Hey Splinterfans, welcome to another Social Media Challenge post. Today I want to look at some gladiators and see who rules the turf in my brawls.
Merits are a lot easier to come by than in the past. I remember waiting for three brawls to open one gladiator pack when I first started brawling in tier 1. Things are different now. Nowadays you can buy merits with glint and earn them in loot chests. I really like this change and make sure that I reserve some glint each season to invest in gladiators.
About two years after starting to play in brawls, I now play in tier 4 and have most of my gladiators at silver level or higher. In the past Quora ruled the meta with her superior power and a lot of players still count on her today to do the dirty work. But is she still all supreme? Now that some of my gladiators and at higher level, I look elsewhere to get my favourite bloodlusting darling for my brawls. One such candidate is Katrelba.
Katrelba Gobson is not the fastest and most powerful gladiator but the only gladiator with Sneak. As she also has Double Strike, low mana rear enemy monsters are easy pickings. She has low health and therefore needs good protection in the lineup. Once she is able to make a kill, she can often go on to win the battle for you. I therefore also enjoy fielding her in ranked battles when I can use a gladiator there.
So today I want to showcase a silver brawl battle featuring both Quora and Katrelba. As Katrelba is my favourite gladiator and as I consider Quora overrated, you can guess who will come out winner in this guild rivalry. What is important for Katrelba to succeed is to get an early Bloodlust in order to take out her rivals. This battle demonstrates this nicely.
So here we have a mid mana brawl battle with three rulesets. Here are the stats:
Rulesets: Silenced Summoners, Melee Mayhem and Divine Shield
Mana cap: 31
Splinters: all except purple
Here is the team I put together:
Brighton Bloom is not a summoner which I often use. In this case he is useful in an attempt to prevent Melee Mayhem inflicting too much damage on my tank by increasing the miss chance through Flying.
Lichen Beast is a solid mid mana tank with Enrage. Coupled with Flying, his job is to survive in the first position for as long as possible. He is not fast but with 8 health, which will increase with Enrage, he is great in first position in mid mana battles.
Regal Peryton is another mid mana monster with good stats, especially high speed and good health. At 6 speed he is likely to strike first and get the odd miss from enemy melee attack.
Disintegrator comes in third position. He plays an important role in this setting through his abilities Demoralize and Trample, which are very useful skills to have in a Melee Mayhem ruleset. With 3 shield he will also act as a good backup tank when the frontline collapses.
In fourth position comes our girl Katrelba. Placed in the middle of the pack she will be well protected from tank attacks and enemy Sneak. She also does not have the lowest health, which is a precaution against possible Opportunity attacks by the enemy.
With not much mana left to work with, I am bringing one of my favourite 2 mana cards, Acid Shooter. With Scattershot he can inflict lethal surprise hits. As the only stealth I have is Sneak, Acid Shooter will hopefully terrorize monsters in other positions.
Iza the Fanged is an important strategic inclusion to help Katrelba soften up the enemy rear monsters with more Sneak. Each round there will be three Sneak hits going to the rear monster, which should maximize damage.
So now that the team has been put together and the strategy is in place, let's take a look at how this battle plays out:
The teams looked evenly poised at the start of the battle. Iza was quick to dabble at the enemy rear monster by taking its Divine Shield, ready for Katrelba's Double Strike. Quora then did some damage and then it was Katrelba's turn. She swiftly struck twice and got her first Bloodlust. Good Start! The rest of the round was uneventful, although the Lichen Beast was dangerously close to dying.
Again Iza struck the enemy rear monster to remove Divine Shield, followed by a Double Strike and a subsequent Bloodlust by Katrelba. She was already unstoppable now but let's wait and see what happens in direct confrontation with Quora! Quora then got her first kill and her first Bloodlust.
In round three Katrelba was not able to get her third consecutive Bloodlust but things still looked good. Regal Peryton fell at the hands of Flesh Golem and the round ended with little or no further significant action.
Katrelba struck first, hence a third Bloodlust and had a crack at Quora to take her Divine Shield to set the stage for the ultimate fight in the next round.
Now came the Double Strike to toast Quora, followed by Katrelba's fourth Bloodlust! Flesh Golem then got his second kill to bring Katrelba to the first position but it was too late for any opposition chances to win the battle.
Round six saw Katrelba's fifth Bloodlust, followed by a sixth to end the battle at the beginning of the seventh round.
My Girl Katrelba
So Quora is beatable! Katrelba is the perfect counter against powerful opposition gladiators. She works away at the enemy rear monsters to feed on and build up her Bloodlust to then lay waste to the rest of the enemy team. I hope you enjoyed my post this week and I will see you in the next one!
WHAT IS SPLINTERLANDS?
Splinterlands is an autobattle digital card game on the Hive blockchain. The playing cards are NFTs, therefore they belong to you and you can trade, transfer or delegate them as you please. All you need to move cards and other ingame assets around is a Hive Keychain login. There are three types of battles you can play: ranked battles, brawls and tournaments. Every battle you win brings rewards, including SPS and/or loot chests containing cards, potions, packs and merits. The ingame currency is DEC and the governance token is SPS. For gladiator packs you need to earn merits through brawls and loot chests. Tournaments can bring you stacks of SPS if you play well. There are several third party card markets, including Peakmonsters.com and the best places to learn to play are PeakD and YouTube.
