Hi everyone, welcome back to my weekly Splinterlands Social Media Challenge. This time I want to share about one monster which personally I don't like it but I find it sometime useful in some situation. It's Venari Heatsmith

Overall nothing wrong with this monster, It is not something that is useless. Stat-wise is not something that is great, but Venari Heatsmith is still a monster that can be helpful in your battle. There are some reasons why I dislike Venari Heatsmith, but I will explain a couple of my main reasons below.

Reason #1 Venari Heatsmith Doesn't Grow Well

Let's be fair, we do not expect any greatness from 3 mana monster. Up to level 5 or on a Silver League, Venari Heatsmith's growth is still ok. However on level 6 above, which is on Gold League, he gets an Amplify Ability. I think this is useless, there aren't any monster in Fire Element that can benefit from that ability. We have Magnor and Elemental Phoenix which can take benefit from Venari Heatsmith Amplify Ability, but... Would we bring in Heatsmith into our squad when we have those two? Seriously, it won't happen.

Second, on level 5 Venari Heatsmith has 3 armor and 4 health... on level 10 he has 4 armor and 4 health... Come one, 5 level up and you get only 1 extra armor? I think developer misdeveloped this character.

Reason #2 Too Many Good Tank in Fire Element

There are too many good tanks in Fire Element. If you need a good tank against magic attacks, you can depend on these two:

Both of them are good against magic attack, and even get better as their level risen.

If your concern is about Little League rulesets, which makes you only be able to use 4 mana and below monsters, we still have Cerberus and Xenith Monk as the best choice.

Honestly, It almost no room for Venari Heatsmith to be looked as something good.

THESE DON'T MEAN VENARI HEATSMITH IS USELESS. IT STILL HAS SOME GOOD IN IT

Although I don't like it, it doesn't mean Venari Heatsmth is useless. Here some points about how we can use Heatsmith better:

1. Cerberus and Xenith monk are good, they have 4 mana requirement. It's an even mana number. When you can play odds mana only, Odds Ones Out Ruleset, that's when Venari Heatsmith comes in handy
2. When you need a non melee tank... There are some range attackers with Close Range ability, or Mages... however most of them have small health points and vunerable to magic attacks. This is where you need Venari Heatsmith as canon fodder, let him go ahead and die first by taking as many damage as he can
3. Some Filler... for taking on Snipe attacks. Same as no 2 above, a cannon fodders but not in front as the main tank.
4. A bait... if we have Equal Opportunity Rulesets ~ All Monsters have the Opportunity ability. We can put Antoid Platoon to take range and melee opportunist attacks, but how about magic attacks? Venari Heatsmith will do better than others.
5. CP (collection power) boost. Well everyone needs CP, right?

Anyway, if you know more, please help me put more of the goods of it in the comment section below.

Battle Preparation

I feel plain if I talk about Splinterlands monsters but I do not bring or show any battle about them. Ok Let's have this battle as reference:

• ARMORED UP ~ All Monsters have 2 Armor in addition to their normal Armor stat.
• RISE OF COMMONS ~ Only Common and Rare Monsters may be used in battles.
• 28 MANA

I think this is a very good rulesets to have a battle as an opportunity for Venari Heatsmith to showcase how good he is. First ARMORED UP, an extra 2 armor for Venari Heatsmith would be a very good buff regarding he has Void Armor ability. RISE OF COMMONS ruleset gave me reason to use Venari Heatsmith, if not I prefered to go directly with Grum.

The last was 28 mana. It's not too low but not high enough. It's a choice whether to go with 3-4 big monsters or having a mix of small-big 6 monsters team. Here was my simple lineup:

