Its that time of the week again and this week's theme is the haunted spider. First off, lets talk stats.
At 3 mana with 2 attack, the spider is a cost efficient ranged attacker if you don't mind how slow it is. It's death's only 3 mana unit that does 2 dmg in the starter set but it'll always be one of the last ones to act unless its in the reverse speed ruleset and is kind of fragile at lvl 1, making it kind of a glass cannon.
However, where it really shines is at lvl 4 where it gains poison. A flat 2 damage each turn that goes through armor helps alot for weakening strong frontline tanks like robo-dragon knight.
But for me, the main reason I use it is it doesn't have snipe. This might sound odd, but a lot of death's starter cards have abilities like snipe, opportunity, and sneak. None of them target the front line if they have a valid target elsewhere. Having something that cheap that you can easily slot into your team and, you know, actually goes for the front line is important, and the spider is just as valuable when you need something weak near the front to protect the rest of your stronger back line.
But enough talk. lets move on to the battle.
Battle Lineup
This battle is 29 mana and was done on my alt account. If you want to see it yourself, here is the link.
My Lineup
Haunted Spirit - Death's premiere tank. Self healing, 2 attack, and very hard to kill. what's not to love?
Death Elemental - Snipe cannon fodder. Its the weakest unit in my line up but its still a magic unit and any damage counts.
Dark Astronomer - My second snipe defence unit. This one has 4 hp and can usually survive around of attack from snipe units.
Haunted Spider - My final 3 units are my actual 'damage dealers'. I'm not expecting them to get killed unless my first 3 are already dead. Reason why I put haunted spider 4th instead of 3rd is that its too fragile. Astronomer going third at least gives a chance for both of them to attack.
Twisted Jester - Amazing snipe card. When possible run this card as it can, and will, win you games.
Mantoid - Strong neutral snipe card. It also has 5 hp, making it a decent backline tank against sneak.
While I had the damage advantage, life is ridiculously tanky, making it kind of even.
Round 1
Round 1 went as well as you'd expect. My Death Elemental died as expected, but it fulfilled its role. Meanwhile my other units continue to chip away at the shieldbearer's health and can outdamage its healing.
Round 2
Shieldbearer goes down, but now the harder hitting clay golem comes into play. From here on out, my damage is split beween the clay golem and lone boatman due to snipe.
Astronomer takes a hit from the boatman but lives, allowing both it and the spider to attack.
This is where the speed of astronomer and the spider becomes an issue: neither of them are faster than the boatman, so next round the astronomer is guarenteed to die.
Meanwhile, my haunted spirit is getting dangerously low on hp.
Round 3
Round 3 ends at basically the same spot. The clay golem thankfully missed, otherwise the haunted spirit would be at 1hp and die at the beginning of next turn.
The boatman is guarenteed to die to the jester before it can attack so the only danger left is the peacebringer and the clay golem, which is slowly being whittled down by the spider and haunted spirit.
Round 4
Haunted spider delivers the final blow to the clay golem before the healer or the golem could act. With no more units that can attack left on the field, all that was left was to finish off the final units over the next 2 rounds.
Once again, if you'd like to see the battle play out, here's a link to it.
Concluding Thoughts
Personally I do like the lvl 1 spider but its hard to justify its inclusion in bronze. It's a slow glass cannon and its low mana cost makes it easy to slip into different comps. But its so fragile that i sometimes include other stuff like an undead priest instead of it just because other stuff can survive longer.
And that concludes my battle showcase! Do leave an upvote if you enjoyed it and let me know what you think of the spider in the comments! If you want to try out splinterlands for yourself, you can do so with my referral link here.