Hello fellow Splinterlanders!

In today's post I will be writing about the Crypt Beetle, a death splinter monster.

THEME: CRYPT BEETLE

Abilities	Description
	Reduces damage from Melee and Ranged attacks. Attack damage gets halved, but if the attack is 1, no damage will be done.

This is a new section, since I like writing. I thought of giving a whirl at writing a short lore for the card.

The Crypt Beetle is an ancient creature from the chaos realm. As the gates of Chaos opened to the outside world, the numerous beetles lying in the Crypt stir from their long sleep. These beetles are often found in the depths of the catacombs, and they are notable for their 6 red eyes which have excellent night vision and heat sensing capability. Ready to attack any warm creatures that dare to intrude upon their abode. With limited food in the crypt, the main nourishment from the minerals underground brings about an extremely hard and sturdy carapace on the back of this beetle. Although weak against magic, these beetles is a tough opponent for those relying on their brute strength and claws. In heavy numbers, be warned, and flee the moment you can. Looks may be deceiving, lest you shall be turned into the white goo they use to make their nests

DO NOT USE Crypt Beetle for the following ruleset:

Ruleset	Why
	The low health and low attack makes the beetle good fodder for magic attacks. With opportunity, attacks will be zooming in on the beetle.
	Too low health will die in 1st round or 2nd.

USE Crypt Beetle for the following ruleset:

Ruleset	Why
	This is a useful tank if the health is boosted!
	This has 1 speed or 2 speed when levelled, so this card will be quick on it's feet when this ruleset is active
	For low mana battles, with enough demoralize, Crypt Beetle can be placed at the back to defend against sneak attacks
	Safe from any magic attacks!
	Shield will be useful against all Melee setup. Beetle for low mana, Harklaw or Windeku for higher mana
	Cheap card for little league for sure

Let's move on to the battle, the ruleset for my battle is Equalizer and Healed-out.

Ruleset	Description
	The initial health of the Monster is equal to that of the Monster with the highest health field (either by own team or opponents)
	All Healing Abilities are removed.

Based on the following ruleset my strategy is to utilize a bunch of low mana cards regardless of the health as the equalizer rule will ensure that every card gets some decent health.

Summoner: Drake of Arnak

This summoner adds on armor to every monsters that I chose. I hope this will allow all my monsters to survive longer.

1st Position: Crypt Beetle

A level 2 card that I own after opening some packs! This card is really useful to take on hits, especially for particular rulesets like "Equalizer" and in Low Mana games. This card only needs 3 Mana!

2nd Position: Twilight Basilisk

I am going with a level 5 because of the "Stun" ability. This ability is really useful to stun the enemy's tank to prevent dangerous hits, or heals. This is in 2nd position as it has the "Reach" ability

3rd Position: Creeping Oozer

A card that is always useful in a lot of matches. "Slow" allows my card to attack first and this is only a 1-mana card

4th Position: Death Elemental

This is another low mana card, at only 3 mana. This card has "Snipe" and "Silence". I am using this card to reduce any possible heavy magic attacks from the opponent as my beetle is weak against magic.

5th Position: Halfling Alchemist

This card is always useful to reduce the enemy attack's by half. Imagine the enemy attack's being halved from this debuff and further halved from the "Shield" ability. That would be a 25% total damage reduction.

6th Position: Haunted Spider

I am using a level 4 haunted spider which as the "Poison" ability. This is also another useful low mana card as it costs only 3 mana. Poison is gained at level 3.

Round 1:

Let's look at the lineup. The opponent is using Mother Khala which adds 1 health to all the cards. I can see that most of the cards will not be able to harm my Crypt Beetle, but the Pelacor Arbalest and the Time Mage will be tricky. Add to the fact that truth speaker will add on armor to all of the opponent's card.

In the first round, my death elemental hits chaos agent, while the enemy's time mage injures my Crypt Beetle. Although the Pelacor Arbalest has +2 ranged the shield ability of the beetle reduce the damage to only the armor. My basilisk is able to remove all the armor from the Gargoya Scrapper. Subsequent attacks from Celestial Harpy does NO damage to my beetle. Hard shell!

Round 2:

At the start of the 2nd round, the enemy tank has only 1 HP left and thus was killed by the basilisk. However the beetle stay as the tank was short-lived as the double strike from the Arbalest kills it too. Chaos agent was poisoned by the haunted spider and the round ends with the Harpy attacking the armor of the basilisk.

Round 3:

In the 3rd round, the agent received the effect of the poison and is then killed off by the basilisk. Death elemental slight injures Truth Speaker. Thanks to the speed difference, Pelacor Arbalest missed both strikes on Basilisk. The Basilisk armor is finally removed by the final strike of the round from the Harpy.

Round 4:

In round 4, Time Mage attacks Basilisk and with the combined attacks from Arbalest, my basilisk was taken out. However my Haunted Spider was able to remove TruthSpeaker, thus getting rid of the pesky armor. Creeping ooze is up in front as the 1-mana tank.

Round 5:

In the 5th round my ooze was killed by the Mage and the Arbalest attacks. Time mage was poisoned by my spider, while Arbalest misses the attack on my Death Elemental

Round 6:

At the start of round 6, Time Mage dies from the poison. Arbalest as the new tank is not able to attack and the slow debuff is removed from all my monsters. The attacks concentrate on Arbalest, thus killing it this round.

Round 7 and Round 8:

In round 7 to Round 8, with all monsters attacking the Harpy, victory is attained.

A close one!

L͓̽I͓̽N͓̽K͓̽ T͓̽O͓̽ B͓̽A͓̽T͓̽T͓̽L͓̽E͓̽

In this battle, the ruleset is once more Equalizer and Up CLose and Personal. Both rules are very suitable for Crypt Beetle which is anti melee. By putting the beetle at the back, we are securing the backline from sneak attacks from heavy hitters like Sandworm.

Zintar Mortalis is a good combination to go with Crypt Beetle

Quite a neat victory.. Crypt Beetle the safety barrier is unharmed and look at Maggots with 16 health LOL

L͓̽I͓̽N͓̽K͓̽ T͓̽O͓̽ B͓̽A͓̽T͓̽T͓̽L͓̽E͓̽

Another Low Mana cap match.

With blasts, snipe is important and the beetle took some hits in the 1st round. This close!!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Is it cheap?

For a level 1, yes, it's only 0.08 per card. Looks like the price is spiking recently, I am not sure if the challenge has anything to do with it.

What do I like about Crypt Beetle most:

I like Shield and the Low Mana Cost (3)

What I do not like?

The attack though is quite low, only at level 5 do we get +2 melee attack. Health is also quite low for this card.

Alternatives for Death Splinter

If Mana is not an issue go for Harklaw as it has Shield at level 1, immunity at level 2, and demoralize at level 3. I am still collecting cards to hopefully upgrade mine to level 3.

Interested in this #Play2earn game? SIGN UP to #Splinterlands Here!

If anyone has not signed up with the game feel free to use my referral link and let me know in the comments down below. I will reciprocate with DEC or cards (approximately 250 DEC worth)

Our Guild is Recruiting! Join our discord here

Credits

Splinterlands for the source image and Canva for the bountiful elements (background, animation, logo design) to use. Credits also to @Flauwy for the death divider used in this post.

Thanks for spending the time to read through my post!