Share Your Battle Challenge - Grumpy Dwarf

In this week's Splinterlands share your battle challenge, we have been tasked to fight a match with Grumpy Dwarf. This melee monster has the reach ability to attack from second position and only costs 4 Mana to play which makes him adaptable to a wide variety of match rulesets. He isn't a monster that I use a lot, so this will be an exciting challenge to see how he does.

The Lineup

This match was fought with a 29 Mana limit which gave me plenty of Mana to select an strong supporting team for Grumpy Dwarf.

Since Grumpy Dwarf is a neutral monster he can fight alongside any Splinter and I chose Earth Splinter for two reasons. First, I think I have the strongest collection of cards in Earth Splinter, but secondly Mylor Cowling has the "Thorns" ability that allows each of my monsters to deal damage back to the opponent when they are hit with a Melee attack. With this in mind I played Furious Chicken in first spot. Normally Furious Chicken is a simple buffer monster, but with Mylor as the summoner he was also able to deal back a bit of damage.

In second spot I played Nectar Queen. Nectar Queen has a strong attack but somewhat low speed. In addition, the flying ability helps it dodge attacks from non fling monsters.

In third spot, I played the hero of the match - Grumpy Dwarf. Playing Grumpy Dwarf in second spot allowed him to easily support Nectar Queen by using his reach ability to fight from second spot once Furious Chicken was knocked out of the match.

Centauri Mage is one of my favorite Earth Splinter monsters, because it can attack from anywhere in the lineup with its magic attack. Not only can it attack from anywhaere, but it has the return fire ability which allows it to deal damage back to the opponent when it is hit with a ranged or magic attack.

In last spot, I decided to play Mantoind. Mantoid isn't a monster that I normally play, but I thought it would be good to play a strong ranged monster with the snipe ability that allows it to target enemy monsters with ranged or magic attacks that aren't in the first position.

The Match
As the match started, I could see that my opponent played quite a strong team with Serpent of Eld leading the charge. Serpent of Eld is an incredibly strong monster with high speed, a powerful attack, armor AND the dodge ability that helps it evade attacks. I new that taking it out of the fight would be the key to victory. Although the opponent took an early team, my team was able to strike back and carry the victory.

Analysis of Grumpy Dwarf
Overall, I have to say that I don't use Grumpy Dwarf a lot. That being said, it is certainly a monster that ha its niche role. It isn't very strong, so I certainly wouldn't play it in a 99 Mana match, but since it only costs 4 Mana, it could be a powerhouse in a 4 or less Mana ruleset. Other than Minotaur Warrior, I don't know of any 4 Mana monsters that have the reach ability. Further, Grumpy Dwarf is neutral and can fight along any Splinter whereas Minotaur Warrior only fights with the Earth Splinter. Like I said, he isn't the best all around monster for every situation, but in a few unique spots, he could be a key player in leading you to victory.

Summary
As always, its fun to take part in the Splitnerlands matches and try out new strategies and tactics. Don't forget that Splinterlands is also one of the leading cryptocurrency games that rewards you with NFT's as well as crypto for playing. It's free to get started, so if you're interested be sure to check them out or watch my replay here.
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_7d99f2bea580acc6fb62bf5d7c22c34b&ref=parttimeeconon

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