I'll make you Slower than a Snail. 🐉💎🐌

The theme for this week's challenge is a mythical creature of myth and legend. These creatures seem to be present in almost every culture across the world.

(I've decided to write about the Diamond Dragon instead of the Molten Ash Golem for this week's Share Your Battle Challenge. This battle was simply too amazing not to share it 😉.)

I present to you - the DIAMOND DRAGON🐉💎🐌

cue Game of Thrones theme song... raging fires from dragon's breath 🔥🔥🔥

Ok, not quite that kind of Dragon, I'm not entirely sure this particular dragon even breathes any fire since the abilities it manifests are not exactly of the fire breathing kind - DIAMOND DRAGON 🐉💎🐌

At least it's still related to a dragon's love of treasure? 💎💎💎

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Tulafra, The Diamond Dragon, is not actually made of diamonds; she is simply named for her nearly indestructible exoskeleton. She is not the strongest or largest of the Dragons, but she is difficult to bring down in battle. She lives in a huge ground floor penthouse of Centrum City.

🐉💎🐌From Splinterlands Lore on DIAMOND DRAGON🐉💎🐌

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The Diamond Dragon is a Legendary card released during the Untamed expansion. It has definitely found it's place in many Dragon decks given its availability and usefulness. At LEVEL 1, it has 2 MAGIC ⚔️ATTACK⚔️ and 3 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 10 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 6 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the FLYING & SLOW ability. It's summoning cost is very high at 10 🧪MANA🧪.

All these raw stats already make the Diamond Dragon a massively huge tank which deals great damage. However, if that isn't enough, the Diamond Dragon's true ability lies in it's SLOW ability. This debuff will reduce the entire opponent's team by 1 SPEED. Combined with it's FLYING ability giving it a natural 25% dodge against non flyers, this makes the Diamond Dragon a very difficult target to hit indeed.

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The release of Untamed gave the Dragon splinter an amazing card in the form of the Diamond Dragon. With it's ability to tank and deal out damage and also debuff the opponents, this is a great "do-it-all" card. Should you be able to field this high mana card, it will definitely prove it's worth on the battlefield.

This ensures that the Diamond Dragon will definitely have it's own place here in all Dragon 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 Diamond Dragon is to be what I would call "Slow Debuffer". Every level barely gives it any extra stats, but it gets the CLEANSE and LAST STAND abilities instead. This turns it into an even greater team player, able to remove any debuffs from the tank. It also has the ability to be the last man for the team to turn defeat into victory with it's LAST STAND.

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📝Important Rulesets Rundown📝

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Here, I detail the list of combat rulesets that may affect the Diamond Dragon.

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	🤔💭✅❌🤔💭❓❓❓
	👍🏻 Attacks will never miss
	👍🏻 Gives units more protection.
	👍🏻 Units lose all their abilities. But that doesn't really affect Quix's abilities on the battlefield.
	👎🏻 Ranged units can't be used.
	N.A. Ranged units can attack from the front.
	👎🏻 Units with no flying will die.
	N.A
	👍🏻 Units can attack from anywhere
	N.A. Even summoning cost
	N.A. Blast damage
	N.A
	N.A
	Situational. Could add more damage if the opponent's front unit is stunned
	👍🏻 Improve units survivability
	N.A. Melee units are affected.
	👍🏻 Costs 4 or less mana
	👍🏻 Doesn't affect summoners
	N.A. Magic units cannot be used
	N.A. Gives melee the positional attack advantage enjoyed by ranged/magic
	👎🏻 Will die to poison.
	N.A. Odd summoning cost
	N.A. Slow units become fast
	👍🏻 Doesn't affect Summoners
	👎🏻 Strips all Summoner abilities
	N.A.
	N.A
	👍🏻 All 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.
	N.A. Loses all armor.
	👎🏻 Only Melee units can be used. Would make one half of Quix's ability redundant.
	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 Diamond Dragon. My opponent used the Legendary Summoner Grandmaster Rathe from the LIFE splinter, while I used the DRAGON/LIFE deck. 👼🏻 VS 🐉👼🏻

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

• He was using a level 2 legendary Summoner compared to my level 4 common!

• His units were all maxed out for his levels!

