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Quick Recap

Last week I made my first post on the weekly battle challenge talking about the ant miners. In that post, I established two main ways of playing with the ant miners, and how those 2 play styles were complete opposites. This is the Ant Miners Dilemma.
Today I will showcase how one can play this card using the second playstyle described in that post, and, in the end, I'll compare them and try to decide which one is best, considering different situations.

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Card overview

For those who haven't read my last post and don't know how the ant Miners work, here is a brief summary of their abilities and stats I shared in that post:
Ant miners is a 2 mana melee card for the fire-type decks. At level 1, it has scavenger, an ability that makes it so that every time a minion dies, this card gains 1 health.

At level one, the ant miners have 1 melee attack point, 2 speed, and start out with 1 hp, with the possibility of gaining more due to the scavenging ability.
At level 6 they get a shield. Since I am at the bronze league and I only use level 1 cards, we won't focus so much on this ability.

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The dilemma

As stated, the big problem with this card is that its two abilities are complete opposites to each other. For this reason, it is often difficult to decide the ant miners' placement when playing a game of Splinterlands.
The two opposite characteristics which have to be considered are the following:

• The ant miners are a melee card - for this reason, they have to be placed on the front of your team to be able to attack;

• The ant miners are a 1-health minion and can only gain health as the games progress with the scavenger ability - for this reason, they should be placed on the back, making so that, by the time they are in the front and ready to attack, a lot of minions have already died, causing their ability to proc multiple times, giving them a healthy and considerable amount of health.

Last week we placed our friendly miners on the back of the lot, thinking that the scavenger procs would be more beneficial than the non-attacking chances. Apart from that, placing them on the back (second or third to position) grants us more defense against sneak minions. By the time the ants are the last card, at least one or two minions have died, giving them a nice defense for these types of attacks.

Today we are focusing on a different aspect of their game plan. We are placing them in the second attacking position. It won't be able to attack right away, but it will soon enough, allowing a bit of the scavenging ability to proc before it gets to the main stage.

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Ants in Action

Check out my battle through the link below:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_ab4629d938476bfd207348c68133823d&ref=xgoivo

Ruleset

This time around, the ruleset was also quite simple. Standard battle with 21 mana to use. All cards allowed.

The formation

Trying to use the ants in one of the front positions, I decided to place them in the second position. The full formation is listed below:

• Cerberus;
• Ant Miners;
• Serpentine Spy;
• Kobold Miner;
• Spark Pixies;
• Fire Beetle.

Round one

I decided to go with a lot of low-cost minions, maxing out the number of cards I could bring to the battle. Cerberus gives a great and solid defense with his healing ability. By the time he dies, the ant miners should already have some good health to take a bunch of hits from the opposition.
Spy miners and Pixes are a great middle bunch. They give the team a lot of utility, being able to attack minions that aren't in the first position.
The fire beetle has good base health and can quite confidently be placed in the last position, being able to defend itself from a few hits before bravely going away.

Round 2

My minions already started to pick some of the opponent's minions. Cerberus was doing a great job defending on the front. Because of this, the ant miners could proc their ability a bunch of time, already being ready to defend when the time comes.

The beginning of the end

Cerberus finally died. At this time, the ants already have 6 health and there is no way the opponent will be able to break through this solid constructed defense. The game is virtually over without a single scratch on our anties.

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Wraping it up

The Ant Miners are a great utility card and can be used in a lot of different matchups. I'd say they shine against water decks that rely on heavy usage of low-cost magic minions. On top of that, the ant miners can be very useful both in front or on the back of the team. Because of the dilemma I mentioned, their abilities make them have pros and cons at both ends of the team. Scavenging is good for the back and melee is good for the front. You really have to be careful protecting them in the early game. Because of this, they can either be very useful or useless, depending on the amount of time they survive.

Thanks for reading my post. All support is greatly appreciated!! Thanks!