Do You Smell What the Roc is Cooking? Using Giant Roc in Battle!

This week's Share Your Battle challenge features Giant Roc! This is another one of the cards that is no longer in the starter set, and it's always fun to take an old friend out for a spin. Even more so for me, since I enjoy playing with the fire splinter.

If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!

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First up: the ruleset. This is an ideal ruleset for Giant Roc because while Giant Roc has decent stats, it is not particularly cheap so having a lot of mana is good. No magic also helps, since fire tends to be weak to magic. All systems go for Roc!

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We'll go with Tarsa as our summoner. She buffs Giant Roc, along with the rest of our team. Notably, all of the monsters on our team with the exception of Lava Launcher will benefit from both the health AND the damage bonus.

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First up, our tank and secondary tank. Living Lava has a lot of HP, which combined with it's Shield ability can soak up a ton of damage. We'll pair it with our star this week, Giant Roc. Giant Roc can attack over Living Lava from the second position with its Reach ability, and is also a decent tank with its Flying ability letting it dodge more often.

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We'll fill in our team with as much damage as we can fit in. My hope is that Tenyii Striker, Serpentine Spy, and Sand Worm will be able to do some serious damage to my opponent's more important and/or vulnerable units by using Sneak and Opportunity to bypass their tank, and that Lava Launcher can be used as a bit of a shield to protect the back end of my lineup.

With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I don't know how it will play out - my opponent has also gone fire with Tarsa, and has brought a solid debuffer in Disintegrator's Demoralize ability - that lowers my whole team's attack other than the Lava Launcher!

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I start to breathe a little easier after the first round. My monsters with Opportunity and Sneak are able to knock out a significant portion of my opponent's damage potential before they are able to take out any of my monsters.

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One more round and the battle is nearly won - at this point my damage dealers have taken out everything except for the Disintegrator, and I haven't even lost a single monster yet! One more quick round of attacks and it's all over. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.

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Thanks to that pesky Disintegrator, my Giant Roc didn't deal a ton of damage in this battle. However, the Roc did play an important role as the secondary tank - my opponent used a Fire Elemental with the Blast ability and I would much rather have the Giant Roc with plenty of HP take the splash damage than have it hit something else much more squishy, like my Serpentine Spy. Overall my strategy worked out perfectly - the tanks held up long enough for my Sneaky damage dealers to finish the job.

Consider me a Giant Roc fan, though I'm not sure if I'm so big a fan that I would go out of my way to rent a copy every day. There are plenty of cards in the current set that also work well as a secondary tank. With that said, it is definitely nice having a flying tank in Giant Roc, and I'll be sure to throw it into my lineup while I still have it as an option!

Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:

• Moving up in Leagues - Is it Worth It? - How to determine whether to move up in Splinterlands league.
• Here Be Dragons: Navigating a Difficult Splinterlands Environment - A few tips for anyone who is struggling this season in Splinterlands.
• Throwback Friday - Using Centaur in Battle! - My entry into last week's battle challenge, a quick fight using Centaur.

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Thinking about giving Splinterlands a try but haven't signed up yet? Feel free to use my referral link, and be sure to reach out to me if you have any questions!