It would seem like I was at a disadvantage level wise. 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 Diamond Dragon was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle.

I went for a high speed strategy counting on SPEED debuffs to allow myself to get the first hits in, and also dodge any physical damage. Other than my Diamond Dragon, my Time Mage and Black Dragoh also provided me with more speed buffs/debuffs. The opponent's entire team were thus slowed significantly, which would provide my team with some dodge protection.

His choice of units were mostly physical based, which actually played perfectly into my plans. All his units ended up being debuffed to the minimum 1 speed, ensuring that I would attack first and all his physical attacks had a very high chance of missing their attacks.

This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆

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LINK TO MY FIGHT USING DIAMOND DRAGON

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👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

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1st CARD SLOT

The Prismatic Energy is chosen for this slot. It has very high health and the REFLECT MAGIC ability. Thus makes it perfect for tanking.
It will be the most important role since the backline will fall if the Main Tank goes.

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2nd CARD SLOT

Venator Kinjo takes up the second slot. It has been chosen for it's REFLECTION SHIELD ability. This will ensure that the BLAST damage from the ruleset will not damage any of my other units.

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3rd CARD SLOT

Diamond Dragon takes up the second slot. It has been chosen for it's SLOW ability. It also deals decent Magic DPS and has really high armour to take physical hits. It is also capable of being the backup tank if called upon.

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4th CARD SLOT

Time Mage occupies slot number 4. Sitting in the middle with it's SLOW ability. It's role is to debuff the opponent's team with SLOW and also to deal damage with it's magic attack.

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5th CARD SLOT

The Black Dragon occupies slot number 5. It's role is to debuff the opponent's team with SLOW and also to deal damage with it's magic attack. Putting it behind will also give it time to build up it's HEALTH with every hit thanks to it's LIFE LEECH ability.

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6th CARD SLOT

The Chaos Dragon occupies the last slot. It's role is purely as a DPS with it's massive 3 MAGIC ATTACK. With it's high health/armor and the FLYING ability, it can also protect the backline against SNEAK attacks.

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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.

👼🏻LIFE👼🏻 VS 🐉DRAGON/LIFE👼🏻

My opponent used the Shieldbearer as his main tank in the first slot. This is as good a choice as any for a tank. The Shieldbearer has great defensive stats and the TAUNT ability too.

His 2nd slot was occupied by a Luminous Eagle which could attack from this position with it's REACH ability. It could also serve as a decent backup tank.

His 3rd slot was occupied by Djinn Renova which boosted all his units health with the STRENGTHEN ability.

His other 3 slots were all occupied by ranged DPS-ers. with the intention to swarm me with a barrage of ranged attacks.

Overall, I would say this was a pretty decent lineup.

My choice of the Main Tank was the Prismatic Energy in the 1st slot. It has the MAGIC REFLECT ability allowing it to return any magic damage done by the opponent. It's high health also makes it a really good tank.

It is followed by the Venator Kinjo in the 2nd slot, acting as a BLAST protection unit with it's REFLECTION SHIELD ability.

My next few slots were all occupied by my DPS-ers/Slow debuffers, of which the Diamond Dragon was one of them.

The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was quite a high mana game with 50 mana as the limit. The rulesets were Silenced Summoners and Blast.

• The first round showcased the ridiculous speed of my team. Thanks to my SPEED buffs from the Diamond Dragon, the Time Mage and the Black Dragon, I managed to completely destroy his main tank before he could even fire off a shot. This put me an at immediate advantage with his high tank taken off the field. 😎

• The 2nd round was again a repeat of the first, with my entire team firing off a volley of fire that killed off his backup tanks 🥳.

• The game was wildly in my favour by now. The opponent's attacks kept missing as my superior speed allowed my units to dodge quite a few of his attacks! He also lost the damage capability of any ranged unit which moved to the front, thus reducing his DPS output to a trickle 😈.

• It was all over for the opponent now as my units mopped up his entire army. 💀💀💀

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All i expected was for the Diamond Dragon to possibly provide some support benefits to my team. However it ended up being a perfect counter against my opponent.

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. 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 disadvantage at the start but I ended up winning handily. 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 Diamond Dragon 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 Diamond Dragon, I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

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