In most of the games that I end up playing in the Gold/Diamond tiers... pretty much everyone has a pretty nasty tank at the front. Most often, it is the Lord Arianthus card, with damage mitigation and damage return as well. So, if you can't go through the front way... perhaps the smart way is to aim at more squishy parts of the enemy line-up... with either the Sneak or Opportunity skills that some monsters have.

In this post, I'm going to talk a bit about the Opprtunity skill which is a nasty little skill which allows monsters to target the weakest member of the enemy team. Combined with some speed and perhaps a damage boost of some sort, you will be coring out the squishy support monsters in no time at all... leaving a very isolated tank with no support feeling very very alone against your army!

Now, the Opportunity monsters are in general glass cannons, they hit decently and tend to be on the fast side... but they have very low health. Which leads me to my favourite Opportunity monsters, the Screeching Vulture.

A common level card, the a decently leveled (level 6) Screeching Vulture is the definition of the Opportunity bully. Fast and decently hard hitting and only costing a measly 3 mana, when paired with the regular Beta Earth Summoner the Screeching Vulture gains that ever so valuable extra health point to survive that little bit longer. Plus, it also has the Flying ability which gives t extra survivability (to try and dodge attacks) as well as immunity from Earthquake battle conditions.

However, the real killer skill is when the Screeching Vulture gains the Scavenger ability... to pick up an extra health point every time a monsters dies (on either team). So, a monster that picks on the weakest member of the enemy team and gets stronger every time someone kicks the bucket? This the personification of the concept of a BULLY!

I love it!.... but I'm actually quite a nice guy in real life!

A great support monsters that enables the nastiness of the Screeching Vulture is the decidedly un-cute Brownie. At only an single extra mana point, you are giving the Screeching Vulture a boost to both damage and speed... so, making an already formidable bully faster AND stronger! What is there NOT to like? It does come at the cost of a card position though, so you do need to weigh up whether or not you are best using that position slot for a monster that is more of direct influence on your battle ability instead of this support monster.

Of course, as mentioned before, Opportunity monsters are glass cannons. They tend to have very low health.... and the bane of the Opportunity based tactics is this Enchanted Defender. At only 1 health, it is the first choice target of the Opportunity monsters, and with the Thorns... they will just impale and kill themselves. However, this is a 4 mana monster that chews up a position slot (possibly doubling as a rear guard for the Sneak attacks)... and as a melee monster, that also means that it isn't directly contributing to the fight either... so, playing this Enchanted Defender is a gamble that the enemy team IS going to try a sneaky tactic.

That said, the Screeching Vulture does have that extra point of health from the Earth Summoner... which means that the first attack against the Enchanted Defender won't kill it.... and hopefully, the Scavenger ability will allow it to pick up enough health to survive a second and third attack. So, the Screeching Vulture is able to survive an Enchanted Defender... but it is also wasting it's attacks on the high armour of the monster, and not doing it's job of taking out squishy supports.

Anyway, I thought I would post a photo of the Screeching Vulture and Brownie combo in action... the top bullying combo!... and to top off the punching down tone of the Opportunity ability, my Level 3-8 cards are pitted against a noob Level 1 team!

SLAUGHTER!

Splinterlands (aka the best blockchain game out there!)

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