Card Highlights #17: Cruel Sethropod

"When life gives you lemons, order the lobster tail." — Ziad K. Abdelnour
I always see Cruel Sethropod as lobsters due to their artwork. Actually, they have some similarities as well. Cruel Sethropod's low cost correlates lobsters as "Poor Man's Chicken" in the old age. They both have outer shell that when removed, shows a flimsy side. The armor of Cruel Sethropod may be strong but once the armor goes down, you best just use another monster for tanking.

Lore

Sailors tell many tales of the dangers of the Cruel Sethropods. Armed with strong pincers and teeth as sharp as spears, they attack anything that gets within range. It is nearly impossible to remove a Cruel Sethropod once it has latched on, and many a sailor has the scars to show where they ventured too close.

Rental Cost

Cruel Sethropod's rental cost is too low that you can rent a level 3 or 4 of Cruel Sethropod for less than half a DEC. This is probably due to Cruel Sethropod being a free to play monster and also due to players not using this card. The supply of the card skyrocketed allowing the rental price to be this low.

Buy/Sell Cost

Buying one or few of Cruel Sethropod is efficient for the future. As I see it, Cruel Sethropod is one of the strongest card in Little League where you can only play cards with 4 cost or lower. Cruel Sethropod is not strong by damage but as a tank. He would certainly drain huge amount of damage per battle to the point that your opponent loses before Cruel Sethropod even falls.

Card Stats

Cruel Sethropod's Stats are actually on the high side for a 3 mana cost card. He has fairly high health and an armor to boot. The problem is Cruel Sethropod is low on everything else including no abilities. Still, Cruel Sethropod is an efficient blocker as you might be able to use him in almost all of your battles due to his low mana cost.

When to use

|| Monsters lose their own abilities. Summoner effects such as those that give abilities to monsters still take effect.
Back to Basics is an advantage to cards like Cruel Sethropod since he doesn't have any effects in the first place. Without any ability to negate, then this Rule Set is as good as none. Put on board other non-ability user and you only have your opponent to lose.

|| Slower monsters attack first. Try to pick monsters with speeds of 1. Speed effects how soon your monster will attack in battle and how effective it is at evading attacks. So a monster with a speed of 1 would normally attack last now will attack first. A speed of 1 will also have the best chance of dodging if paired with evade and flying as well.
Due to Cruel Sethropod's 1 speed, Reverse Speed is good for Cruel Sethropod. This allows your monster to avoid some of the attacks which in turn allows your Cruel Sethropod to survive longer.

|| You can only use Monsters and Summoners with 4 or less mana.
Low mana cards with high defense is a hard thing to pass. Little League is especially good due to this reason. Having a good tank to defend your team during these rule sets are essential to your success.

When not to use

|| All monsters start the game poisoned and will take 2 damage each turn unless cleansed. Big HP and cleanse are going to be your best bet here. However there may be some cases where you ignore and go for a big offensive attack and wipe out your opponent before the poison becomes a factor.
With only 4 health, Noxious Fumes will kill Cruel Sethropod in 2 turns. This means that putting Cruel Sethropod as is during Noxious Fumes is practically useless.

|| Monsters do not have any armor and do not get armor from Abilities or Summoner Buffs.
Unprotected bad for a lot of reasons but mainly is it cuts Cruel Sethropod's defense by half. Not only it would remove Cruel Sethropod's 3 armor but removes all future armor to him as well by means of Repair ability.

|| All Monsters get the Enrage ability. Has increased Melee attack and Speed when damaged. Values are multiplied by 1.5 and rounded up.
Spreading Fury something that I don't want to if I'm using Cruel Sethropod. The ability does increase your damage and speed but due to both stats being the lowest at Cruel Sethropod, then it would more or less provides better support to your opponent instead. Cruel Sethropod would be just food for those monsters if ever there's Speading Fury on board.

Battle

Click here to view the replay

This is the positioning I used for this battle:

Cruel Sethropod should always be used in the front or a sneak blocker if your mana permits it. In this game, I used Cruel Sethropod as main tank to absorb a bit of damage for my secondary tank, Djinn Oshannus.

Round 1

By end of Round 1, decent damage to each side was made. Opponent doesn't have a healer for Shieldbearer so as long as I delay the fight, I should have the advantage as Protect from Truthseeker does not do any good against my magic damage.

Round 2

By end of Round 2, Shieldbearer dies alongside Truthseeker. This allows me to open the back line and start grinding on Cave Slug. Cruel Sethropod's Armor is broken at this point but that's just a tiny concern as the back line has been opened.

Round 3

Game ended on Round 3 with Cruel Sethropod standing still. Cave Slug and Herbalist dies after only 5 turns on round 3.

Disclaimer

• Battle photos are taken from Splinterlands in-game website. To view the full game, click on this link.

• I do not own any of the animated pictures. Visit Giphy to get more information.
  Happy Holidays. Good luck. Have fun.