Splinterlands Share Your Battle Weekly Challenge - Flying Squid

almost 2 years ago

INTRODUCTION
Good day everyone! I hope you had a very rewarding experience in the recently-concluded Splinterlands season. For me, I finished in Gold III, though my battle rating is enough for me to advance in Champion III. I didn't rent enough cards to increase my Collection power and stayed in the Gold league to do some experiment and comparison. I finished in Champion II in the season prior to this one that ended and I just want to compare which league is probably right for me, in terms of my rental expenses and earnings.

Anyway, this week I am up for another Splinterlands SHARE YOUR BATTLE Weekly Challenge and the featured card belongs to the Water splinter... the FLYING SQUID.

THE CARD

Flying Squid is a common water monster card and is part of a Chaos Legion Edition. It has a mana cost of seven (7) mana and has a melee attack of two (1). Its maxed-out level of 10 increases its speed to five (5), its attack to three (3) and its health to 10 from the original eight (8) in Level 1. Initially, it has the REACH ability and at Level 10, it has the BLIND and BACKFIRE abilities too. For this post, I have used a Level 1 card.

Pros and Cons

The Water Splinter is popular for its magic-attacking creatures and this card will be useful in situations like the NO MAGIC or MELEE MAYHEM rulesets that will definitely make you choose a melee attack creature in your deck. Its REACH ability enables it to be used alongside Melee-attack tank creature like Diemonshark or Sea Monster, notably in games with no specific ruleset.

In recent times, it has useful in forming a melee-attack team for the Water splinter especially in MELEE MAYHEM, SUPER SNEAK, or EQUAL OPPORTUNITY rulesets. The team comprising Diemonshark, Flying Squid, and Deeplurker became common in battles. Not only that they are good in the rulesets that I mentioned, but also, buying those cards is relatively cheap.

The big disadvantage of this card is its mana cost. For seven (7) mana, it is fairly limited to huge mana battles.

General Strategy

My opponent's previous teams were all Life splinters. He/she/they may be on a Life focus, but nevertheless, it has become predictable as to the choice of cards I will be expecting my team to fight with. The cards used were not that huge and if I have a card I will be preparing from, it is the Cave Slug because of its OPPORTUNITY ability.

The rulesets for this game are EARTHQUAKE and ODD ONES OUT. The former makes more the card choices limited, though I already have something in mind as soon as I saw the rulesets in my computer screen.

The Lineup

Summoner - Vera Salacia

Slot 1 - Torhilo the Frozen
Slot 2 - Flying Squid
Slot 3 - Venari Wavesmith
Slot 4 - Creeping Ooze
Slot 5 - Merdaali Guardian
Slot 6 - N/A

Explanation of the lineup

While I am tempted to use Kelya as my summoner for the extra armor, I decided to use Vera Salacia instead. It gives the SNARE ability to every friendly monster at the start of a battle. I was thinking my opponent may use a Celestial Harpy or a Luminour Eagle specifically for this ruleset.

While Torhilo is slow, it has a decent amount of health as well as armor. It may last for a few rounds before the EARTHQUAKE or an enemy attack kills it. And if my enemy chooses to build a magic-attack team, its VOID ability is a good way to counter that.

Then a good choice for its REACH ability is our featured monster, the Flying Squid. While it doesn't have the FLYING ability, its huge health and relatively big melee attack will help to outlast the enemy, including the EARTHQUAKE that will occur every end of the round.

Occupying my 3rd slot is the Venari Wavesmith. Its PROTECT ability will give my monsters extra shield which at least give them another round from the EARTHQUAKE damage.

In my 4th spot is Creeping Ooze. I would like to slow my opponent's creatures a bit to enable my team to have an early attack and deal some damage right away.

Last in the team is Merdaali Guardian. I specifically put this in the team to provide at least one extra round of healing my tank monster, whether it is for Torhilo (if it survives the early round) or for the Flying Squid, before Merdaali succumbs to the EARTHQUAKE damage (or from a Sneak attack from the opposing team).

There you are guys, that's how I designed this team and let's see how it panned out.