Welcome to my first @Splinterlands Brawl Report! This was the first brawl for the new PIZZA 2 The Deep Dish guild and we performed well and had a lot of fun! The PIZZA 2 guild was created due to the surging demand for more Splinterlands guild space among the @HIVE.PIZZA token community. If you haven't heard about PIZZA yet, then you need to head over to hive.pizza, join us on Discord, or check out the latest PIZZA update report and get in on the cheesy goodness!
The First Brawl
For this inaugural brawl, I was in Fray 5. Being a newer player, this was a challenging placement for me as I did not rent any higher level cards to take advantage of the higher summoner limits of the Bronze level. I entered 9 battles during this brawl and ended with a 5-4 record and placed in 3rd within our guild.
The Brawls
Battle 1 - Loss
Back to Basics: Monsters lose all abilities.
Taking Sides: Neutral monsters may not be used.
I was hoping that my Lorna Shine would help me out here since none of the monsters would have any abilities. My thinking was that saving a hit on each monster would give my guys a chance to take out some of the opponents monsters before they were able to do any major damage. Both of us started out with Shieldbearer in the first position and had many similar monsters in our lineups but a couple of unfortunate misses from my side ultimately did me in.
Watch the battle
Battle 2 - Loss
Noxious Fumes: All Monsters start the battle poisoned.
Melee Mayhem: Melee attack monsters can attack from any position.
My strategy for this battle was to use a healing tank up front to outlast the poison effect. Unfortunately, my opponent had a much more powerful healing monster (Seamonster) that was able to outlast me.
Watch the battle
Battle 3 - Win
Noxious Fumes: All Monsters start the battle poisoned.
Close Range: Ranged attacks may be used in the first position in battles.
I tend to perform better in high mana battles and I was looking forward to this one and really seeing what some of my cards could do. The Mylor Crowling summoner worked his magic during this battle and helped take out the three melee monsters my opponent used with the thorns effect. Because this was a poison battle, I tried to use high life monsters to outlast my opponent and put out a Gelatinous Cube with a healing Hydra behind it. This strategy ultimately worked and the Hydra was able to easily take out the last enemy monster standing.
Watch the battle
Battle 4 - Win
Opponent Fled
Battle 5 - Win
Opponent Fled
Battle 6 - Win
Back to Basics: Monsters lose all abilities.
Another Back to Basics battle and this time I decided to try out a lineup leveraging magic power with a Gelatinous Cube as a blocker. Despite my opponents healing summoner and +2 speed, my magic monsters with 2 damage each hit were able to take out their lineup quite efficiently. I was banking on the fact that the loss of all monster abilities would protect my back row of magic monsters from getting taken out by snipe or sneak abilities.
Watch the battle
Battle 7 - Win
Opponent Fled
Battle 8 - Loss
Earthquake: Non-flying monsters take 2 melee damage at the end of each round.
Even Stevens: Only monsters with even mana costs may be used in battles.
I had high hopes for this 99 mana battle, even with the earthquake issue. I used the Brighton Bloom summoner which gives the flying ability to all friendly monsters. I thought for sure this would lead me to victory as I could just let the earthquake tear apart my enemy while all my monsters were exempt. Unfortunately, my opponent had an ace up their sleeve in the form of a Mitica Headhunter that has the Snare ability. The Snare removes the flying ability from any monster that it attacks. This one monster made a big difference in this battle. Additionally my opponent had three healing monsters in the back row that were ultimately able to overcome the effect of the earthquakes.
Watch the battle
Battle 9 - Loss
Healed Out: All healing abilities are removed from monsters and summoners.
My strategy here was to have a couple of high life monsters to hold out against my opponent since neither of us could use healing monsters. My Stonesplitter Orc tank should make quick work of their tank with the retaliate and thorns effects. I was surprised that they were using a +1 magic summoner with only one magic attack monster, but it didn't matter since they overcame my high life Unicorn Mustang and Gelatinous Cube anyway. Their Axe Master with the double attack really did a lot of damage to me. The fact that my Sand Worm kept missing against their Phantom of the Abyss with flying and dodge abilities didn't help either.
Watch the battle
Final Thoughts
After writing up the play-by-play of the battles, it's clear that I was more lucky than good this time. With three of my five wins being the result of an opponent fleeing, my win record against actual opponents was a rather pathetic 2-4. But, considering that I was playing with all level 1 cards and my first opponent had a power rating of over 500,000, I probably did okay. In the end, I finished 5W-4L and received 308 merits!
What is the 
#BrawlReport?
Starting with the brawl that just ended, I've invited/asked members of the #HivePizza guild to publish a #BrawlReport, breaking down their highs & lows, where they need help, questions they have, strategies they love, and so on. The idea is to help us all reflect a bit, learn a bit, share a bit, earn a bit, and connect a bit :-)
Any other guilds interested in publishing a #BrawlReport, either as individuals, or one for the whole guild, I'm happy to send some curation love your way!
You can see his last Brawl Report here!
Check out the other Pizza Guild brawl reports here:
