A few days before the New Year and here we are again! I hope everyone celebrating Christmas had a merry one! And let's manifest that this 2022 will be one of the best year that we will ever have!
Here I am again, writing about one of my battles as an entry to this week's @Splinterlands' weekly challenge!
The star of the week is the massive GIANT ROC!
From far away, people would mistake it for a normal bird but as it nears them, they would be in awe with its sheer size! IT IS MASSIVE! Look at that elephant being taken away like it's a cute little rabbit.
I will be honest here and tell you that I rarely use this card. I am a water, life and earth user. I stay away from the fire deck like my life depended on it. So I had to suffer some defeats to get a victory from this card.
Here are some battles where I insisted on using the Giant Roc just so I can submit an entry in this battle.
But as they say, true success requires sacrifices, so lo and behold, I finally had a successful battle with this card and thus this post!
To watch my battle, here's a link: https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_3eedd27fc84bc3a168e8f754c83d825a
The rulesets in this battle were:
- ARMORED UP: A rule where monsters gain 2 armor in addition to their armor stats.
- SPREADING FURY: This gives monsters the ENRAGED ability whenever they are hit. ENRAGE is when melee monsters are hit, and their attack and speed increases.
Moreover, another whooping 46 mana was put into effect in this battle. I actually observed, from the 2 posts that I submitted in this weekly challenge, both of them were from high mana battles. High mana battles are where you can do overkill sure win in the Silver league.
Finally, only fire, water and life splinters are allowed in this battle which makes my life easier.
As per my opponent's battle history, 3 out of the 5 battles he had were using Kelya Frendul, so I was thinking of using Tarsa again but with the two battles I just lost from her, I thought of other strategies and that is when I remembered I rented the legendary fire summoner, PLADO EMBERSTORM.
Crypto dip these days are kind of a blessing in disguise because the end of season is near but rentals are still low. I was able to rent a Level 1 Plado for 19 DEC which is a miracle because he would range from 50 to 60 DEC on a regular day.
I decided to use Plado as my summoner as he has 3 amazing abilities, +1 melee, +1 speed and -1 HP for the enemies.
I decided to use the ever classic tank LIVING LAVA in the first slot for its SHIELD ability as my enemy used 5 melee cards in his previous battles with Kelya. SHIELD is an ability that decreases the enemy's melee and range damage.
I placed MOLTEN OGRE next because of its DEMORALIZE, I want to further decrease my opponent's melee attacks.
I wanted to place a magic card on the third spot, like I always do, so I chose NAGA FIRE WIZARD because it also has SHIELD. Let's make his cards unusable.
On the fifth spot was ETTIN SPEARMAN due to it's high damage, high HP and the last one was DR. BLIGHT for its AFFLICTION ability. I don't want his monsters to be healed in anyway. It also has CAMOUFLAGE so it won't be targeted by any SNIPE or SNEAK monsters.
And the main character of this story, the GIANT ROC was placed in the middle so it won't be targeted by some sneaky cards there.
I only realized while writing this part that the Giant Roc never attacked once in the battle, it was attacked by my enemy's Deeplurker with its Opportunity but since the Giant Roc has the Flying ability, it missed a couple of times.
🤓 I told you, I don't use this card that much. 🤓
Let's go to the battle now!
As you can see, after all the debuffs that Pladio and the Molten Ogre gave, the only monsters that can actually hurt my tank would be his tank which is the Serpent of Eld and Deeplurker with 2 melee attack remaining and the Mantoid with 2 range attacks. The rest would not make a dent to my Living Lava.
This first one to attack was his Serpent of Eld but only cause 1 melee damage to my Living Lava's shield, 'tis but a scratch.
Mantoid attacked Naga Flame Wizard but only got 1 range damage on its armor because of its Shield abitily. Deeplurker tried to attack the Giant Roc but missed since it doesn't have the Flying ability.
