Splinterlands Share Your Battle Weekly Challenge TUSK THE WIDE - 1 BCX In Bronze

Back To Splinterlands -Building My Team to Level 2 Summoners

After selling out early February 2021, I am starting to play again and rebuild my team. Much has changed int he past year, and we have moved onto a new set of cards. Many of these cards are great, but I miss some of the classic Beta and old reward cards. My Goal is leaning towards getting as many cards in 1 BCX GF as I can, but this will be a slow goal. I will get all the epics and legendary in normal that I can as I try to get common and rare cards I use often in GF first. It will be a long road, but it makes sense to me most of the time to buy 1 bcx and not combine it vs trying to buy 14 cards and combine to a level 2.

I recently completed my Chaos epic collection and since I no longer have Beta cards thought I would feature some matches using them.

Weekly Challenge - TUSK THE WIDE

Edition: CHAOS LEGION
Rarity: EPIC
Element: FIRE
Attack: MELEE
Abilities: VOID
Mama 6
Health: 12
Speed: 1
Attack: 1

Reasons Why I like it
Tusk the Wide is a great card. While it is always hard to pick between Living Lava and Tusk, it all come down to guessing they your opponent will play heavy melee/ranged or heavy magic. If you pick wrong, it will be harder to win. Costing only 6 mana, Tusk boasts an amazing 12 health. That soaks up a ton of damage. If played with a Melee boost summoner, that will increase its attack to 2. The biggest reason I like tusk is for Void. Void was something that was really missing from Fire, and made it hard to play against heavy magic teams. Tusk now evens the playing field and give fire a chance to shine again.

The Matchup

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_123552a6ffaf312f58ef4ec544d07876&ref=senstless

MANA: 27
RULES: Standard
SPLINTERS: Fire, Water, Earth, Life, Death, Dragon

Thoughts Higher Mana tend to be magic heavy for players. I am 100% sure I typically play Bortus to reduce magic and play the heavy void monsters in Water. With only 27 mana, I felt it was likely but plenty of room for other styles like life with +1 Ranged, or even Fire with heavy sneak and oppertunity.

• Summoner RARSA
  I love the new fire summoner. Plus one for both Melee and health really helps. It is high on my list of cards to upgrade as soon as I can.

• First position TUSK the WIDE
  Of Course the tank goes where tank goes. 12 mana plus void should take a lot of damage either way. Should make it to the 2nd or 3rd round if I am lucky. After that, it will all depend on how the rest of the monsters line up against their monsters.

• Second Position RADIATED BRUTE
  While I tend to play FineasRage more often for the blazingly high speed, I decided to save 2 mana here and play Radiated Brute. Its much slower at 1 speed, has lower health by 2, but did allow me to add another monster later in the lineup I felt made up for it.

• Third Position TENYII STRIKER
  Love this new Chaos Legion monster's as well.. Big Melee sneak. Base at 2 bust easily boosted to 2 Melee. 6 heath is great for its 5 mana if it happens to make it to the first position.

• Fourth Position SERPENTINE SPY
  Probably the most used fire monster. 2 Melee, prior to boosts, 3 speed and Opportunity make it an easy choice to include when you can. It can take out key monster's before the match ever really gets going and they get a turn.

• Fifth Position PARASITIC GROWTH
  I wanted to add one more oppertunity card. After its health boost and melee boos - it should be a nice compliment to Serpentine spy.

Opponent Lineup & Match Play

They went for the magic boost of Obsidian just as I was hoping for. This will really boost thier magic monsters. They played mostly magic cards, also with a high speed tank with void. The Unicorn Mustang is played in so many matches for its speed, attach and void. Not surprised to see it played here.

1. Unicorn Mustang
2. Mycelic Morphoid
3. Chaos Agent
4. Goblin Psychic
5. Khmer Princess
6. Regal Peryton

Round 1 - The Start

Speed rules the day, and it triggers their Regal Peryton to fire first. While its magic was boosted to 2, Tusks void cuts that in half only taking 1 damage down to 12. The speed run continues and the Unicorn Mustang deals another 3 damage dropping Tusk down to 9 already.

Then I get to have a few turns, Serpentine spy goes and knocks out Chaos Agent on the first hit, before Tenyii Striker deals a lucky hit to Regal Peryton taking it down to 3 health left. Both Khmer Princess and Goblin Psychic deal blows the Tusk dropping his health down to 6 and Goblin gives the mustang a critical heal. At this point I am a little concerned how long I can resist the onslaught of magic.

Both Tusk and Radiated Brute deals blows the the Unicorn Mustang. Honestly, I am lucky they both hit given they both had a 30% chance to miss due to the speed difference. But after they both hit, the Mustang is down to only 5 health left. Parasitic Growth is last and takes out Mycelic Morphoid. This is the last opportunity fodder there is before they start attacking key cards.

Round 2 dealing Critical Damage

Repeat order of round one. Both Regal and Mustang hit Tusk leaving it with only 2 health. It clearly will not make it out of the round. But now my speed is coming into favor. Serpentine Spy attacks and kills Khmer Princess before she can attack, leaving only Goblin Psychic left for round 2 attacks. Tenyii Striker attacks, but given the 3 speed and flying difference, it missed this time leaving Regal in play for future rounds.

Goblin Psychic heals the mustang and then attacks and knocks out tusk brining Radiated Brute into first position who then gets a turn and manages to do another 3 damage to mustang unicorn taking its health down to 5. the round ends with Parasitic growth brining Goblin Psychic down to 1 health for the start of round 3 .

Round 3 The End is Near

Regals speed keeps it going first, and it deals 2 damage to Radiated brining it to 4, before Unicorn Mustang and deal another 3, leaving it only 1. Finally Serpentine Spy knocks out Goblin before it can heal the mustang unicorn yet again and deal its deadly 3 magic damage. Tenyii Striker gets lucky again and takes out Regal on the sneak attack leaving only the Unicorn and its 5 health to battle.... Buts its 4 speed is an issue. Both Radiated Brute and Parasitic growth miss.....leaving it up to round 4.

Round 4 - The End?

Just remember, speed kills. Going first all the time can really cause your opponents issues with both losing monster's and hitting monsters. The unicorn mustang knocks out radiated brute. brining Fenyii Striker into first position. Serpentine Spy manages to miss even though it only had a 10% chance to miss, and the Mustang is still at 5 health. Followed by another miss of of 20% for Tenyii.... and another 30% chance to miss by Parasitic growth...

The miss odds don't feel even close to on par some times. No matter the speed difference they act like they are a 9 speed with fly and dodge... but we can push this to round 5...

Round 5 Who will win?

The Mustang isnt going to miss, so Fenyii is down to 4 health, enough for 2 more rounds in first position. Serpentine Spy manages to hit this time, dropping the unicorn down to only 2 health. This means if any other attack hits I will win. And I do, on the next attack by Fenyii...

Thoughts and conclusions..

I like the option of Tusk when you feel like magic will be played and you need a way to allow your sneak, and oppertunity cards to stay in the back long enough to deal some death blows. Without Tusk there are games where Fire is just not an option due to the high likelyhood they are playing heavy magic lineups. This was something that I felt frustrated with in Beta and Untamed in the lower leagues. There was no way to stop the magic.

I I think I got luckly in the first few rounds dealing some hits on Regal that could have easily been misses that likely lead to me winning sooner than I could have. If I kept missing, i could have easily lost if Regal stuck around with 5 speed and flying into the final rounds.

Let me know if would have played it differently. I managed to win this time, but clearly am still learning the new cards.

~~@senstless