A gaping hole lined with razor sharp teeth, where a mouth was supposed to be, greeted the sailor. Before he could scream out in shock, that same hole had severed the sailor's head from his body. 🦞⛈️🌊
Imagine if our delicious prawns, lobsters and similar crustacean seafood delights weren't as helpless as they were. Imagine them armed with a huge mouth lined with razor sharp teeth. I don't think we'd be as willing to fish or farm them for food any longer. No one would risk being mauled each time they handled such a creature. 😰
The theme of this week's Share Your Battle Challenge - I give you the CRUEL SETHROPOD! 🦞⛈️🌊
Sailors tell many tales of the dangers of the Cruel Sethropods. Armed with strong pincers and teeth as sharp as spears, they attack anything that gets within range. It is nearly impossible to remove a Cruel Sethropod once it has latched on, and many a sailor has the scars to show where they ventured too close.
🦞⛈️🌊From Splinterlands Lore on CRUEL SETHROPOD🦞⛈️🌊
The Cruel Sethropod is a Common card released during the Chaos Legion expansion. It has definitely found it's place in many Water decks given its availability and usefulness. At LEVEL 1, it has 1 ⚔️ATTACK⚔️ and 1 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 3 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 4 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has NO abilities. It's summoning cost is also on the lower range at just 3 🧪MANA🧪.
These stats alone make the Cruel Sethropod a relatively tough unit which also deals decent damage to boot. Unfortunately, it is rather slow though, so misses are expected. But it's main purpose is really to get in a few hits and be able to take some hits too. If the rulesets or mana limitations call for it, it would make a fantastic Main Tank too!
The Cruel Sethropod's true strength lies in it's overall cost effectiveness. Even though it has no abilities (even when fully upgraded), it is a really cheap casting cost card that has above average stats. What it loses in abilities, it has gained in cost efficiency. This could make all the difference if the battle comes down to the wire where the slightest advantage is the fine line between victory or defeat! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
The release of Chaos Legion has given the Water splinter a really unique card in the Cruel Sethropod. This is a card that it lives and dies purely on its raw stats. No other melee card is quite this even when fully upgraded to level 10. The closest card similar in stats and cost would be the Spineback Turtle, and yet this is only at level 1. The gap between them grows as they level up, with the Cruel Sethropod forgoing abilities for improved stats. This ensures that the Cruel Sethropod will definitely have it's own place here in all Water decks. This is definitely what I'd consider game changing! 😱😱😱
📊Card Stats by Level📊
As we can see here, the main purpose of the Cruel Sethropod is to be what I would call a "Stat Stick". Every level improves it's stats all the way to level 10. Now, it may seem that these stats are nothing overpowered and that may be true. However, we must remember that because it only costs a mere 3 mana, it is a REALLY CHEAP card to field in your deck! In any lower mana limits scenario, it beats out just about every other card pound for pound. There will definitely be plenty of situations whereby you'll end up with just a few more mana lying around to fill up that one last slot, and that is where the Cruel Sethropod will come in handy too. It's casting cost combined with its stats really make this a most fearsome unit with a perfect mix of offense and defense.
Personally, I bought the Gold Foil Version of the Cruel Sethropod which costs about a dollar. Since it's a common in the Chaos Legion which is still in print, it's really affordable compared to the Spineback Turtle (which is an Alpha/Beta card that costs in the hundreds!!! 💸💸💸). That makes it level 3 instantly which gives it's attack a bump to 2, making it really decent for a 3 mana unit, with good damage and tanking stats.
📝Important Rulesets Rundown📝
Here, I detail the list of combat rulesets that may affect the Cruel Sethropod.
| 🤔💭✅❌🤔💭❓❓❓ | ||
|---|---|---|
|
👍🏻 It's attack will never miss | |
|
👍🏻 Gives itself more protection. Always good, especially for a unit whose purpose is to take hits. | |
|
👍🏻 Loses all it's abilities. But that doesn't really affect it since it has none to beegin with. | |
|
👍🏻 Ranged units can't be used. | |
|
N.A. Ranged units can attack from the front. | |
|
👎🏻 will be able to last longer than most cards with it's health/armor though. | |
|
👍🏻 It should be able to benefit easily since it doesn't really have that high HP compared to the "expensive" mana cost cards. | |
|
👍🏻 Able to lend it's attack from any slot. | |
|
👎🏻 Even summoning cost | |
|
👎🏻 Unlikely to dodge any attack with it's low speed, thus the unit next to it will almost definitely take Blast damage. | |
|
N.A | |
|
N.A | |
|
Situational. Could add more damage if the opponent's front unit is stunned | |
|
👍🏻 Improve it's own survivability | |
|
👎🏻 Melee units are affected. | |
|
👍🏻 Only units which cost 4 or less mana can be used. | |
|
👍🏻 Only common cards can be used. | |
|
👍🏻 Magic units cannot be used | |
|
👍🏻 Gives melee the positional attack advantage enjoyed by ranged/magic | |
|
👎🏻 Will die to poison. | |
|
👍🏻 Only odd summoning cost units can be used. | |
|
👍🏻 It's slow speed makes it fast | |
|
👍🏻 Only common/rare cards can be used. | |
|
👍🏻 Doesn't really depend on Summoner abilities | |
|
👍🏻 Enrage works out well for units who can take a few hits | |
|
N.A | |
|
👍🏻 All units abilities stay intact | |
|
👍🏻 Allows melee to attack even if it's not in the first slot. | |
|
👍🏻 It is NOT a Neutral unit. | |
|
N.A. All ranged/magic units have the Snipe ability. | |
|
👎🏻 Loses all it's armor. | |
|
👍🏻 Only Melee units can be used | |
|
N.A. |
⚔️🛡My Battle Showcase🛡⚔️
Let me present a battle I fought recently in which I used the Cruel Sethropod. My opponent used the FIRE splinter while I went for the WATER splinter. 🔥💧
At first glance, it would seem like my opponent had quite an advantage over me.
