For Guild & Glory: Brawl Report #104

Welcome back Splinterlands Battlemages to another edition of "For Guild & Glory," my article series to look at how my guilds and I performed during the most recent brawl cycle. It has been four months since my last report back on May 1st. One new change is that my article title will be numbered by brawl cycle instead of the date results were posted, so the last brawl I covered was #81 and here we are now in Brawl #104.

Over those four months, I've been pretty consistent with my main account @ducecrypto brawling with @shield-of-glory in Tier 2 defending Fray 14 - Modern Bronze Gold Foil. My mostly Chaos Legion account @treycrypto is back with my original guild @the420syndicate, which recently upgraded its arena to join Tier 2, and also brawls in Fray 14 - Modern Bronze Gold Foil. Finally, my eclectic wild account @shaelien has recently joined the Splinterlands guild of @zensports and defends Fray 15 - Wild Silver Gold Foil in Tier 2. It's pretty clear I love my gold foils and I can't wait to start accumulating some GF gladiators and maybe some Power Stones to help the cause!

Overview

Overall, I've been very pleased with the progress of my guilds, both in brawls and ranked play. Shield of Glory has expanded the Kingdom of Glory to include two more guilds: Aegis of Glory & Gauntlet of Glory which have both risen up the ranks to be Top20 guilds. We have also been paying close attention to the developments around SPS rewards for brawl play and will be making the change to Tier 3 for the next brawl, cycle #105.

Over with The Syndicate Group, we have rallied around some strong leadership from @squirrelacus and @sneakry to reorganize our main guild, The 420 Syndicate, to become a much stronger force than it was previously. With some new talent and a new arena and playing in only our 2nd Tier 2 brawl, I'm excited to see how HIGH we can take this guild.

And I'm also proud to say I've been accepted as a co-leader of ZenSports' main Splinterlands guild and helped us secure a generous donation from our sponsor company to level up our arena, barracks and hall. For those who don't know, ZenSports is actually a really smartly designed sports betting app and eSports platform, which has sponsored some big money Splinterlands and Axie Infinity tournaments in the past. ZenSports even has its own betting token and NFT collection, and as an NFT holder, I'm glad to be able to battle for a company whose products I support.

DuceCrypto & Shield of Glory

SHIELD OF GLORY cruised to a comfortable Tier 2 win with a 70%+ win rate, finishing above 2nd place [RKO] OUTTA NOWHERE by 10 wins. We were led by the @champion-slayer himself with an impressive 8-0 sweep, while I merely finished 3-2 in Fray 14 - Modern Bronze Gold Foil, below our brawl win rate. Here are my opponents and battle links:

#1 Yodin vs. @altryx5 Sloan --> REPLAY

#2 Sloan vs. @wileyzile Lorna --> REPLAY

#3 Obsidian vs. @waterchasers Obsidian --> REPLAY

#4 Yodin vs. @notrealape Tarsa --> REPLAY

#5 Drake vs. @tomthellama Kelya --> REPLAY

The most interesting matchup was the Obsidian mirror match as our lineups were somewhat similar, but my opponent gained the upper hand when their Goblin Mystic healed and attacked before mine and their Spirit Healer had a much bigger impact than my Queen Mycelia in the mostly magic battle.

TreyCrypto & The 420 Syndicate

Now this result made me so incredibly proud of my fellow battlemages from the original guild I joined when I first started this game back in December 2021. After only its 2nd brawl in Tier 2, THE 420 SYNDICATE won it without even playing in all of the frays! We won exactly two-thirds of our battles (66-33) and played four fewer battles than the maximum, edging out SPLINTER SKULLS by eight wins.

We were led by @sebbes with his incredible 9-0 sweep as well as a 5-0 sweep by @sneakry (not even pictured in our top brawlers). I contributed a strong 4-1 result myself, also defending Fray 14 - Modern Bronze Gold Foil like my main account.

#1 Kelya vs. @theaustrianguy Kelya --> REPLAY

#2 Obsidian vs. @madrax Thaddius --> REPLAY

#3 Tarsa vs. @bluepenguin Tarsa --> REPLAY

#4 Obsidian vs. @yukihyakubai99 Thaddius --> REPLAY

#5 Obsidian vs. @zephryn Drake --> REPLAY

The Keyla mirror match was very tight and while they had slightly more powerful monsters, the combo of Scavo Hireling's repair and Xenith Monk's heal was too much for their sneak-based team to overcome. Battle #4 was also very close, as typically Thaddius has an edge over Obsidian, but in this low-mana match my Goblin Mystic was able to outlast their Cursed Windeku.

Shaelien & ZenSports

Again, Tier 2 is quite new for the ZENSPORTS guild as well, this being only our 3rd cycle playing at the higher tier. While the skill level of this guild is quite high, I think we all suffer a bit from somewhat underpowered collections, myself included. I'm definitely a bit over my head taking on Fray 15 - Wild Silver Gold Foil with my backup wild account. All that being said, even with our 8th place finish in this fray, we are still earning more merits and crowns at the bottom of Tier 2 than at the top of Tier 1.

Believe it or not, this was actually my most successful brawl in Fray 15 so far, with an even 3-3 record. We were led by a 6-3 performance by @sentaku03 and a pair of 5-4 records from @ctzyrn and our leader @edskymiguel.

#1 Alric vs. @fighter4-freedom Kelya --> REPLAY

#2 Obsidian vs. @golddeck Rennyn --> REPLAY

#3 Delwyn vs. @edwint Obsidian --> REPLAY

#4 Delwyn vs. @justgl247 Tarsa --> REPLAY

#5 Alric vs. @fisty2face Bortus --> REPLAY

#6 Alric vs. @holmes95 Obsidian --> REPLAY

Of all the matches, the water vs. water matchup of my Alric against their Bortus was the most even and interesting of the bunch. With our summoners canceling each other, it really came down to strategy and placement. Although they had a powerful GF Gladiator Relenor Cleaver as the 2nd monster with reach, my strategy of using extra armor with two sneak attack monsters and two support monsters for tank heal and repair worked out well. I was able to buy enough time supporting my tank to destroy their lineup from sneaking in the back.

The Gladius Cases

What fun would a brawl report be if I didn't also include the gladius cases I was able to open with the merits won from brawls?! I'll be the first to admit I am a little jaded when it comes to opening these cases since I don't really get to use the monsters unless they are gold foil. But it just makes my quest for a Level 8 store and Power Stones more fervent as I look forward to the ability to increase the drop rate of GF Gladiators.

DuceCrypto:

TreyCrypto:

Shaelien:

New Brawl Preview

Like I mentioned in the open, SHIELD OF GLORY will be battling in Tier 3 for Brawl #105, facing off with many of the top guilds in the game: Summoner's Tribe, The Guild of Neoxian, Immortal Gods and Legendary Dragons. I will be defending Fray 16 - Modern Silver Gold Foil.

THE 420 SYNDICATE will have much tougher opposition this time drawing K-O-M-C, [RKO] Outta Nowhere and Earnest Samurai JPN. And in a twist of fate, ZENSPORTS will be in the same brawl as 420, facing off against the same tough opponents. Lucky for me, thankfully, my two alt accounts are battling in different frays!

Well, there you have it. I gotta say, it feels good to be back writing again. I'm sorry for the four-month hiatus while I adjusted to a new job and traveled about over the summer. It is my goal to get much more consistent with my writing, not just these brawl reports but also discussing other important Splinterlands topics too. For that matter, if there is anything you, my readers, are interested in reading about, please don't hesitate to let me know in the comments below.

I'll see you all in the Splinterlands. Happy battling!