Dr. Blight attacked next and was able to penetrate Serpent's hp because of its magic attack, it also caused Affliction. Naga Fire Wizard attacked next and was able to leave Serpent with only 1 hit point. Ettin Spearman attacked too but missed because of Serpent's Flying ability. Living Lava attacked last with its 3 melee damage, it was able to decrease Serpent's armor to only 2.
The second round soon commenced with Serpent attacking Living Lava again. This time, it was able to give my tank -2 armor. Mantoid attacked Nage Fire Wizard and gave it a 1 range damage to its armor, Deeplurker tried attacking Giant Roc once more but again, just failed.
Dr. Blight attacked next and with its 1 magic damage, the Serpent was gone.
Naga Fire Wizard attacked my opponent's succeeding tank, Demonshark and was able to hit it with 2 magic points directly to its hp. Ettin Spearman and Living Lava tried attacking but both missed (sometimes, we really lose a battle with these mysterious misses). And with that, round 2 was finished.
With Demonshark's whooping 8 speed, it attacked Living Lava so fast it removed my tank's armor. Mantoid kept on attacking Naga Fire Wizard and was also able to remove her armor.
This time, Deeplurker was successful in attacking the Giant Roc and was also able to remove its armor. So 3 of my monsters are armor less now.
Dr. Blight and Naga Fire Wizard simultaneously attacked, leaving Deeplurker with only 1 hit point. Ettin Spearman's hit missed again but Living Lava was able to cause minus three to Demonshark's armor, and round 3 is over.
The next round started with Demonshark attacking Living Lava with -1 melee damage and because of that, Living Lava was ENRAGED making its melee attack a screaming 5. Mantoid attacked Naga Fire Wizard again. But she retaliated immediately with 3 speed putting Demonshark down.
Living Lava attacked Elven Defender and was able to decrease its armor to 1. Deeplurker started targeting Naga Fire Wizard which left it with 3 hit point.
Elven Defender tried attacking Living Lava but since it only has 1 melee attack, my tank received zero damage. Dr. Blight attacked immediately leaving Elven Defender with 6 hp followed by Ettin Spearman, removing Elven's armor.
Elven defender was able to give my tank 1 melee damage. Naga Fire Wizard attacked simultaneously, leaving Elven with 4 hp. After that, Living Lave attacked with its melee damage causing Elven to go down.
Mantoid attacked Naga Fire Wizard, yet again, and Deeplurker attacked her next (When will the girl catch a break?). Dr. Blight avanged her, attacking Disintegrator next and giving it Affliction.
It then attacked my tank. giving it 1 melee damage. Etten Spearman reduced its armor to 2 while Naga decreased its hp to 1. Mantoid attacked Naga one last time before it bid goodbye.
Living Lava removed Disintegrator's armor totally but it retaliated with 1 melee damage. It was followed by another melee damage from Deeplurker causing my tank to only have 1 hp remaining.
Dr. Blight was able to take my enemy's tank down, and with Disintegrator's Demoralize gone, my melee cards had an increase of 1 melee attack to them.
Ettin and Living Lava's attacks were enough to put the Deeplurker down causing the Mantoid to be the only card left from my opponent, it was just simultaneously attacked until none of his cards were left.
I feel bad for not using the Giant Roc's full potential in this game but like I said in the beginning, I rarely use this game and I lost a lot of battles before winning one.
In this battle, I felt like the Giant Roc served as an effective middle meat shield for Deeplurker's Opportunity attacks, because of Giant Roc's Flying ability, it was able to dodge a lot of hits from Deeplurker, so in a way, Giant Roc was still utilized well in this match.
My strategy worked this time because a lot of my cards have high sustain and high damage. But I guess, the next time I use Giant Roc, I will place it in the second position to utilize its Reach ability.
P.S: I personally went in and bought a Giant Roc for this challenge because it's not a started card anymore. And a lot of cards are very cheap these days so why not take advantage of that.
All righty! That's it for my Giant Roc battle challenge.
🎉🎉 I HOPE EVERY ONE WILL HAVE A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR!!! 🎉🎉