My Splinterlands Blog #64 - Halfway Through The Last Season of 2021

Welcome to another weekly update on my attempt to challenge the Splinterlands ranked leagues! Initially it was a self challenge, to see how far I could get with the initial set of cards plus whatever I could win. But, that kind of fell apart around week 30 (with the game integrating with the WAX network and users being able to buy and sell cards on Atomic Hub).

This time around, I thought I'd try to write a few thoughts on the new Chaos Legion cards. I've probably been using them more on my InvestYGator account in Silver league, as they're not quite leveled high enough to play in Gold on my main account in most matches. So, I'm mostly playing them at level 1 - as most of the time I'm using a level 1 summoner on that account.

To break things down by element, I think Fire became a viable option to play in Poison rule matches. The Forgotten One epic card being immune to poison, combined with the Scavo Chemist common card adding a Cleanse to the Fire team, make Fire a decent choice when everyone starts off poisoned. Previously, Water or Life tended to be the strongest choices for that rules set. Tarsa, the new summoner, is a very solid replacement for Malric being removed as a base summoner as well.

Water seems to have taken a turn towards heavier melee in its current iteration, with the addition of the beefy creatures Deeplurker, Diemonshark, and Flying Squid. The removal of Alric as a free starting summoner does seem to have weakened Water overall, since Magic damage is still a powerful choice in the lower leagues. The lack of non-legendary monsters with Void Armor, which reduces magic damage, makes Bortus still a viable summoner choice when playing Water over the new Kelya Frendhul summoner.

Earth has, in many ways, become the new Water. Obsidian is a slightly more expensive version of Alric, giving +1 Magic damage. Combined with a magic-based tank in Mycelic Slipspawn and a healer that does magic damage in Goblin Psychic, Earth is one of the stronger teams to choose from with the base cards. Looking at the set as I write this, pretty much all of the new Earth cards are very solid, playable cards - with the possible exception of Acid Shooter.

Life has gone from a mostly defensive set of summoners, to now being all about Archery damage. General Sloan in combination with Pelacor Arbalest and Prismologist put some serious damage on the board. Time Mage is also a great addition in general, though you have to sacrifice a slot for an archer to play it.

Death got some quite solid cards, but shines when trying to play as a counter to Earth. Thaddius Brood paired with a Bone Golem in the tank slot can buy enough time for the heavy damage put out by the new Death monsters to clear out the opposing team. Silent Sha-Vi doing 3 melee damage at Bronze levels with high speed makes it one of the best commons in Chaos Legion, in my opinion.

I do think it's cool that all of the Dragon cards are legendary, but it also means most people won't be playing them much to start out. So, I'll wrap up with the Neutral monsters. Xenith Monk is a solid low manna monster with regen at level 2. Disintegrator, giving enemy melee -1 damage, and Scavo Hirling, with armor repair, can both be used at level 1 as well - particularly in the melee only rules set.

Daily Quest Rewards:

Daily Quest # 467 - Win 5 with Water. I managed to eventually grind this out in Gold III getting 25 Dark Energy Crystals (DEC) , a Pelacor Conjurer (common monster), a Venari Heatsmith (common monster), a Pelacor Mercenary (common monster), a Gargoya Devil (rare monster), and a Gold Foil Gargoya Lion (common monster)! The first day after the season ends is always brutal, with lots of Diamond-league players back in Gold.

Daily Quest # 468 - Win 5 with Snipe. For completing this daily quest, I received 10 (7 + 3) DEC, 2 Gold potions, an Exploding Rats (rare monster), and a Venari Seedsmith (rare monster).

Daily Quest # 469 - Win 5 with Life… re-rolled to Win 5 with Death. After managing to complete this quest, I got 7 DEC, 2 Gold potions, a Legendary potion, and 2 Pelacor Mercenaries.

Daily Quest # 470 - Win 5 with Water! For finishing this daily quest, I received 8 DEC, 2 Gold potions, a Pelacor Conjurer, a Pelacor Bandit (common monster), and a Pelacor Deceiver (common monster).

Daily Quest # 471 - Win 5 with Water! For finishing this daily quest, I received 3 DEC, 3 Gargoya Lions, a Pelacor Deceiver, and a Djinn Renova (epic monster)!

