Hi splinterfriends, welcome again to my post. This week the theme card is:
Cerberus
It’s not easy being a three-headed dog. The constant bickering, biting and slobbering are always a distraction, and the heads can rarely agree on anything. When summoned to battle, these giant dogs present a fury of claw, flame and fang that is difficult for any monster to get past.
This is a Beta edition card with the Heal ability at level 1 and Retaliate at level 5. Heal allows this monster to restore a portion of its health each turn, and Retaliation gives a * chance * to return a melee attack of an opponent with its own attack. I use this card often in the Bronze League as a tank in low mana battles. This time I give this card a rare use of being a second-position Shield for the other monsters, protecting them from some damage from the Blast ability.
Stats:
I don't own this card, but Cerberus is one of the base cards so it's free to use.
. . .
The Line-Up
Rules: Blast
Mana Cap: 25
Battle link:
💻Web Page 📱Mobile Web App
. . .
Summoner: Pyre
Pyre was discovered by the Torch on a research expedition into the heart of the Smoldering Forest. Once they deciphered his crude method of communication, they discovered that he was the last of a tribe of forest magicians, and that he possessed the full skills of a summoner, plus some tricks they had never seen. They took the boy and gave him a new life, summoning for the Torch in the Mount Mox tournaments.
Edition: Untamed
Rarity: Rare
Buff: +1 Speed
PeakMonsters
I choose this summoner to have a better chance of having my monsters attack first and dodge some attacks. With the Blast rule, I think this may be more important because if the monster can evade an attack, the ability does not activate avoiding damaging the other monsters.
First Position: Chain Golem
Level: 1
Edition: Untamed
Rarity: Legendary
Ability: Shield
Mana: 8
Speed: 2
Hearts: 7
Armor: 4
Melee: 3
PeakMonsters
The Chain Golem is my favorite tank. It's no exaggeration to say that it can win battles on its own. With a good amount of damage, hearts, and the Shield ability it can change the waves of the battle. Remembering that the Shield ability allow this monster to reduce the amount melee and ranged damage neutralizing those of 1 point, it's a shame that cannot protect its mates of blast damage but for that I have the next monster.
Second Position: Cerberus
Level: 1
Edition: Beta
Rarity: Rare
Ability: Heal
Mana: 4
Speed: 3
Hearts: 5
Melee: 2
PeakMonsters
I put the Cerberus in this position to absorb the blast damage with the Heal ability, so my next monster can last more, making more damage to my opponent. Restoring 2 hearts each turn can allow this monster to neutralize 2 points of damage that would have been for the monster in the third position.
Third Position: Mantoid
Level: 1
Edition: Untamed
Rarity: Common
Ability: Snipe
Mana: 6
Speed: 2
Hearts: 5
Ranged: 2
PeakMonsters
I chose the Mantoid for its health and the Snipe ability with which the Blast rule can damage up to three of my opponent's monsters, dealing 2 ranged attack points to the target and extending the other 2 to adjacent ones, 1 point each monster.
Fourth Position: Fire Beetle
Level: 1
Edition: Beta
Rarity: Common
Ability: Snipe
Mana: 3
Speed: 2
Hearts: 4
Ranged: 1
[PeakMonsters]((https://peakmonsters.com/market?card=Fire%20Beetle&edition=Beta&foil=)
Another sniper with the same objective of spreading damage between the back-lines of my enemies, with 4 hearts, is my hope that it will last some turns before disappearing into the nothing.
Fifth Position: Creeping Ooze
Level: 1
Edition: Reward
Rarity: Common
Ability: Slow
Mana: 1
Speed: 1
Hearts: 1
PeakMonsters
Following the speed focus, I chose this thing to slow my opponents the first turn and serve as a blast shield to my snipers.
Last Position: Furious Chicken
Level: 1
Edition: Reward
Rarity: Rare
Ability: None
Mana: 1
Speed: 1
Hearts: 1
PeakMonsters
The last position is for the meat shield, hopefully it will protect the Fire Beetle for one turn, serving as a shield to sneaks.
The Battle:
My opponent chose a better line-up, in my opinion, to confront me, however its appears that he/she only take one sniper and no sneaks to this combat, so my meat shield will survive more than one turn and my debuffer will slow his/her monsters more turns that I was expecting.
My opponent line-up is conform in order by:
Haunted Spirit (another monster with Heal),
Shadowy Presence (the blast shield),
Spirit Miner (damage dealer with the Dodge ability),
Haunted Spider (another damage dealer with low health),
Dark Ferryman (A damage dealer that for this battle will only serve as a blast dealer because of my tank) and finally
Twisted Jester (the only damage dealer that will do most of the damage to my monsters).
Round 1:
With the start of the round my summoner get up the speed of all my monsters and the opponent reduce the attack of my Chain Golem and my Cerberus, also the Slow ability of the Creeping Ooze reduce the speed of all the monsters of my opponent so 3 of his team have 1 point of speed and the 2 remaining have 2.