He had a Gold Foil Legendary Grum Flameblade! 🤯😱😵
Grum is the only card in the game thus far outside of Gladius that has BLOODLUST.
I fielded Gold Foil Commons in this "Gold Foil ONLY" Fray for my Guild Brawl and met an opponent who had a Legendary card instead.
We could say that it was a $1 card VS a $100+ card! 😱 That's how much more expensive a Legendary card is!
Clearly, in terms of card rarity and card strength, I was completely out matched 😜🤣. Would I be able to turn the tide of battle against such an opponent then? Victory or defeat would lie in the small details.
I would say that the Cruel Sethropod was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. It did what it was supposed to do by tanking and holding it's ground (as impossible as that might have seemed, having to face the juggernaut that we know as Grum) right at the forefront of the battlefield! All the while chipping off at the opponent bit by bit. This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆
LINK TO FIGHT WITH MY CRUEL SETHROPOD
👯♀️👯👯♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯♀️👯👯♂️
1st CARD SLOT
The Cruel Sethropod takes the role of the Main Tank in the first slot here. It will be the most important role since the backline will fall if the Main Tank goes.
2nd CARD SLOT
The Flying Squid fills this slot. It's role is to deal damage from this position with it's REACH. Should the main tank fall, it will pick up the task of tanking.
3rd CARD SLOT
The Scavo Hireling fills this last slot for my team. It's job is to hopefully repair my Tank's armor so that it can last the entire battle. Putting it back here also keeps it safe.
⚔️🛡Battle Action Report🛡⚔️
As you can see, both of us fielded very different decks from different splinters.
🔥 FIRE 🔥 VS 💧 WATER 💧
My opponent used Grum Flameblade as his main tank in the first slot which is an AMAZING choice, given how suitable he is as a tank. His Radiated Scorcher and Chaos Agent rounded off the rest of his team. They were most likely just placed in there to fill up the extra bit of mana left over for this ruleset.
My choice of the Main Tank was the Cruel Sethropod in the first slot, followed by the Flying Squid in the second. The Flying Squid would be my backup tank and Reach DPS. The 3rd and final slot was occupied by my Scavo Hireling whose job is to help my Cruel Sethropod survive longer.
The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was a pretty low mana ruleset with just 17 mana as the limit. Whilst I chose to spread out my mana costs with 3 common cards, the opponent chose a monster of a Legendary in Grum Flameblade.
The first wave surprisingly ended up with none of my units dying. Given how much damange Grum deals, I had expected some casualties.
This is where my team started to get a huge advantage. My Scavo Hireling kept repairing my Cruel Sethropod's armor. Even though Grum deals so much damage, none of it will reduce my HP if even 1 armor is left there to absorb the full force of the melee attack.
The second round ended up with the opponent's Grum slowly taking more damage and being unable to make any headway into damaging my Cruel Sethropod.
By the end of the third round, the opponent's Grum had fallen without even managing to damage my Cruel Sethropod past it's armor.
It was all over in the fourth and final round as the Radiated Scorcher and Chaos Agent easily went down as they were basically 1 hit KO cannon fodder.
Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the Cruel Sethropod to absorb a hit or 2 from the monstrous Grum Flameblade before dying. Yet it did more than that and lasted through the entire battle by absorbing every single attack with it's constantly repaired armor thanks to the Scavo Hireling. It even dealt out a decent amount of damage on it's own. The battle ended up being a perfect battle with NONE of my units even suffering the slightest scratch! Surely that made it the Man of the Match for this battle, punching way above it's weight!
Well as you can see here in this GIF of my battle, the results were pretty good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
This was truly an eye opener! 😁🏆
Slowly, but surely, I wore down the opponent's team and the match was won handily with ALL of my units still left standing. It was a PERFECT VICTORY! My team selection proved to be the edge I needed to eventually overpower my opponent. 💪🏻
🔮🔮🔮Hindsight is 20/20🔮🔮🔮
Would I have done anything differently? 🤔 This might have seemed like a match that would prove to be a challenge at the start because of the opponent's superior Legendary card as compared to my Commons. However, with my PERFECT VICTORY with ZERO casualties, IF I had to use the same cards again, there would be no better lineup than what I had already used for the match. Any other combination MIGHT have resulted in a loss for me. I'm really satisfied with the results against such a worthy opponent. 🏆🥇
💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭
I definitely can appreciate the Cruel Sethropod and it's strengths. This is one of those cards which are very strong if surrounded with the proper team. The role it brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻
For any players looking to try out the Cruel Sethropod, I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉
To any new players who wish to explore the world of Splinterlands, do feel free to sign up with my REFERRAL LINK 😊.
I am also a member of the SPLINTERLANDS PIZZA guild and the PIZZA community.
PIZZA is an active gaming and creative arts crypto community on the HIVE blockchain. Popular games on HIVE like SPLINTERLANDS, RISING STAR, EXODE, HASHKINGS, WOO, BANG!DEFENSE have their own PIZZA communities here.
Don't miss out more events that are always being organised. Join the PIZZA DISCORD. Even if you aren't interested in the 💰🍕🎁GIVEAWAYS & AIRDROPS💰🍕🎁, there is a vibrant and friendly community there awaiting you.