Position	Card	Ability	Plan and Strategy
Summoner		+1 range, +1 health and blast buff	Yodin is my favorite fire summoner, and I believe everyone would agree if I say Yodin is one of the best summoner in Splinterlands.
Main Tank		Void Armor	Our Cannon Fodder. His job is to be killed only and whether we win or not, it's all depend on how much damage Venari Heatsmith can take to its grave because behind him... all are range attackers who could not do anything on close range combat.
Second		Flym Close range, Deathblow	I was confused whether to go with Gargoya Devil or Molten Ash Golem. Molten Ash Golem offers better healt point, however my choice goes for The Devil due to higher Damage and Speed which can exploit Yodin Blast Buff better. This monster would be my main tank too
Third		none	extra range attacker
Fourth		none	extra range attacker. I use two small mana archers incase opponent will use a big hitter with oppportunity ability such as Serpentine Spy and Dragon Jumper, I won't lose all my attackers in one go
The Last		Snipe	One of my favorite archer in Chaos Legion Fire Element. This spider has a snipe ability which makes it aims a non melee monster in the middle of their formation. I use this spider as backline wall too, due to it's decent health point

HERE COMES THE BATTLE!!!

If you want to see the battle directly, you can see it directly here:
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_4f722862524f063526965990001a328b

This should be a good battle for Venari Heatsmith. Opponent had magic and melee attacks which might show how useful Void Armor Ability would be.

On the other side, I liked this kind of battle. It's on Gold 3 League and both of us didn't bring a bunch of level 1 monsters. Well, I brought one, that Goblin Fireballer. but Overall, it's still a good battle to be watched.

Round 1

• The game started as both party buffing and debuffing their monsters and opponent's monsters.
• My team had a total 15 range damage. My Opponent had 5 melee damage and 9 magic damage, combined total of 14 damage.
• This battle would be a contest of how strong my frontline, led by Venari Heatsmith, to take on all the damage in front, because if Venari died, Range Attackers behind wouldn't be able to do anything. Same went to my opponent, against Yodin Zaku Blast Army, defense should be useless because Blast attack would kill nearby monsters. They needed to kill my tanks very fast
• Round 1 ended without any monsters got killed. Opponents managed to dodge 2 of my attacks, luck was on their side.

Round 2

• This round was the decisive round. It started by Regal Peryton killed my Venari Heatsmith.
• Scavo Firebolt did the revenge by killing Peryton as soon as posible
• Lava Spider killed Flesh Golem and Goblin Sorcerer. I got the favorable position
• Goblin thief managed to killed Lava Spider

Round 3

• With only Goblin Psychic and Gobln Thief left and both were slow, they became a sitting duck
• Opponents got annihilated on this round without any chance to do anything

A SHORT DISCUSSION

Did Venari Heatsmith do his job splendidly?

I think Venari Heatsmith has performed very well in this battle. Let's count all the attack he has absorbed:

• Round 1 : 3 melee damage from Flesh Golem, 3 Magic Damage from Regal Peryton, and 3 Magic damage from Goblin Psychic
• Round 2 : 3 Magic Damage from Regal Peryton.

If we combine those damage, we will get 3 melee damage and 9 Magic damage. I beleive for a 3 Mana Monster, getting killed after taking 12 damage point is something that is extraordinary. It's a very good canon fodder, he died with pride.

If I used Lava Launcher or Molten Ash Golem, they would have died half way and I lost my firepower too. Things would end in opposite result, a lost.

What were the key winning points in that battle?

There were a few of decisive point in that battle.

1. Opponent defense formation. It was strong against snipe attacks due to Regal Peryton positioning. In round 1 Regal Peryton dodged Lava Spider attacks and that was a crucial point. Unfortunately my main firepower were Scavo Fireblot and Gargoya Devil, with a combined 8 range damage per turn plus blast damage. Once Peryton got killed by some blast damage, then their defense was crumbled.
2. Venari Heatsmith as the cannon fodder tank. It was a decisive one, taking on 12 damage point before he died. The cost of 3 mana give me some spare mana points for other monsters which were Gargoya Devil and Scavo Firebolt. I could not use this duo if I used a more higher mana monster as the tank
3. There are many excellent range attackers in Fire Element Chaos Legion. This battle shows how good Scavo Firebolt and Lava Spider, and we still have Lava Launcher and Molten Ash Golem which couldnt be brought due to mana. It's too bad many players couldn't see them because they stick too much on Tarsa Melee buff.

Thank you for visiting my Social Media Challenge, don't forget to leave your comments and feedback below. There are credits in this post for these people:

• splinterlands : for holding weekly battle challenge events
• carrieallen : for ultimate markdown tutorial
• eve66 : for wonderful divider art