Slow and ponderous and always scavenging on the dead. Don't disturb it's meal lest you become one yourself 💀⚰️🐞

(Instead of writing about the Venari Spellsmith, I've changed my mind and decided to write about the humble Crypt Beetle. I've had a battle this week which shows this card in all it's glory, and thus simply had to share it instead 😱)

The thought of bugs creep me out. Now imagine a giant one which feeds on the dead corpses littered deep within caverns or tombs. Many a brave adventurer coming to an ignominious end after their life of adventure leads them to an untoward demise, deep in the bowels of a dungeon. Even the bodies of Kings and Queens in their supposedly impenetrable sarcophaguses, preparing them for an eternity in the afterlife, are not spared. The relentless hunger of a scavenging beetle that moves on from body to body consuming everything in it's path. 😰💀

The theme of this week's Share Your Battle Challenge - I give you the CRYPT BEETLE! 💀⚰️🐞

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Any explorers that delve too deeply into the crypts, mausoleums, and necropolises of the world will find a foe they are unprepared for. Not undead, not liches, and not other monsters that can be found in the deep. Instead, tales are told of the crypt beetles. Enormous insects that are found feeding on the corpses within. Most explorers think they are a mere nuisance and will try to scare them away from whatever tomb they are choosing to rob.

But things don't end well for those explorers. These large beetles will defend themselves and their food aggressively. And any explorer that makes it back out alive will have impressive scars to show from the crypt beetle's bite.

💀⚰️🐞From Splinterlands Lore on the CRYPT BEETLE💀⚰️🐞

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

These stats alone make the Crypt Beetle a low cost cannon fodder unit. It's main purpose is to fill up any slots if they're still available, and then take 1 or 2 hits before it dies.

The Crypt Beetle's true strength lies in it's overall cost effectiveness. Even though it has such low stats, it is a really cheap casting cost card that has just enough health to take that crucial few hits. What it loses in stats, it has gained through it's sheer ridiculously low cost. 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 release of Chaos Legion has given the Death splinter a low mana casting cost card with SHIELD at level 1. The ONLY other card which is similar is the Antoid Platoon, a Fire splinter card ALSO from the Chaos Legion release. Seeing as it's "rival" is basically from another splinter entirely, this ensures that the Crypt Beetle is in a league of it's own and will definitely have it's own place here in all Death 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 Crypt Beetle is to be what I would call "Cannon Fodder". However, every level improves it's stats slightly all the way to level 10. In fact, I would that at max level, the Crypt Beetle actually becomes a really good low cost tank for it's cost! 😱🛡️

My advice is to simply buy and upgrade this card as much as you can depending on your Summoner levels. The Crypt Beetle is really cheap at the moment, with each card costing just 3 cents! Or if you're more inclined towards the Gold Foil version, it is just 40 CENTS! 💰🤑💸

It's negligible casting cost combined with its Shield and stats really make this a most useful unit with a perfect mix of cost and utility.

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📝Important Rulesets Rundown📝

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Here, I detail the list of combat rulesets that may affect the Crypt Beetle.

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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. But that doesn't really affect it's cannon fodder purpose though.
	👍🏻 Ranged units can't be used.
	N.A. Ranged units can attack from the front.
	👎🏻 will be able to last at least 2 round with it's health/armor though.
	👍🏻 With its really low HP, it gains the most from such rulesets.
	👍🏻 Able to lend it's attack from any slot.
	👎🏻 Even summoning cost
	👎🏻 Blast will probably kill it instantly
	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.
	👍🏻 Costs 4 or less mana
	👍🏻 It's a common card
	👍🏻 Magic units cannot be used
	👍🏻 Gives melee the positional attack advantage enjoyed by ranged/magic
	👎🏻 Will die to poison.
	👍🏻 Odd summoning cost
	👍🏻 It's slow speed makes it fast
	👍🏻 It's a common
	👍🏻 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.
	👎🏻 Loses all it's 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 Crypt Beetle. My opponent used the LIFE splinter while I went for the DEATH splinter. 👼🏻💀

It was pretty much an even fight as this was actually a Gold Foil Chaos Legion Bronze League Guild Brawl (phew, what a long title! 🤣).

• My opponent went for Grandmaster Rathe with physical damage team consisting of a mix of melee and ranged units.

• Upon seeing his choice of Summoner, I knew I was in deep trouble. 😰

• I had counted on my Gladius card, the Witch of Warwick to be my sole source of DPS, and having it get some kills to activate it's BLOODLUST to be able to wipe out the opponent.

