Splinterlands Social Media Challenge! Trying new Card - JUNKER

over 1 year ago

Hello guys, this is my entry to the "Splinterlands Social Media Challenge!". If you want to participate and or read more about the challenge, click here.

Again, I will be testing a new card from the Riftwatchers Series. This card named Junker caught my eye while browsing and here I am testing it with multiple compositions to know when it performs the best.

JUNKER

THEME CARD
*EDITION*	RIFTWATCHER
*RARITY*	COMMON
*ELEMENT*	NEUTRAL
*LEVEL*	3
*MANA COST*	7 POINTS
*ATTACK*	MELEE
*ABILITIES*	REACH

Junker is a big beefy unit having good health and doing significant melee damage. It comes with a basic reach ability allowing him to attack from the second position, making him a perfect candidate for a secondary tank in high mana battles. But these stats come at a hefty cost of 7 mana. Using it in low mana cap battles is almost impractical.

But this large mana cost can provide good attacking and defensive abilities for this unit. Let's see how I utilized it in my battles.

Battle 1

My Lineup

This is my lineup for the battle

Position	Summoner/Monsters	Abilities
Summoner	Wizard of Eastwood	-2 shield
Position 1	Venari Knifer	Thorns
Position 2	Junker	Reach
Position 3	Venari Scout	Opportunity
Position 4	Khmer Princess	No ability
Position 5	Goblin Thief	Sneak

This was a standard battle with no modifications to the ruleset. It was a 25-mana cap battle. I chose the Wizard of Eastwood as my summoner. It gives the power to retract 2 shield points. Very useful for my melee-centric lineup.

This battle was much easier for me as the Venari Knifer and Junker proved to be great defenders while also doing significant damage. Other monsters contributed from the back of the lineup.

I will share my battle here, which I have uploaded to YouTube.

Battle 2

My Lineup

This is my lineup for the battle

Position	Summoner/Monsters	Abilities
Summoner	Wizard of Eastwood	-2 shield
Position 1	Venari Knifer	Thorns
Position 2	Junker	Reach
Position 3	Goblin Thief	Sneak
Position 4	Venari Scout	Opportunity
Position 5	Mycelic Morphoid	No ability

It was a 24-mana cap battle unlike the last one, I had one less mana to play with. I chose the Wizard of Eastwood again as my summoner. It gives the power to retract 2 shield points.

I didn't change much from the last lineup. But reshuffled the lineup of Goblin Thief and Venari Scout while adding Mycelic Morphoid in the last position just to avoid those sneaky monsters.

Like the last battle, my first two units, Venari Knifer and Junker provided excellent defensive duties while the monsters from the end quietly go onto eliminate monsters.

Although this was a much closer battle. It Went into many rounds of back and forth, finally getting myself over the line with just 1 hp left. Can't have a closer fight than this.

I will share my battle here, which I have uploaded to YouTube.

Conclusion

Here is what I learnt from using Junker.

I got thrashed initially because I tried to use it in lower mana battles and when I use him, I had few mana left for other attacking units. So, it was not a good card at lower mana cap battles.

It proves its worth in high-range mana battles, it can easily play the role of a secondary tank and also attacks from that position using its reach ability. So, a good choice in that range.

It also helps when you use it with a melee-centric composition, as I did in my battles above. I used a summoner that reduced 2 shields so that my melee-centric lineup can go through the enemy lineup quickly.

One of the best things about this card is that it is a neutral card and can be used with many compositions and lineups easily. I would love to experiment more with this card in the future.

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