An army of gigantic fire ants swarming over even the largest foe can bring it down. 🐜⚔️🛡️

As we know too well, a single ant doesn't pose a threat to any of us at all. However, an entire colony of ants (not to mention the stinging Fire Ants), can easily bring even an elephant to it's knees. I wouldn't want to accidentally step into an ants nest and have them swarming over me indeed. It wouldn't end well at all.

The theme of this week's Share Your Battle Challenge - I give you the ANTOID PLATOON! 🐜⚔️🛡️

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An Antoid Platoon typically consists of five to seven Fire Ants, each approximately the size of a man's fist. They are well armored and wield shields and spears that, while tiny, provide a formidable defense and offense against the antoid's foes. Operating through a shared hive mind, the Antoid Platoon is employed to defend Ant Miners, other workers, the colony, and its queen. They are also known to become aggressive when invaders encroach upon their homes and surrounding territory.

🐜⚔️🛡️From Splinterlands Lore on ANTOID PLATOON🐜⚔️🛡️

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The Antoid Platoon is a Common card released during the Chaos Legion expansion. It has definitely found it's place in many Fire decks given its availability and usefulness. At LEVEL 1, it has 1 ⚔️ATTACK⚔️ and 1 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 2 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 3 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the SHIELD ability at this level. It's summoning cost is also pretty low at just 4 🧪MANA🧪.

The Antoid Platoon may have pretty low stats, but we must realise it is a very low cost card. One could easily slot this into any deck even in low mana rulesets. It even has the extremely powerful anti-physical ability SHIELD which makes it a lot tougher than it's low stats make it seem. This could make all the difference if the battle comes down to the wire where the slightest advantage is the fine line between victory or defeat! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

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The Chaos Legion expansion has given the Fire splinter a really unique card in the Antoid Platoon. There might be other cards with the SHIELD ability, but in the upcoming Modern format, the only other available Fire Splinter card is the Living Lava. Given the big difference between their casting costs, there are certain situations that ONLY the Antoid Platoon can handle 😱!

This ensures that the Antoid Platoon will definitely have it's own place here in all Fire decks. This is definitely what I'd consider game changing! 😱😱😱

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📊Card Stats by Level📊

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As we can see here, the main purpose of the Antoid Platoon is to be a low cost anti physical damage Tank. Every level improves it's tanking stats all the way to level 10. At level 6, it even gets the SCAVENGER ability which will cause it to gain HP for every unit which dies on the battlefield, thus improving it's tanking ability even further!

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📝Important Rulesets Rundown📝

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Here, I detail the list of combat rulesets that may affect the Clay Golem.

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	🤔💭✅❌🤔💭❓❓❓
	👍🏻 It's attack will never miss
	👍🏻 Gives itself more protection. Always good, especially for a unit whose purpose is to take hits.
	👎🏻 Loses all it's abilities.
	👍🏻 Ranged units can't be used.
	N.A. Ranged units can attack from the front.
	👎🏻 will be able to last longer than most cards with it's Shield ability and armor though.
	👍🏻 It has very low HP, which means it will benefit.
	👍🏻 Able to lend it's attack from any slot.
	👍🏻 Even summoning cost
	👎🏻 Unlikely to dodge any attack with it's low speed, thus the unit next to it will almost definitely take Blast damage.
	N.A
	N.A
	Situational. Could add more damage if the opponent's front unit is stunned
	👍🏻 Improve it's own survivability
	👎🏻 Melee units are affected.
	👍🏻 Only units which cost 4 or less mana can be used.
	👍🏻 No Legendary cards can be used.
	👍🏻 Magic units cannot be used
	👍🏻 Gives melee the positional attack advantage enjoyed by ranged/magic
	👎🏻 Will die to poison.
	👎🏻 Only odd summoning cost units can be used.
	👍🏻 It's slow speed makes it fast
	👍🏻 Only common/rare cards can be used.
	👍🏻 Doesn't really depend on Summoner abilities
	👍🏻 Enrage works out well for units who can take a few hits
	N.A
	👍🏻 All units abilities stay intact
	👍🏻 Allows melee to attack even if it's not in the first slot.
	👍🏻 It is NOT a Neutral unit.
	N.A. All ranged/magic units have the Snipe ability.
	👎🏻 Units lose all their armor.
	👍🏻 Only Melee units can be used
	N.A.

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⚔️🛡My Battle Showcase🛡⚔️

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Let me present a battle I fought recently in which I used the Antoid Platoon. My opponent used the DEATH splinter, while I went for the FIRE splinter. 💀🔥

At first glance, it would seem like my opponent had quite an advantage over me.

• His Summoner was 2 whole levels above me! Level 4 VS Level 2 😱😱😱. This is a HUGE level discrepency.

• All his units were also maxed out for their Summoner level, as compared to mine which were not even maxed out for my Level 2 Summoner.

Clearly, in terms of card rarity and card strength, I was completely out matched 😜🤣. Would I be able to turn the tide of battle against such an opponent then? Victory or defeat would lie in the small details.

I would say that the Antoid Platoon was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. It did what it was supposed to do by tanking and holding it's ground (as impossible as that might have seemed, having to face such overwhelming better units) right at the BACK of the battlefield!

