Hello! In this post I will cover an exicting tournament I took part in just a few weeks ago, my thoughts on the revised Survival mode and my latest Splinterlands-related shopping spree.
Hope you find it interesting! 😉
15th place finish in Bronze Tournament?!? 🥉
As much as I'd like to claim the credit for this nice result I think it came down to some lucky coincidences and some stronger players, who usually finish in the first spots, making some inaccurate submissions.
In this case, for instance, this strong player was tempted to experiment with EMP and the new unit, Doomshield warden. This strategy might have seemed good because of the enrage effect we got for that battle too, however the classic Lorkus + Barashkukor setup was still too strong and even though it came very close, I won the match!
Having been matched a second time with the same player, I was able to defeat him again in a close battle!
This match was much different, both in terms of rules and mana cap.
At the end of the day it really just came down to luck with the randomness of the poison effect, while my Rage barely survived with 1HP!
The next one was against a different top player, who must have overlooked the Nidhoggr angle in the heat of the battle 😅 The result was a straightforward win for me!
The execute effects from Riklauniman felt particularly satisfying there and really helped edge out the opponent!
But that wasn't the end of the interesting battles from this tournament.. here's some more!
Here all the fancy golden cards in the world couldn't rescue my opponent from his imprecise play in this Nidhoggr matchup where the placement of Rage really helped soak a lot of magic damage.
Coming up next there's a couple of matches where I used a very specific synergy to great effect in the tournament. To my mind it's one of the rare cases where EMP really outshines the rest of the summoners, in Bronze.
As you can see, I'm talking about the synergy with the gladiator unit Marisol Contuma!
This strong duelist is amazing on her own but thanks to her incredible stats, natural armor and boost from EMP she can take on anyone!
I don't think my opponent chose the best possible lineup there but hopefulyl my point still stands.
The cascade of bloodlust effect was really something so I do hope you watch this satisfying battle.
Same concept applies here, it's the **"Are you not entertained?!" ruleset that really allows for this strategy to work.
Just like in my first match against 
This time I coupled Marisol with the very explosive Captain Frankie summoner.
While the supporting actors, in the form of anasth soothsayer and saltwraith bulkhead tied it all together and allowed me to survive Marisol still steals the show with her unmissable 10 damage piercing attack 🤣🤣
What a crazy combination!!!
And for last a simple low mana battle where you can see which cards really work in this kind of setting.
This really could have gone either way and it indeed came down to some good luch from my end but I hope it shows how good Razi Clanktrap can be in low mana scrambles.. so long as you don't go all in on the gnome synergy but also remember to add some solid cards like death ranger, one of my favorite rewards cards from this current Modern rotation.
This was for sure one of my best results yet in a tournament and I was able to secure the 15th place, with only 6 losses to my name.
As usual, it's very exciting to compete again the best players for some higher than usual stakes and put all the meta cards to good use in a competitive environment.
What I got for my troubles was 150 SPS, which isn't really saying much given the current prices so I leave it up to the readers to decide how profitable Splinterlands can be.. but the experience certainly was fun!
Well done to 
The newly improved Survival mode 🤠
Now, switching to another topic.. We recently had an interesting update to Survival mode, finally making it fair and competitive. You can read all the details here if you somehow missed them.
There's now fairer matchmaking and proper leaderboards which indeed allow for some expression of skill whereas before the game mode really just felt like a staking platform disguised as a silly game 😏
Hopefully similar changes will be made to Modern too, soon.
It still isn't a perfect system as a lot of it involves a lot of waiting and fighting against liquidity bots. Every once in a while you'll fight humans too and overall compete, in one way or another, for the top spots of the leaderboard.
The last season I competed in the human (no botting allowed, that is) Bronze League and I reached the 5th spot in the end. Overall it was fun, certainly more than playing in Modern!
I got a nice boon of Glint for my troubles as well as a few copies of the new Darkguard hellion, which I promptly sold on the market for some quick profit.
i don't really value the card very highly for Bronze and I believe eventually it might become cheaper.
I also got to participate in the Survival exclusive tournament where I performed particularly badly 😅
As it turns out, it's much more difficult to win when you don't know what the cards do.
I will definetely strive to learn and do better in this new and exciting part of the game, DEFINETELY a welcome addition to Splinterlands 😉
Recent purchases 🤑
The economic state of the game isn't too encouraging.. as I'm writing this SPS is at an all-time-low of 0,0042 $.
Times are tough even outside of the game. As the war in Iran and Trump's other machinations unfold the global stage is in disarray so it makes sense that there's uncertainty in all markets, even in Splinterlands.
All the most delicate concepts that are supposed to elevate the game and make it healthy probably are beyond my comprehension but there's one thing I know. This all-time-low definetely allowed me to grab some cards at lower than usual prices.
Most of the following purchases have been made by me with outside cash but between one thing and another I'm able to stack up some DEC overtime so there'll be more shopping in the future too.
I was able to secure a copy of Kron, the undying for 4,72$. He's quite the powerhouse from the Untamed era of Splinterlands and even though I don't have the llama summoner to go along with it and replicate the infamous combo he will still be very useful in the future!
It already paid dividends in this cool Survival battle where we had an Immortalis mirror match.
Cornealus costed me 4$ and even though I won't use him all the time there's some specific circumstances where he can be the sole reason for a win or a loss so I definetely want him in my collection.
Ancient lich didn't cost as much as the other two but he's still quite strong, if coupled for instance with Lorkus in specific circumstances and I expect it to do well too.
I also bought a few copies of this new grimshield hexpriest, that features one of the most unique abilities in apex strike.
In the future I'm planning to buy thessok hunter as well as the pricy conjurer's hubris and create a dangerous Lorkus lineup based around apex strike!
Times are indeed tough but there's many things happening and coming to the game and it's nice to keep up for it, if not for money.. then at least for fun.
I hope you found the post interesting enough to read it thoroughly. If you did, do write a comment.
It's very disheartening to spend time to write a post with some effort behind it when no one reads it. I really appreciate the engagement 😉🙏