Happy February Gamers!

This Week I'll be sharing a couple ways that I like to use ranged cards like Lava Spider from the Fire Splinter.

If you don't use the Fire Splinter for much other than Melee builds, you probably have a similar selection of cards as this at your disposal. The starters, and maybe a couple other ranged cards.

The question is: Is a ranged Fire build viable if you don't have a Yodin at your disposal?

That's what I'll go over in this post!
Since the season just reset, I'm playing with ~16K Power and in Bronze for these matches.

Creating the build...

Before we jump into the fights, let's see what kind of Summoner choices the Fire Splinter has...

*If I'm being honest, the options here are slim for Ranged damage builds
You have 3 good choices:

• The free option - Pyre (3 Mana, +1 speed)
• The low mana option - Talia Firestorm (2 Mana, No ability)
• The expensive option - Yodin Zaku (7 Mana, +1 Ranged, +1 HP, Blast to team)

Unless you are playing in higher leagues or happen to own a Yodin, none of these options are very good. Even Yodin costs 7 mana, which isn't very realistic to use in a lot of scenarios.

Pyre is a fine choice with +1 Speed, but hard to utilize effectively with the current meta in my opinion.

Is there any way that we can effectively fight with Ranged or Magic and use Fire Splinter cards?

Yes there is!

The Secret? Dragon Splinter!

That's right, there's not really any consistent way to build an offensive Ranged (or Magic) team using strictly Fire Splinter.
With cards like Selenia Sky or Delwyn Dragonscale, you can add a +1 Ranged or +1 Magic buff to your team, respectively. While I actually like Delwyn the best overall, Selenia is equally as useful if not better.

• 3 Mana - +1 Ranged - Unlocks Dragon Cards

All 3 of these are great benefits. 3 Mana is a very competitive Mana cost, +1 Ranged applied to any Splinter you have available is very powerful, and Dragon cards are basically a second set of Neutral cards that you have at your disposal. A Win/Win!

Putting it into Practice...

Battle 1: Insect FIREpower Vs. Magical Earth!

Check out the replay here!

My team was bit strong for Bronze fighting, but you see this teams like the Enemy's even in Silver

Here I utilize Selenia's +1 Ranged as well as Dragon Splinter to include Void Dragon and Naga Assassin on the team

Magnor is a wonderful Taunt Card, if you have access to it.
In fact, I'd recommend everyone have a Taunt card available for each Splinter, if possible. Taunt is very powerful, and Magnor can take quite a few hits before they encounter yet another powerful tank, Void Dragon.

Meanwhile, I have Fire Beetle and Lava Spider providing some decent Ranged damage as well as having the Snipe ability. Fire Beetle, especially at low levels, is essentially the same card as Lava Spider. So if you're a fan of Lava Spider and wouldn't mind having a second one on your team, Fire Beetle is the card for you!

In back, Lord of Fire and Naga Assassin to provide more frontline damage as well as a +1 HP buff to the team.

Results? I win! Another successful battle in the books.

Battle 2: Experimental Team Vs. Experimental Team?

Check out the replay here!

I wouldn't say either of us had the perfect team here, but battle continues regardless!

Here I try a little bit of an experimental team using Grum Flameblade as the tank.

With the Earthquake Ruleset on, I decided to go with Grumblade as a tank, as he can take a lot of hits and if he scores a kill then that buys him a turn of Earthquake damage. (As Bloodlust gives him +1 Armor)

Behind Grum, we have Naga Assassin, just there to absorb any blast damage and deal a little damage before the first turn is up.

Next, we have the Insect Duo once again, Fire Beetle and Lava Spider! With 4HP, I know that they can survive at least 2 turns of Earthquake.

In back, I have Spark Pixies as some solid damage and with Flight to survive Earthquake.

It wasn't the best build I think, but I wanted to see how it fared. The enemy team was using a slightly unusual build as well. So I wasn't sure at first what would happen, but in the end I was still the winner!

Battle 3: Budget Pyre Team Vs. The Mustang Meta

Check out the replay here!

I would have figured out some way to get Lava Spider on here, but I forgot and it was a good battle so I wanted to show it.

Here I show how you can still use Pyre in a Ranged-Focused team.

In this fight, I couldn't use Selenia due to the no Legendary rule that was in place. So I went with Pyre, so show a good old speedy ranged build.

Up front, I have the cheap, 1-mana melee cards for taking a couple hits from the enemy. Hopefully deal at least 1 damage before falling.

In the middle, Goblin Fireballer as he is simply there for some additional damage. Same with Xenith Archer in the back.

The meat of this dish is the Fire Elemental with the Blast ability. Able to dish out some decent 2 damage per turn, as well as hit other enemy cards. Which proved very useful in this fight!

You'll see builds just like the one I'm up against a lot in Bronze. Mustang is an absolute monster, and some builds like this or builds with Mylor can prove to be a good match!

In the end, I won this one as well. A few solid wins for the beginning of the season!

Conclusion:

Stats of the Lava Spider

At the end of the day, the Fire Splinter has some great Ranged options.
Look at the stats of Lava Spider above, even if you may not like it now, in later ranks having a 3 Mana backline that can dish out Poison is a big plus!

So it's not to say you need to have a ranged focused build in order to use cards like Lava Spider, but they really shine the most when paired with the Dragon Splinter, in my opinion at least.

Whatever you do though, don't forget about Lava Spider's best friend, the Fire Beetle!

Credits and Referrals:

Submission to the Weekly SHARE YOUR BATTLE challenge by @Splinterlands. Check out the post here.
Dividers by @kyo-gaming

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