Splinterlands Share Your Battle Weekly Challenge - Dragons (Drake of Arnak)

INTRODUCTION
Hi there everyone, it's been a busy week for me at work and I rarely have time to play. In fact, in terms of daily focus quest, I think I was only able to finish a couple of focus quests since the start of the new season. Nonetheless, I have been able to squeeze playing Splinterlands in my tight schedule and I am happy to finally complete the Splinterlands SHARE YOUR BATTLE Weekly Challenge this weekend.

I am excited that the challenge went back to Dragons again. It gives users the flexibility to use whatever Dragon card in their deck and it allows the users to combine their Dragon card alongside with cards from the other Splinters. For this challenge, I used a Dragon summoner instead, Drake of Arnak.

THE CARD

Pros and Cons

Probably, the main advantage of this card is its being a DRAGON card, which means it can be partnered with other Splinter lineup that is eligible in a particular match. And this is a summoner card, which in a way does not require the player to use other Dragon cards and that player can stick to a particular Splinter type, and that flexibility is one of its strengths.

In my past postings, I have featured before the TAUNT + REPAIR + TANK HEAL combo, which is prevalent in the Life Splinter because of it has the following cards: Shieldbearer, Armorsmith, and Divine Healer (or Venari Crystalsmith). With Drake of Arnak providing the armor, you can use the combo in another Splinter team which has a monster with TAUNT ability and a monster with TANK HEAL ability. The Water Splinter for instance, it has The Kraken for the TAUNT ability and Crustacean King (or Merdaali Guardian) for the TANK HEAL ability. What about the monster with the REPAIR ability to complete to combo? Remember we now have the Scavo Hireling with that ability? The best thing with this card is it is a neutral card which can be used with any other Splinter (except with the TAKING SIDES ruleset).

Having a mana cost of four makes it eligible to be used in LITTLE LEAGUE ruleset. For low mana battles, it depends on the player or to the specific ruleset of the match. In certain occasions, players might opt to use a non-dragon summoner which has a mana cost of three (3) because of the limited mana resource, or even a Dragon summoner with mana cost of three (3) like Kretch Tallevor.

From experience, the additional armor is good. However, as you advance to higher leagues where battles usually have higher mana limits, allowing monsters with greater abilities and deal more damages to be used, that armor might not be too much useful at all. If a Dragon summoner is to be used in this regard (in a general setting and not a specific ruleset), people might choose to use Byzantine Kitty instead.

General Strategy

The rulesets for this particular match are REVERSE SPEED and EQUALIZER. When I checked my opponent's previous battle history, it was evident that he/she/they prefer to use a DEATH splinter team with Contessa L'ament as the summoner. For that, I believe avoiding to take more damage from range-attack monsters is the main reason for that choice, preferring Contessa over Thaddeus Brood for instance.

However, I just ignore that summoner preference as I do not have plan of using any range-attack monster for this battle. With the given rulesets, the overall approach is to form a team that will slowly take out the enemy monsters one at a time. As I mentioned, slowly. Especially with the EQUALIZER ruleset, I expect that this won't be a quick match after all. The next consideration is to use magic attack monsters, so it will take direct damage to enemy's health (unless of course if the monster has VOID ARMOR ability).

The only allowed splinters in this match are Death and Dragon, so I expect my enemy to have a good feeling about the match and use the Death splinter, given his/her/their battle history. That makes it predictable though, so for this battle, aside from dealing damage, since I am using the Death splinter, I will also use monsters with LIFE LEECH ability to beef up their health while dealing damage to the enemy. I did not really put any much consideration on the REVERSE SPEED ruleset, especially I know it won't be a quick match. I chose my team as if that ruleset does not apply on this match.

Let's now proceed to my selection.

The Lineup

Summoner - Drake of Arnak

• Slot 1 - Harklaw
• Slot 2 - Furious Chicken
• Slot 3 - Magi Necrosi
• Slot 4 - Revealer
• Slot 5 - Life Sapper
• Slot 6 - Venari Bonesmith

Explanation of the lineup

Instead of using the Death splinter like my opponent, I preferred to use the Dragon splinter. This choice is entirely because of Drake of Arnak's +1 armor beef to my monsters. With my opponent's appetite to use range attack monsters, having that armor from Drake will provide extra protection for all my monsters.

You know how I use those "filler" monsters. They're like pawns and provide a "cushion" for my other monsters to continue attacking while the filler monster take the damage. That is what Furious Chicken is there for... so when Harklaw dies and when the Chicken takes the tank slot, it will absorb most of the enemy's attack while the rest of my monsters continue to deal their magic damage.

In a Death magic team, if the mana limits allow it, I use Magi Necrosi. Its SNIPE ability is good to deal damage to the enemy's back monsters and because it has the CAMOUFLAGE ability, I am sure it won't be targeted not unless Harklaw and Furious Chicken are both out of the game.

Next in my team is the Revealer. I like using this for its STUN ability. Based from my own experience in using monsters with STUN, Revealer has a higher chance of stunning its enemy compared to other monsters. This ability prevents my tank monster receiving a damage from the enemy's tank monster it the latter is stunned in that round.

As mentioned earlier in this post, I would like to use monsters to beef up their lives while dealing damage. This will give them an advantage especially with the EQUALIZER ruleset in place. For that reason, I put in Life Sapper into the mix. I know what with the EQUALIZER ruleset, even it becomes targeted with monsters with SNIPE ability (should my opponent use one or two), it won't be killed right away, and its LIFE LEECH ability will help in preventing that to happen early in the game.

Completing my team is another monster with the LIFE LEECH ability... the Venari Bonesmith. Compared with Life Sapper, I am a bit worried with this monster as it can also be targeted by the enemy monster with SNEAK ability. I just hope such won't be used. Having it in the team is the same reason I have for including Life Sapper into the mix. I know my enemy will be using range attack monsters and if the match goes down to the last two monsters in each team, I will have a huge advantage as I have magic attack monsters.

That's all folks, let's now proceed to the actual battle.

The Match

Watch The Battle

Thank you for reading. Please feel free to comment and leave your feedback.

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My previous challenges:
· Soul Strangler · Portal Spinner · Hill Giant · Flying Squid · Antoid Platoon · Xenith Archer · Delwyn Dragonscale · Silent Sha-vi · Animated Corpse · Defender of Truth · Stone Golem · Elven Cutthroat · Serpentine Mystic · Haunted Spider · Crystal Jaguar · Centauri Mage ·

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