Another week, another few more exciting battles on #splinterlands

It's been four days since the first SPS drop and Splinterlands is going wild. I'm trying to figure how to earn more SPT for the airdrops, but for now I have to be satisfied with the weekly challenge.

If you haven't known yet, Splinterland is a collectible and tradable card game on the Hive blockchain where you can battle other players, trade or lend out your cards for passive incomes. Also, you can join their weekly challenges and gain upvotes on hive.blog here.

And this week features Beatrix Ironhand from the Earth splinter. Beatrix is quite costly, at six mana, but she is fast and deals nice damage. Her ability allows Beatrix to attack even on the frontline, coupled with five health, making her a decent tank in battles where melee units are not allowed.

I myself don't use this card a lot. Particularly because my Beatrix is only at level 1, and she wouldn't fare very well in Gold league. Also, my most frequently played Earth summoner is Mylor Crowling, so I prefer mages that can heal my tank or stunt enemies in dragged out battles. I don't really need fast range units.

The battle

My battle for the challenge is actually with a dragon summoner, Brighton Bloom as Earthquake applies. You can watch the whole fight here.

My opponent also uses a dragon summoner and his lineup is filled with range and magic attackers, protected by two pure meat shields, with the Peaceful Giant at the forefront. Similarly, I have Naga Brute as the main tank. with Void Armor, he can absorb a bit more damage from enemy mages and Flying allows him some chance of dodging range attacks. His Thorns is utterly useless here. My lineup is also full of mages and archers, but I also has Magic Reflect and Blast which can give me some advantages over my opponent. I put Gelatinous Cube at the back as a safety measure to protect Beatrix and also, if push comes to shove, I can resort to Earthquake or Fatigue to win, as hopefully, he has gained enough health by then.

The battle is a bit anti-climatic though, as my opponent doesn't bring any flying units. The first round starts with Beatrix attack on the giant (AoT anyone?). After a few exchanges, the giant is killed by Earthquake at the end of round 2. By then, my opponent's rank has been heavily damaged. It's apparent that another round of Earthquake will wipe out most of them, leaving Centauri Mage and Almo Cambio. At the beginning of round 4, only Centauri Mage remains, but she is quickly blasted away.

This battle proves two things: (1) peace is never an option and (2) brute force is the only answer to conflict.

At the time I am writing this post, only more than two hours remain before the season ends. I'll get two Diamond III to maximize my rewards. At this point, any amount of dec or any cards are precious, as they allow me to gain more SPS. Looking forwards to the new season and another round of SPS drop.