• Grandmaster Rathe basically countered my Magic DPS with it's ability.

• His units were even primed to outright murder my Witch of Warwick ASAP.

It seemed like I had made a HUGE mistake with my team selection and unit positioning. 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 Crypt Beetle was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. I had expected it to ONLY be a tank absorbing some damage till it died. HOWEVER, it not only survived the entire fight, it basically CARRIED the entire team by SOLO-ing it's way to victory in a 1 VS 5 scenario! 😱

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 CRYPT BEETLE

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👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

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1st CARD SLOT

The Crypt Beetle takes the role of the Main Tank in the first slot here. 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 Scavo Hireling occupies slot number 2. It's role is to allow the Main Tank some extra staying power with a constant stream of repairs to it's armour. If needs be, it will be a sacrificial off tank to buy time while the main DPS takes down the other team.

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3rd CARD SLOT

The Witch of Warwick occupies the third and last slot. It is to be the main DPS for the entire team while staying safe behind the other units. Whilst it might only start off with 2 Magic damage, the idea is for it to land killing blows to activate it's BLOODLUST to eventually become an unstoppable juggernaut.

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4th CARD SLOT

NIL

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5th CARD SLOT

NIL

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6th CARD SLOT

NIL

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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. I would say it's a polar opposite of opposing factions! Heaven and Hell, Light and Darkness... 😜

👼🏻LIFE👼🏻 VS 💀 DEATH 💀.

My opponent used the Gargoya Scrapper as his main tank in the first slot. This is a pretty good choice considering the opponent correctly anticipated that I would be depending on Magic DPS. It's VOID ability would work even more effectively with Grandmaster Rathe to completely nullify Magic damage 😭. His Stitch Leech and Celestial Harpy occupied the next 2 slots. Their purpose was clearly to pick off my unprotected backline units/weak units. His team was rounded off with a Xenith Archer providing Ranged DPS and a Chaos Agent right at the back to protect against SNEAK attacks.

My choice of the Main Tank was the Crypt Beetle with it's SHIELD ability in the first slot, followed by the Scavo Hireling in the second. The idea was for the 2 of them to hold the line until my Witch of Warwick (in the third slot) could kill a unit or 2 to become an unstoppable BLOODLUST boosted DPS juggernaut.

The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was a really low mana game with 15 mana as the limit. The rulesets were Target Practice and Equalizer.

• The first weave ended up with no units dying. This was unfortunately a bad thing for me. I had expect the Witch of Warwick to score a quick kill to get it's BLOODLUST gravy train up and running.

• The second wave saw my Witch of Warwick getting killed off by the opponent's SNEAK/OPPORTUNITY units. 😰😭

• I honestly thought it was all over for me at this point. My main DPS was gone without having even put a dent in the opponent. 😡

• The third round just further cemented the disaster that I was in. With my Scavo Hireling being picked off as well.

• Look at the image above. That was the situation I was facing at the start of the 4th round. Any casual observer would have said their condolences to me at the complete and utter hopelessness of the situation. 🤣 My Crypt Beetle, the lone unit left against an entire army of 5 units.

• To my absolute surprise, this was actually the beginning of the end for my opponent! 🤯🤯🤯 Even if none of us knew it at that time.

• Every single unit other than the Stitch Leech was doing absolutely ZERO damage to the Crypt Beetle thanks to it's SHIELD ability.

• Once my Crypt Beetle successfully killed off the opponent's Stitch Leech, it was just a slow death for the opponent- 1 damage at a time.

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All i expected from the Crypt Beetle for it to take a few hits before dying. Yet it did more than that and lasted through the entire battle AND also killed off the entire opposing team ON ITS OWN! 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 just my Crypt Beetle still left standing. 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 lost cause at one point of the fight where it was a 1V5 situation. However, the tide turned and it resulted in an eventual win for me. IF I had to use the same cards again, I would have moved the Scavo Hireling right to the last slot, which would have allowed the Witch of Warwick to perhaps get the kill it need to boost itself up with BLOODLUST. This might have resulted in a faster win, but even so, the Crypt Beetle would have still performed in exactly the same way, carrying the entire team. 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 Crypt Beetle 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 Crypt Beetle, I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

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To any new players who wish to explore the world of Splinterlands, do feel free to sign up with my REFERRAL LINK 😊.

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I am also a member of the SPLINTERLANDS PIZZA guild and the PIZZA community.

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