Thank you @splinterlands for hosting this weekly competition and a big thank you to the curators <3

Theme: Dragons in Low Mana Battles

This is my second participation for the weekly challenge and the reason is obviously me loving dragons because of their abilities as well as the versatility of its summoners that can be followed up with every element I want. Besides, it makes it harder for my oponent to guess which strategy I'll be going for!

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Lineup and strategy

Match details

• 16 Mana Cap
• Standart Rules
• Fire + Death NOT available

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Summoner

Drake Of Arnak

4 mana rare summoner is great for its +1 Armor buff:

• Makes my Tank more resistant to melee/ranged damage
• Protect My backline from sneak and Snipe

Could've gone for Kretch for the one extre mana but I deemed the +1 Armor more useful for this comp

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First Position

Djinn Chwala

My favourite dragon by far! The "mini-mylor" if you can't afford Mylor Crowling (that I'll be facing next).

In low mana matches, I'll be most likely be put against melee attackers which is where Thorns plays a major part: 2 Damage + 2 from Thorns => 4 damage per round (more if attacked by another melee) and can tank 16 damage (5 Armor + 1 Armor buff + 9 Health).

However, its high mana cost doesn't allow me the luxury to put a decent front line especially in low mana battles.

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Second position

Naga Assasin

Decent ranged monster for 2 mana and 5 speed most probably the first to attack during this match and the +1 Armor buff will allow it to survive longer.

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Third Position

Herbalist

I've got 2 mana left to fill so I've chosen Herbalist to provide some ranged magic.

It's not the perfect pick but I'm having limited choices since Fire and Death are not available as well as enemy played Mylor in his last couple of matches.

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The Battle

Here is the link to watch the battle: Enjoy!
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_7e58b2e57572437d7e9e384ddad70b95&ref=cantfoldaces

Round 1

I was worried that I'll be facing a magic deck but this situation isn't looking good either. On the other hand, the longer I spend playing this game the more I learn about popular picks and how to play around them. Enemy probably reacted to my last matches too as I was mainly playing the water deck (still OP is 1200+ rating) that's why he went for failed summoner at first position.

Round 2

Enemy team surely lacks the damage but Thorns making it up for it. That's the reason why my backline should be composed of ranged damage.
Failed summoner OUT
Unicorn will be harder to deal with

Round 3

Unicorn Mustang OUT
Djinn chwala took 11 damage from mustang because of thorns damage and it's always satisfying to watch enemy having a taste of their own medecine!
In addition speed is always important as my herbalist managed to miss twice his attack unlike Naga assasin pulling the attack perfectly at the begginning of each round!

Battle Result

That's it for the battle and for that sweet 8 DEC win. Djinn Chwala is great, Dragons are awesome but I still didn't explore the majority of them. I do sometimes watch the battle in gold league and Dragons are used a lot and are really powerful (RoboDragon and Drafon jumper to name a few). For now I should primarely focus on building a solid deck for Bronze I before going up to silver :D

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