Daily Quest # 472 - Win 5 with Life… re-rolled to Win 5 with Snipe! I finally managed to get back to Gold II and got 6 (5 + 1) DEC, a Gold potion, a Pelacor Conjurer, a Pelacor Bandit, a Pelacor Deceiver, and a Naga Assasin (rare monster).

Daily Quest # 473 - Win 5 with Snipe. For completing this daily quest, I got 2 Legendary potions, a Gold Potion, a Pelacor Deceiver, a Pelacor Conjurer, a Gargoya Lion, and a Gargoya Devil.

Daily Quest # 474 - Win 5 with Dragon. I put in the time to grind back up to Gold I and got 56 (21 + 19 + 16) DEC, a Gold potion, a Legendary potion, a Pelacor Conjurer, a Pelacor Deceiver, and a Pelacor Mercenary.

I also opened a few more Chaos Legion packs. It would make sense to hold them longer, until more legendary air drop cards can potentially be found in packs. But, it's fun to open packs and I actually still need a lot of cards!

Tournaments:

I played in a couple of tournaments this week. I didn't do great in either, but I still managed to come out ahead. The next big Zen Sports tournament is a Chaos Legion only Silver league one that I'm hoping to qualify for. Granted, I still haven't managed to actually get money out from their app from my one previous win yet.

Friday Modern Golden Rule - Bronze league rules. Basically a gold foil only tournament with Untamed, Dice, and Chaos Legion cards. I went 4-6 on the first day, which was not good enough to make day two. It was good enough to come in 37th place, turning 6 Splintershard tokens (SPS) into 12.

Friday Zen Sports Chaos Legion Qualifier - Silver league rules. (This was one week after the previous tournament.) I had also signed up for another qualifier, but missed the check-in time. In this one, I made it 4 rounds, losing out in the last match I would have needed to win to qualify for the main event. Granted, I haven't leveled up a lot of cards to Silver league level caps, and almost all of the winners were people that already have. At any rate, I came in 12th place winning 3 SPS for my 1 DEC entry fee.

Guild Brawls:

Our guild finally put together enough DEC to upgrade the Arena to level 3. This gives more merits, but also moves us up into a higher tier of competition with other guilds that have level 3 or 4 arenas. Right now we're discussing if we should stay at this higher tier, or use the option to downgrade back to fight easier guilds where we were winning more often than not.

Guild Brawl #53, playing Gold foil Bronze, Untamed set only. So, yea, a lot more people with a lot more expensive gold foil cards. As a guild, we ended up coming in 7th place overall. The bonus merits from the higher level arena helped, but it came out to be a bit less than coming in first or second in the lower tier of brawls.

Vs. CAPTAINCROWN of Immortal Gods 2

Vs. IMPERFECT-ONE of Summoner's Tribe

Vs. BRAGURR of PeakMonsteers [Premiere]

Vs. THEONLYMIMOS of Archmage Arius's Disciples

Vs. REALLUCKYBOOSTER of PeakMonsters [Champs]

Vs. REVYJ of Immortal Army

The Rest:

I traded some more vouchers to pick up another copy of the legendary monster Queen Mycelia, to level her up to 2. I also got a copy of the legendary monster Legionnaire Alvar and enough copies of the Water epic monster, Wave Brood, to level it up to 2. After that, I started holding onto vouchers to buy more packs during the general sale.

I'm looking at converting most of my DEC to packs, as part of another large group buy. This would get me 20% more packs, while losing the chance of getting bonus future air dropped cards. With my luck at getting extra air dropped cards, it's probably the smart way to go.

Nothing of real note on my InvestYGator alt account this past week for daily rewards. Support work seems to be starting to slow down, which may be due to the developers fixing more issues with the game, or just a general slowdown of activity during the holidays. And, that's about it for this week!

For the rest of the season, I'll likely just continue doing my daily quests and hoping to get some good reward cards. Still no real hope of challenging the leader boards, but also probably not enough time to try to do so either. Maybe I'll pick up some more individual cards, as prices have continued to fall.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please let me know. I’ll be back next week with the wrap up for the season and the year!