Splinterlands Share Your Battle Weekly Challenge Iza The Fanged 1 BCX in Silver 1!

Back To Splinterlands -Building My Team to Level 2 Summoners

It's been a long slow road to rebuild splinterland's deck. I could be further ahead, but I have actually been focusing on getting as many gold foil cards as I can because I kind of like the idea of having a collection of single bcx gold foil cards to play until such a point that they move out of the modern format and into the wild format. That said, its becoming clear I do need to invest some more money into individual cards that are gaping whole. I had a few delegations that have ended, and now that I no longer have those cards I'm really noticing how much of an impact they had for me.

As I rebuild and play bronze level cards up into silver one, I have a few principles that I tried to stick with. At this level epics and legendaries tend to have an overwhelming impact on matches where they can be played, and provide benefit that other cards just don't have the ability to counter.

Weekly Challenge - IZA THE FANGED

Edition: CHAOS LEGION
Rarity: LEGENDARY
Element: EARTH
Attack: RANGED
Abilities: SNEAK, SCAVENGER
Health: 3
Speed: 4
Attack: 1

Reasons Why I like it
IZA THE FANGED is an interesting card. While it's in the earth splinter it's attack is a ranged attack, and at a single BCX does a single damage. While many might consider this a detriment, plain and bronze leagues I sometimes prefer cards that only do one damage versus paying more mana for a card that might do two damage only to see it offset by another summoner or card ability.

The real strength for this card lies in its abilities and its speed combination while only costing for mana. It has a speed of 4 which means it should attack pretty far up in the attack order and adds two interesting abilities. The first ability is sneak, which means it will attack the rear of the enemy lineup. This is not common for arranged attack and allows for more sneak attack types. The other ability, and one of my favorite scavenger. Scavenger picks up an extra health for every card in either your lineup or the opponents that dies. Having the scavenger ability can really add up health to your card and provide a really big tank pre opposing team to get through, especially if it's a low damage sneak attack.

Biggest Risks to Playing it
I think the biggest risks go along with one of the pros I mentioned above. Since it's only a single range attack, many monsters that have armor and shield will not feel the impact of the attack for several rounds. By that time it could be knocked out, or it's damage is not relevant to the outcome of the game.

The Matchup

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_6191e7da71c7defccc632f61655efb33&ref=senstless

MANA: 15
RULES: Explosive Weaponry: All Monsters have the Blast Ability. Stampede: The Trample ability can trigger multiple times per attack if the trampled Monster is killed.
SPLINTERS: Water, Earth, Life, Death, Dragon

Summoner
I'm lucky enough to be playing mylar in this matchup. The ability to add thorns to every monster, even in low Manor matches were heavy melee is unlikely, it still gives me a piece of mind and an edge when two of the same cards are matching off against each other.

• First position Unicorn Mustang
  First position for me while playing Earth is typically unicorn mustang. Unless I know the opponent will not be playing any magic, I always feel safer playing it to counter the heavy magic lineups I typically see in bronze and silver.

• Second Position Fungus Fiend
  Second position for me is the heavily used zero mana fungus fiend. While I'm not anticipating this card do any real input or damage on the attack side, it is simply a low mana fodder for any card of opportunity to attack and hopefully deal back to Thorn damage.

• Third Position Iza the Fanged
  In 3rd and final position we find Iza the fang. I chose to put it back here because I thought heavy sneak attack was unlikely, but not impossible. It was a bit of a risk but I was hoping that it would be able to add some scavenger kills and grow some health before taking out if they were playing sneak.

Opponent Lineup & Match Play

The opponent played magic on the Earth splinter. This is pretty typical and the times it feels obnoxious to see the same heavy magic lineups that are very difficult to counter over and over and over again. I start off with one of the best three mana common cards with Hill giant. For only three men you do get a one melee attack but the real pro is at 6 health that can be a real pain to get through. And second position they also have a mycelic morphid another one mana one melee attack card to help provide a buffer before it's magic faces the front line. The real power of their lineup comes from the regal patent and Khmer princess. Each of these after it's boost will have two magic damage, some good speed and a little bit of health behind them.

initial thoughts

I will say I think I got lucky by playing the mustang unicorn and first position, it will really help to counter that magic attack. While my fungus fiend soaks up that splash damage and keeps it IZA the FANGED until it has a chance to build some more health.

Round 1

As we all know that speed gets to go first, and that regal Peyton is the fastest car around. All it does some damage to both my unicorn mustang and my phone is fiend, Iza the fang is not far behind on with its own sneak attack hitting Khmer princess and blasting into regal payton. The rest of the round plays out exactly like you think it would with unicorn mustang delivering a devastating blow to Hill giant, and the splash damage knocks out the mycelic morphod.

This knockout is where Visa the fang has its first opportunity to add some extra health. It's next opportunity is on the following turn when come your princess attacks in the splash damage knocks out the fungus fiend. This gives Eva the thing a total of five health. It does get knocked down back to four by the hill Giant attack,

Round 2

Just glancing at the lineup and the health left on the monsters it's pretty clear in my mind that I have already won. That combination of blast, thorns, and scavenger is too much for the other team to overcome in my opinion.

The second round starts the same way in the same attack order for the monsters that are left. Regal blasts away and takes away one health from both of my remaining monsters. But this is quickly followed up by the attack from either the thing taking out premiere princess to regain its health that was just lost, while the unicorn mustang takes the next turn knocks out Hill Grant and delivering massive splash damage to real payton. By the time this round is over the opponent is down to one card that only has two health.

Round 3

At this point I would say it really doesn't matter what's left, due to the own speed of my own monsters only being one behind I find it unlikely that I will lose. While ease it does hit this round, it does take another round and another hit from Iza hopefully I am able to secure my victory. Having two monsters with close speed to regal makes me feel much better because I have seen instances where you can miss five or six times in a row with unicorn mustang and lose around. At the end of the match after all of the splash damage either fang still has four health. That's pretty impressive considering it started out with three and took several hits to drag it back down.

Overall thoughts

Overall I really liked how easy the thing to play, one of the things I think I underrated before watching this match was the speed. Having that speed and that first attack really helps to knock out some of those monsters before they can do damage to you. I also think having fast attack monsters in splash damage games is crucial as you can get off a series of blows quickly before the opponent has a turn and may lose multiple monsters before they get one.

Scavenger can be a particularly powerful tool in matches where healing doesn't work, all monsters have the same size, and little league where monsters are full or mana or less can only be used. I think IZA will end up in my lineup more often as I continue to try to find the best Little League matchups in different splinters.

~~@senstless

#sbi-skip