Cave Slugs! - Splinterlands Share Your Battle Challenge

Cave Slugs are the featured monster in this week's @splinterlands Share Your Battle Challenge, and I was a little worried about playing this one. I mean, these slugs are cute and all. Just look at them. But they are a Life Splinter monster, and I rarely play Life. Death is more my style. Anyway... About this not-so-little green cutie-pie...

Cave Slugs are a Life monster from the recent Untamed set. This is a slow (expected of a slug) melee monster. (Really, when was the last time you saw a slug with a crossbow?) They have a modest amount of health. At Level 1, where I played this, it has 2 melee attack, 1 speed, and 4 health.

The abilities of this card jive with the lore you'd expect from a monstrous slug. It has Opportunity at level 1, allowing it to attack the lowest health monster on your opponent's team. At level 6 it gains Scavenge which allows it to increase health each time a monster dies. At max level it gains Slow, slowing all of your opponents.

Let's Talk About The Battle

The Ruleset for this battle was Reverse Speed, with Life, Death, and Earth splinters available. Mana was 99, so no limits to what monsters could be chosen. Mana curve be damned!

My Strategy

The Cave Slugs were a very obvious inclusion in this lineup. With the Reverse Speed rules, slow monsters like slugs become quick. I opted to choose my team from monsters at speed 2 or below.

I wanted to be extra tanky, so chose Tyrus Paladium as my summoner to add +1 armor to all of my monsters. Particularly, I wanted extra protection for the tank/healer combo I was planning on using. Apparently my opponent had similar plans.

I chose Shieldbearer for my tank. With the extra armor from Tyrus, I hoped he would be able to soak some of the extra damage received from drawing fire away from the back row, where my healer was. His Taunt ability is useful for this, but it also means he needs good heals.

Cave Slugs were in second place. With their Opportunity ability, they can still attack from anywhere even though they're melee. And should the Shieldbearer fall, which I expected, they'd be a fair secondary tank with some armor from Tyrus and some healing.

My third position was the first of 3 ranged attackers, Cyclops. With his low speed in a Reverse Speed rules, he'd attack early. And should the slugs fall as secondary tank, He's got some HP to manage holding the line a little bit.

In fourth position was Mantoid. Mantoid's Snipe ability paired with the Slug's Opportunity was my plan for dealing with the opponent's back row.

Fifth position was where I put Divine Healer. I wanted her far enough in the back to be able to heal for as long as possible, while also not being taken out by a monster with Sneak. So I sandwiched her between Mantoid and...

Hero of Beyond, one of my favorite Life cards. With armor, decent health, and a ranged attack, he's perfect for protecting the back of my lineup. And worst case scenario, he's the last one standing, his Close Range ability let's him continue to attack from the first position.

Did It Work?

This battle was pretty evenly matched at first, with similar strategies. In the end, I think it was limiting myself to only speed 2 and below monsters that won the fight. I was just a little faster than my opponent, and was able to take out their healer just a little earlier. Once the healer fell, that was pretty much it for the battle.

I would have rather not gone into my ranged attackers for tanking, but like I said, I planned for that if necessary.

All in all, it was choosing the slow monsters in the Reverse Speed Ruleset that made the difference.

Here's the link to the battle so you can watch it yourself!

Reflections

I struggle with playing Life Splinter, and I struggle playing against it. So, this was good practice for me. Cave Slugs seem like one of those cards that has very limited, and specific usefulness, like in this Reverse Speed ruleset. They don't seem like a meta-crushing card at all, but very handy to have for just the right moment.

Thanks for reading this battle report and feel free to share how you like to use Cave Slugs in the comments!

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