This week's Share Your Battle challenge features Grund! Grund is an Earth splinter monster that I love to use in battles - he is one of the hardest hitters in the game and a solid frontline monster. If he can stay in the battle for a while and get a couple of attacks off then he can certainly swing the tide of battle.
Grund is a fairly expensive monster to bring into battle, weighing in at a whooping 10 mana. Luckily, he has the stats to back it up - even just at level 1 (the level I'm working with today) he comes with a solid 3 attack and 3 speed, paired with a very reasonable 10 health. This by itself would already be pretty okay, but what pushes Grund over the top from "okay" to "great" is his ability - Grund also has the Double Strike ability, allowing him to attack two times per round. This bumps Grund's damage output up to a beastly 6 melee damage per turn, and ensures that any opponent who doesn't deal with him quickly is going to see their front line get chewed through in short order.
If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!
First up: the ruleset. This was a decent ruleset for Grund because we have a relatively large amount of mana to work with, the Earth splinter is allowed, and there aren't any anti-melee rules in effect. We do have our card selection constrained a bit by the Even Stevens and Lost Legendaries rulesets, but with Legendary and even cards both unavailable, this seems like a prime time to use our even costed epic card of choice!
When you aren't really sure what your opponent will be choosing for the fight, Quix is often a solid choice. His speed debuff will nearly always come in handy, and both the Earth and Death splinters often use ranged monsters. This gives us a fairly good chance that both of Quix's abilities will be relevant in this game - but even if they aren't, just one wouldn't be so bad either.
We have quite a bit of mana to work with for this battle, so a lot of it will be spend on the primary and secondary tanks. Leading off the lineup is our guest star of the week - Grund! Grund hits like a truck, and will be putting plenty of pressure on my opponent's tanks. Arkemis is a solid secondary tank with plenty of health, and will be giving my team some bonus armor on top of that. The armor will be welcome on Grund, as every bit of extra bulk increases Grund's chances of getting off additional attacks.
The middle of my team had the support. Hunter Jarx hits hard, and with 6 health can kind of stand in as a tertiary (or, "oh no!") tank. Goblin Psychic is an amazing support monster - pushing out a respectable amount of magic damage and keeping the front monster healed up with Tank Heal.
My team was closed out with some more damage - Suidae Shaman only hits every other round but thanks to Recharge it'll be for 6 magic damage, which will hopefully be enough for a knockout blow. Rune Crafter comes with a surprising amount of durability for a ranged monster, and can pitch in some additional ranged attacks.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am hopeful - my opponent has brought plenty of ranged attackers into the fight and it looks like our selection of Quix has paid off. On the other hand, Djinn Chwala's Thorns means Grund will be taking double thorns damage each turn, and there is plenty of beef on my opponent's front line.
In the first round of battle things start off slowly - both frontline tanks take heavy damage and look like they may be about to go down.
Round 2 has a great sequence of attacks for me - Grund is able to strike twice and heavily weaken the opposing Djinn Chwala before dying, which then allows Arkemis to land the finishing blow. Hunter Jarx is also able to knock out my opponent's Supply Runner, and Suidae Shaman's first attack of the fight is enough to nearly take down the Mycelic Infantry in a single blow!
By the beginning of round 4 the battle was nearly decided. My mostly intact team was still standing, facing off against my opponent's lineup which had lost all of its tanks and the bulk of its damage output. One last series of attacks was able to seal the deal by the end of the round. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
My strategy for this battle played out perfectly - Quix's summoner ability blunted the bulk of my opponent's attacks, while my mixed damage lineup was able to take out the enemy monsters one by one. Grund was only able to stay in the battle for a couple of rounds, but his heavy damage output played a crucial role in providing enough burst damage to take the opposing Djinn Chwala out of the fight and pave the way for the rest of my monsters. Grund is one of my favorite Earth monsters, and one that will certainly have a place in my battles in the future!
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:
Splinterlands Economics: Bonds - An overview of bonds, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
Splinterlands Economics: Confirmation Bias - An introduction to the concept of confirmation bias, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
All Armored Up - Using Nerissa Tridawn in Battle! - Last week's battle challenge, featuring Nerissa Tridawn!
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All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.