The first monster to move is my Mantoid, attacking the Shadowy Presence of my opponent and dealing blast damage to the Haunted Spirit and the Spirit Miner.
The second move is for my Fire Beetle that copy the attack of the Mantoid but let the Shadowy Presence with 1 ❤️ remaining.
Third move goes to the Chain Golem dealing damage to the Haunted Spirit AND killing the Shadowy Presence with a Blast.
Fourth move is claimed by the opponent Spirit Miner reducing the hearts of my Chain Golem to 5 and damaging my Cerberus in the process.
The fifth move is taken by the opponent's Twisted Jester reducing my Mantoid ❤️ to 3 and damaging my Cerberus and my Fire Beetle with the Blast Ability.
The Sixth monster to move is the opponent's Dark Ferryman failing to attack my Chain Golem so the Blast ability didn't trigger.
The seventh goes to the Haunted Spider of my opponent that reduce the armor of my tank in 2 points and damage my Cerberus so it has 2 ❤️ left.
The last monster to attack is the Haunted Spirit that make only 1 point of damage to my Chain Golem due to the Shield ability and damage my Cerberus that end the round with 1 ❤️ left.
Round 2:
The first move go now to my Cerberus that heals itself 2 ❤️ so it can start the round with 3 ❤️. Second move go to my Fire Beetle that attack the Spirit Miner and deal blast damage to the Haunted Spider(now only have 1 ❤️) and the Haunted Spirit. Third move is to my Mantoid but is missed due to the Dodge ability of the Spirit Miner. Fourth move is claimed by my Chain Golem that damage the opponent's Haunted Spirit and causes blast damage to the Spirit Miner. Fifth move is for the Spirit Miner that reduces the hearts of my Chain Golem so it has 3 ❤️remaining, and of course deal blast damage to the Cerberus. Sixth move go to the Twisted Jester that almost kill my Mantoid(1 ❤️) in the same time damaging the Cerberus (1 ❤️ left) and the Fire Beetle. Seventh move go to the Dark Ferryman though this time didn't miss, it also didn't reduce the armor of my tank (due to Shield) BUT manage to kill my Cerberus (goodbye my friend). The last move go to the Haunted Spider and the Haunted Spirit, but the Chain Golem manage to evade the two for the sake of the Mantoid. The Haunted spirit restores 2 ❤️ with Heal.
Round 3:
First to move is the Fire Beetle almost killing the Spirit Miner, reducing the ❤️ of the Haunted Spirit to 3 AND killing the Haunted Spider. Second move goes for the Mantoid, it kills the Spirit Miner, damage the Haunted Spirit (2 ❤️) and the Dark Ferryman with Blast. Third move is for the Chain Golem that kills the Haunted Spirit and damage the Dark Ferryman that now moves to the opponent's first position so it can't attack anymore. At this point, it's clear who will end up victorious. However, the Fourth and last move goes to the Twisted Jester killing my Mantoid and almost killing the Fire Beetle( 1 ❤️).
Round 4 and 5:
The first move goes again to my Fire Beetle reducing the ❤️ of the Twisted Jested to 3 and the Dark Ferryman to 2. Second move goes to the Chain Golem ending the life(?) of the Dark Ferryman and damaging the Twisters Jester so now have 2 ❤️ left, ending the round because it can't attack in the first position. Let me save words saying that the fifth round end with the Fire Beetle and the Chain Golem pulling the Twisted Jester out of its misery.
Results:
. . .
Conclusions About This Battle
Speed up my monsters... 🆗
Slow the opponents... 🆗
Spread Blast damage with snipers... 🆗
Absorb Blast damage with Heal... 🆗
Miss some attacks avoiding Blast... 🆗
It's good when your strategy works. Although if the attack of some of the opponents did not fail, I would have ended up with fewer monsters, or even losing the Battle. Also a snitch or opportunist on my opponent's team would have wrecked the overall strategy.
About The Cerberus
I use this card as a tank in low mana battles, mostly when I can't put the Serpentine Soldier (it has Shield and cost 5 mana). Other times I like to use its Heal ability to absorb damage for other monsters. Even if my main focus is on the Water, Death and Dragon splinters, I would like to rent this card at level 4 (3⚔️,7❤️,4👟) o 5 to my Fire Splinter, at that point I think it will make a wonderfull tank and a cheap Blast shield 🙂.
About Me ☻
It's the end of another season, I got to Silver I before my rentals expired, so now I'm stuck in Bronze 1, even if I'm thinking of renting the same cards again, I'll probably wait until next season to do so. On another topic, here in Bronze I it seems difficult to get up because the battles do not give you enough points, I mean, losing 3 times makes me go down from 1862 to 1754, and winning the next 5 in a streak only raised it to 1768, so 🙃 . .
Thanks for reading, until next time!
If you are not still playing Splinterlands, You should start is using my referral link below:
https://splinterlands.com?ref=cerlant