Cruel Sethropod - Share Your Battle Weekly Challenge

Do you like the Cruel Sethropod? Do you use it often? To be honest, my answer to both questions is no. However, I like using the odd cards featured in the weekly challenges because I get out of my comfort zone and test some new techniques in the ever-changing Splinterlands meta.

So what does this monster have going for it? It's cheap in terms of mana... It has almost as much armor as health but only an attack and speed of 1. Still, some hail it as the best low-mana tank. I disagree. It is highly situational.

Take this battle for instance, which almost became the subject of this post but is now reduced to just an example. I had the right idea. The archer and the Battering Ram could easily take out support monsters, in this case the nymph. But if the mana cap is too low people will start to use tanks with the Heal ability. And that was my downfall. If I had one more attacker I might have been able to defeat the Flesh Golem before fatigue kicked in but I could not afford to switch out the armor repairer.

For that reason, I believe the Cruel Sethropod is more of a low to mid mana tank. It can't really hold up on its own so it requires some support and even then it can be hit or miss. Here is my next attempt:

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_a1b62fb7ea53cc885d4a6c6688c61fb8&ref=proto26

Strategy

At first glance, I think I already have the advantage. Equalizer gave the Sethropod a small health boost but the fact that it's also only melee fighters limited me in what I could use for support. So no healing or armor repair this time around.
Sometimes I like to trick my opponents by choosing Alric and using no magic at all (though this time there was no choice). Since my summoner is level 3, it's still decent to use for my other leveled cards, such as the Waverunner, with an attack of 3 and speed of 4. He actually outshined our star of the show and is the reason I won. The Sethropod did its job absorbing damage while the glass cannon of the Waverunner did its thing.

I always include an opportunist in Equalized battles to maximize DPS. I think I still would have won without the Battering Ram since my opponent only had two fighters but with 2 mana and only melee who else would efficiently fit in that space? (When I win, I always try to break down why I won and I like when I can pinpoint the exact card that led me to victory and which were extra.)

In low mana battles, sometimes it's better to use lots of lower mana attackers instead of one big tank to rule them all. (Sometimes the right tank can decimate a large team of little monsters though...)

For a card that has no abilities whatsoever, the Cruel Sethropod still has value and a place in certain situations. I never considered how tricky it was to use it successfully.
I hope you enjoyed my battle and that you learned a thing or too about Splinterlands strategy. I've only recently been reading about strategies and even I learn some new techniques sometimes. For the most part, I'm a solo player and don't communicate with other battlemages but I feel intelligent when I read about some strategies that I had already discovered on my own in my fortress of solitude. Or sometimes I just copy what I see (if it works).
Well, that's all for today! Keep on battling! Reach the next league!