YES! Instead of the traditional role of the Main Tank, it was the BACKLINE Anti Sneak Tank in a Super Sneak Ruleset!

All the while chipping off at the opponent bit by bit. This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆

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LINK TO FIGHT WITH MY ANTOID PLATOON

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👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

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1st CARD SLOT

The Cerberus takes the role of the Main Tank in the first slot here. It has the HEAL ability which allows it to regenerate every round. It will be the most important role since the backline will fall if the Main Tank goes.

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2nd CARD SLOT

The Xenith Monk fills the 2nd slot and will take the place of the main tank as a secondary backup. With it's HEAL ability, it will make for an able Tank if called upon.

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3rd CARD SLOT

The Serpentine Spy fills this 3rd slot for my team. It's job is to pick off the weakest units in the opponent's team with it's Opportunity ability. Putting it in the middle here also keeps it safe.

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4th CARD SLOT

The Exploding Rats occupies the 4th slot. It's job is to be a devastating source of DPS with it's high damage and Blast ability. Putting it in the middle here also keeps it safe.

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5th CARD SLOT

The Spirit Hoarder occupies slot 5. It's Triage ability will allow it to shine in a ruleset such as Super Sneak. Backline units which take damage will be able to be healed by this card.

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6th CARD SLOT

The Antoid Platoon sits in the last spot. It's Shield ability makes it a superb Backline Tank especially in what I expect to be a heavy melee lineup with the Super Sneak ruleset.

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⚔️🛡Battle Action Report🛡⚔️

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As you can see, both of us fielded very different decks from different splinters.

💀 DEATH 💀 VS 🔥 FIRE 🔥

My opponent used Riftwing as his main tank in the first slot which is an AMAZING choice, given how suitable he is as a tank. It has high speed and Flying and Scavenger, together with the Backfire ability. Although it doesn't do any damage on it's own, any misses against it will result in the attacking unit taking damage. His Shadow Snitch sat behind as the backup tank whilst also being able to attack with it's Reach ability. His Magic DPS trio of the Venari Bonesmith, Life Sapper and Revealer followed next, safely protected in the middle. The final slot was filled by his Crypt Beetle with the Shield ability also making it a great anti sneak tank.

My choice of the Main Tank was the Cerberus in the first slot, followed by the Xenith Monk in the second. Both these units have the HEAL ability which allows them amazing lasting power, and therefore good choices as tanks. The 3rd and 4th slots were occupied by my Serpentine Spy and Exploding Rats. These 2 units are my main DPS-ers which deal high damage albeit having very low HP. That is why they must be protected in the middle. The Spirit Hoarder was next, with it's Triage being able to heal any unit not in the 1st slot. The Antoid Platoon occupied the last slot where it is expected to mitigate any melee sneak attacks in a Super Sneak ruleset.

The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was an average high mana ruleset with 32 mana as the limit. Both of us managed to fill out our teams hitting the limit or at least being really close to it.

• The first wave surprisingly ended up with none of my units dying. I had expected my Cerberus to die to his onslaught of Magic attacks, but it fortunately healed up just in time to be able to take the hits.

• This is where my team started to get a huge advantage. After surviving the initial onslaught, my round of DPS managed to kill off the opponent's Crypt Beetle!

• Thanks to my melee sneak damage, they were all focus firing on the backline of the opponent and broke through their Sneak Tank.

• Putting the Antoid Platoon at the last slot was a good choice as it manage to tank all the sneak attacks with it's Shield ability. The opponent's Shadow Snitch could do nothing to my vulnerable units behind while the Antoid Platoon protected them all.

• Once the opponent's backline was exposed, it was all over for him as my units devastated his entire force from behind. 😱

• It ended up with not a single unit on my team dying at all, resulting in a PERFECT VICTORY! 💯💯💯

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected from the Antoid Platoon was for it to hopefully protect the backline for a few rounds before dying. Yet, it did more than that, and lasted through the entire battle by absorbing every single attack. It even dealt out a decent amount of damage on it's own with it's own sneak attacks. The battle ended up being a perfect battle with NONE of my units suffering any casualties at all! Surely that made it the Man of the Match for this battle, punching way above it's weight!

Well as you can see here in this GIF of my battle, the results were pretty good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

This was truly an eye opener! 😁🏆

Slowly, but surely, I wore down the opponent's team and the match was won handily with ALL of my units still left standing. It was a PERFECT VICTORY! My team selection proved to be the edge I needed to eventually overpower my opponent. 💪🏻

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🔮🔮🔮Hindsight is 20/20🔮🔮🔮

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Would I have done anything differently? 🤔 This might have seemed like a match that would prove to be a challenge at the start because of the opponent's superior cards as compared to my team. However, with my PERFECT VICTORY with ZERO casualties, IF I had to use the same cards again, there would be no better lineup than what I had already used for the match. Any other combination MIGHT have resulted in a loss for me. I'm really satisfied with the results against such a worthy opponent. 🏆🥇

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💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

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I definitely can appreciate the Antoid Platoon and it's strengths. This is one of those cards which are very strong if surrounded with the proper team. The role it brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

For any players looking to try out the Antoid Platoon, I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

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