[ Dragons ] - Share Your Battle! Weekly Challenge

My first challenge of the week!
The theme of the week is Dragons 🐲.

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Thoughts: The Dragon decks are always unpredictable to me, in the sense that they may play melee, ranged, or magic damage through the usage of the other elements they add to their decks.

I used to see Djinn Chwala as the tank in their decks often. Now, the opponents mostly just use the tanks of the selected element instead.

For this challenge, all cards are at level 1.

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Card Showcase

Theme	Crypt Beetle
Edition	Any
Rarity	Any
Element	Dragon + Any
Attack	Any
Abilities	Any

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Battle Rules

Symbol	Effect
	Standard: No modification to the standard gameplay rules and mechanics.

Mana cap: 18

Usable elements: | ALL |

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Team Composition

Role: Summoner

The go-to Dragon summoner, or rather, what people would probably be forced to play as it is the only free Summoner available for Dragon decks.

Still, the (+1) Armor would still prove to be pretty useful.

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Role: Tank

The first in position and pretty much the main pick of any Death decks. With good stats all around, slapping down the Thorns ability makes it the optimal pick for a Tank.

The only real counter for him would be ranged attacks, as Thorns nor the Summoner effect would be useful.

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Role: Backline Hitter (Snipe)

A pretty good, relatively cheap card used to target the backline damage dealers with its Snipe ability.

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Role: Damage Dealer, Backline Hitter (Sneak)

This is a good card in my opinion. With pretty good all around stats along with the Sneak ability, if not dealt with quickly, it will create havoc and clear out the Backline Hitters on the opposing team.

Placed it at the back to tank the backstabs and also hopefully stay alive to deal critical damage to the opposing team.

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Play by play

Opposing Summoner - General Sloan (4)

Opposing Cards - Blinding Reflector (3), Gargoya Scrapper
(1), Xenith Archer (2), Pelacor Arbalest (6) and Herbalist (2).

All summoner interactions will be skipped

> Round 1:

(Round 1 battle log)

(+) -- My cards / Positive outcomes
(-) -- Opponent's cards / Negative outcomes

(+) Death Elemental dealt 1 direct damage to Xenith Archer!
(+) Cursed Windeku dealt 2 damage to Blinding Reflector!
(+) Silent Sha-vi takes down Herbalist!
(-) Pelacor Arbalest broke the armour of Cursed Windeku!
(-) Pelacor Arbalest dealt 3 direct damage to Cursed Windeku!
(-) Xenith Archer dealt 2 direct damage to Cursed Windeku!
(-) Blinding Reflector dealt 1 direct damage to Cursed Windeku!
(+) Cursed Windeku reflected damage and broke the armour of Blinding Reflector!

> Round 2:

(Round 2 battle log)

(+) -- My cards / Positive outcomes
(-) -- Opponent's cards / Negative outcomes

(+) Death Elemental takes down Xenith Archer!
(+) Cursed Windeku dealt 2 direct damage to Blinding Reflector!
(+) Silent Sha-vi takes down Pelacor Arbalest!
(+) Cursed Windeku dodged an attack from Blinding Reflector!

> Round 3:

(Round 3 battle log)

(+) -- My cards / Positive outcomes
(-) -- Opponent's cards / Negative outcomes

(+) Death Elemental dealt 1 direct damage to Blinding Reflector!
(+) Cursed Windeku dealt takes down Blinding Reflector!
(+) Silent Sha-vi takes down Gargoya Scrapper!

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Strategy Talk

Currently, I am generally trying to be more open to playing Dragon decks in my regular battles. Now about this battle...

Pre-battle, looking at the opponent's history, I noticed him playing with a mix of Earth and Dragon (Death) decks. I took the chance of the opponent not playing an Earth magic deck due to the relatively low mana cap in the battle requirements and arranged a deck for myself.

In this battle, I thought of it simply and went for a tank and backline hitters, with one of them including the heavy hitter; Silent Sha-vi. I kept the beefier Cursed Windeku and Silent Sha-vi pincering the Death Elemental to keep it safe.

I had triumphed today with my lineup. I think that in this battle, I was lucky that the enemy didn't try to use a Taunt as a tank. If he did, I would be facing the wrath of Pelacor Arbalest. As there wasn't a tank, I was able to safely execute their backline.

Dragon decks have been growing on me, as I grew to like the (+1) armour on all of my cards. I think that if you wish to play Dragon decks, you might want to avoid playing against magic decks. It would be good if the opponent plays strong but few melee/ranged cards so you would see more use from the summoner ability.

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🤗

Thanks for reading!

It was fun to theorise, and also find more lineups to play with the theme!

We keep on going. Cheers.

Link to the battle: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_0bedb343c2bf68ae02feb296681e156e&ref=tertius