight. Even at bronze level where Crystal Jaguar won´t have the Thorns ability the card is great for the sheer stats it possesses. At lv 3 Crystal Jaguar probably has the best raw stats of any little league tank for the life splinter: 1 damage, 3 speed, 1 armor and 6 life. The only weakness for Crystal Jaguar is Magic. A well placed magic team can rip through your Crystal Jaguar like butter since it has no defenses of any kind for it. Good news is that life splinter doesn't have a lot of magic attackers at little league so you are probably safe most of the time.

Now lets review our Fight of the week!

* Ruleset: 21 mana. Super Sneak. No magic. Our thought process going into the fight was simple. Like I stated above in the Super Sneak ruleset at low mana is when Crystal Jaguar will shine. First we choose our summoner. Tyrus was the best choice in this case since a legendary summoner would consume a lot of mana and Tyrus provided our units with 1 point of armor witch is really useful when the enemy uses torns. To be honest I didn't expect the enemy to use Mylor at this level but with super sneak ruleset I always expect some kind of thorns in the enemy team. Lorna shrine would have also worked. After choosing our summoner it was time to choose our units. In low mana fights is always better to try to choose a lot of low mana units. This time I picked Pelacor Conjurer as our main tank since is 2 low mana cost allows us to get more damage. As an off tank I picked Cocatrice that despite being lv 1 has pretty good stats as a flying unit. For damage dealers I went with a mix of ranged (Peacebringer) and melee units (cave slug). This is always the best path when building a team, you need diversity to avoid the enemy countering you. The ooze was just a filler since I had 1 mana left to spare. Last but not least we choose the Jaguar for the last spot.

------------ This is how things looked heading into the fight:

At first glance we might think "oh no, we are in trouble". The enemy we are facing is not dumb and he chose Mylor for a reason. Mylor is really good in the super sneak ruleset. All my melee units will hurt themselves after every attack. We choose a different route. We choose Crystal Jaguar. The reason why we picked him in this particular fight is that this is a 21 mana fight witch is considered a low mana fight. We could have chosen other stronger tanks for the backline like Shieldbearer or Chain Golem but those are 8 mana units and we wouldn't have much damage left in the rest of our units.

As you can see in the fight Crystal Jaguar performed his job perfectly. He protected our backline from each of Rexxies attacks while injuring him at the same time. The mistake our opponent made was choosing 2 strong high cost mana units and this is why Crystal Jaguar was so important in this fight. At the cost of only 4 mana we were able to almost take down his main threat while at the same time we were able to protect our damage dealers. Also Choosing Tyrus was a safe bet, +1 to armor is really useful in the no magic ruleset. You know it will have some kind of impact!

************************** ************************** -------- # Final thoughts: Crystal Jaguar. Is the card worth getting? Of course it is!! You wont find a better low mana cost tank card in the life splinter and at lv 9 you will add retaliate to his abilities Add a heading.jpg

I think this untamed card is a must have for every player and it will be very good in the future. Add a heading.jpg

If you are not playing splinterlands yet and want to try out the game, if you sign up using my referral link and make a comment in this post or tag me in one of yours I will give you a free rare card to get you started!!