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This week's battle challenge features the Hill Giant! The Hill Giant is an Earth splinter Melee monster that is a niche card at low levels but gets exceptionally stronger in Gold+ leagues.

Hill Giant Highlights

The Hill Giant is a decent card primarily due to its low mana cost and high health. It isn't particularly strong or fast but that doesn't mean it's useless!

At Bronze, you'll want to get it up to level 3 in order to take advantage of the 2 Melee Damage.

Once you get to Gold (level 6), it gains Stun.

Icon	Ability Name	Description
	Stun	When a Monster with Stun hits a target, it has a chance to stun the target causing it to skip its next turn (50% chance)

So when do I use the Hill Giant?

• Reverse Speed Rulesets are great for the Hill Giant. Place it at the front since it has great health for a low mana card
• I like the Level 3 Hill Giant specifically for Reverse Speed and don't plan to go higher unless I am playing near the top of the Gold League
• In Gold Leagues and Above, the Stun ability can make a huge difference in winning and losing

This Week's Featured Battle

In this week's featured battle, we have an Obsidian Summoner versus the dreaded Llama/Kron in a Reverse Speed battle!

Battle Ruleset

	Armored Up	All Monsters have 2 Armor in addition to their normal Armor stat
	Reverse Speed	Monsters with the lowest Speed attack first and have the highest chance of evading attacks
	18 Mana	This is considered a low mana battle
	Active Splinters	Fire, Earth, and Dragon Splinters are available

• Reverse Speed
  • Earth is usually my go-to for reverse speed because there are some very strong but slow Chaos monsters in that splinter
  • This typically means that I will go with Magic attackers since that is the primary meta for Earth in the Chaos Legion
• Armored Up
  • Magic is the obvious choice here which pairs nicely with the Reverse Speed ruleset
• 18 Mana
  • With this low mana, you'll have to be very selective in your monster choices

With Reverse Speed, I like to go with Magic which may or may not be what other people are thinking. With Armored Up, Magic is the obvious choice.

With 2 rules that are greenlighting a Magic lineup, it makes me a bit hesitant to play Magic since I personally like to try and counter my enemy. If the rulesets strongly push you towards Magic, I like to try and create a strong lineup that is resistant to Magic.

In this case, slow magic counters would be Tusk the Wide or Grum. If my opponent uses Tarsa, I'll have to keep Sneak and Opportunity attacks in mind.

The other magic counter could be a Failed Summoner with Magic Reflect.

With those two scenarios in my mind, I decided that I would use Magic after all since I believe that I could beat either one with the lineup I have chosen.

The Lineup

Position	Card Image	Card Name	Notes
Summoner		Obsidian	Earth Summoner that grants all Magic monsters with +1 damage
Pos 1 (meat shield)		Fungus Fiend	With these rulesets, I thought my opponent would play something similar to me so I put the fiend up as a sacrificial tank
Pos 2 (secondary tank)		Hill Giant	Perfect for Reverse Speed and has a decent amount of health that can be healed
Pos 3 (attacker/support)		Wood Nymph	With tank heal, this will help keep my frontline alive while also benefitting from the Obsidian Buff
Pos 4 (sneak protection)		Furious Chicken	This card is a must have in the Wild format as a 0 mana meat shield
Pos 5 (attacker)		Djinn Biljka	Excellent attacker for Reverse Speed. Throw in Camouflage for only 3 mana? Yes, please
Pos 6 (attacker)		Doctor Blight	Another low speed attacker with Camouflage. Doctor Blight has the Poison and Affliction ability which will can make all the difference

Let's Battle!

• My opponent went with the easy Llama/Kron combo which is DEADLY at 17 mana
• However, they messed up big time by playing the meat shields in the back which ended up giving them a Last Stand Fungus Fiend!
• My "slow" magic attacks worked perfectly and my Hill Giant had a lot of beefy health to protect my backline
• I know what you're thinking, if Kron had last stand then I would not have won. Check out the analysis below for a surprising answer!

Did it work?

Yes! I was able to get my attacks off quickly and do some major damage before they could respond. With no Void Armor to worry about, his tank went down quickly.

I analyzed the battle with Splintertools and was given a 100% chance of winning the battle. That is always great to see!

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Out of curiosity, I adjusted my opponent's lineup to place Kron in the back where he usually goes and I was STILL given a 90% chance of winning this one (10% in the picture is from my opponent's POV).

I wish I could watch this one but I suspect the Affliction and Poison would land enough to keep Kron from healing before being cleansed by Llama.

Final Thoughts

The Hill Giant is a good card to have for those Reverse Speed battles. At only $0.04/BCX, there's not reason not to have one.

Thanks for reading! I hoped you enjoyed it!

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