This week's battle challenge focuses on the Cave Slug:

Card Details

An untamed edition common rarity monster from the Life Splinter at level 1:

• Estimated cost: $0.365
• Mana cost: 5
• Melee damage: 2
• Speed: 1
• Health: 4
• Opportunity ability: Monsters with the Opportunity ability may attack from any position and will target the enemy Monster with the lowest health.

Some say that the Cave Slug is an earth descendant of the Space Slug from Star Wars, but the official splinterlands lore doesn't confirm whether this rumor is true or not. Nonetheless, the Cave Slug didn't inherit any of the Space Slug characteristics and must be the runt of its species but without any of the traits that may make runts useful, such as survivability, determination, persistence, and rebellion, etc. The one redeeming quality that the Cave Slug has is the Opportunity ability that it unlocks at level 1. This is one of my favorite abilities in splinterlands, and I had previously written about it when I published a Tier List in episode 64. Even the Cave Slug was affected by the price explosion of all splinterlands NFTs, and its price has increased from a low of $0.033 (60 days ago) to the current price of $0.365. Therefore Cave Slug remains at level 2 on my main account and level 1 on my alt account.

Battle - Full Battle Replay

Battle Details

• Mana cap: 29
• Rulesets(s): Target Practice, Reverse Speed

Lineup Details

• Mother Khala (Summoner): +1 health to all friendly monsters
• Furious Chicken: filler monster
• Chain Golem: powerhouse melee damage tank
• Horny Toad: support melee damage + Reach ability
• Cave Slug: support melee damage + Opportunity ability
• High Priest Darius: primary magic damage + opposition debuffs

Did your strategy work? What will you try differently next time?

This was always going to be a tough battle. I was playing this battle on my alt account who plays on Silver / Gold leagues. Generally, when you go up a Legendary Summoner like Yodin Zaku, it's an automatic loss for me most of the time. Yodin's Blast ability decimated my backline! In fairness to the Cave Slug, the only monster did something in my lineup by taking out the oppositions Flame Monkey. However, it couldn't survive the Blast attacks from Yodins ability and perished very early. Nonetheless, you can understand why Opportunity is such a great ability as it allows melee monsters to attack from the backline and target the lowest health enemy monster.

Do you like the Cave Slug? Why or why not?

As I mentioned above, in the Opportunity ability tier list post I did, I placed Cave Slug in Tier D. While I love the Opportunity ability, the price increase puts me off to upgrade the Cave Slug. It does have one of the highest health amongst Opportunity ability monsters and is unique to the Life Splinter. When you look at the usage stats provided by @jacekw, its win and usage rate in Bronze and Silver league is low, but its win rate does increase by 20% as you go up to Gold, Diamond, and Champion leagues. This makes sense as it does more damage at higher levels, unlocks Scavenger ability, and has more health. For now, I will continue to use Dragon Jumper and Screeching Vulture when I want to use Opportunity ability monsters and hope I will be able to pick up Cave Slug cheaply when/if the price decreases.

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