Splinterlands Weekly Challenge Highlight - The Stone Golem

I won't lie - I'm guilty of spending a BIG chunk of my day brawling, analyzing my battles, & looking at my card collection (and feeling good about it :p). If the game wasn't THE BEST already, the team has decided to make it more fun and engaging with weekly challenges, bringing in a different theme every time. This week, it's time to unleash the power of the Earth, highlighting our 'rocky' friend - the Stone Golem.

WHY I LOVE STONE GOLEM

A Stone Golem to me stands out as a front-end defender. Leads the way with sharp melee attacks while at the same time defending the entire lineup. If you think for a second, you'll realize most of the attacks end up having a melee attacker at the first position.
Not to worry, let your enemies come at you hard with their melee attackers - thanks to the shield ability, your stony monster will always have your back.

Check out for yourself! Here's one of my recent battles including the Stone Golem.

MY BATTLE LINEUP - HEAVY, BUT EFFICIENT

This battle only allowed us to choose amongst Fire, Death, or an Earth summoner. I knew a magic-dominated attack was out of the picture, thus decided to go with Earth.

Summoner - MYLOR CROWLING
Expecting a melee-heavy attack, I chose Mylor Crowling (thorns).

1. Monster 1 - STONE GOLEM
   Considering my melee-counter strategy, this selection was a no-brainer. I wanted a monster who can spend a fairly good amount of time on the battlefield, defending on the front-end, while other monsters finish the job.

2. Monster 2 - KRON THE UNDYING
   One of my Earth Favorites. Knowing the fact that my opponent wouldn't expect a magic monster, and with a total mana cost of 28, I couldn't afford to leave this guy out!

3. Monster 3 - CORNEALUS
   Another one of my favorites - One I call, the 'Sneak Killer'. With 12 Health points along with the healing ability, this scary, one-eyed dude is almost impossible to kill. In high mana-cost battles, I always have Cornealus defending the back-end of the throne. That means - My enemy's sneak monsters are useless!

Note: Loved how my two favorite legendaries played out in the battle, and want to try one of them? I'm delegating away 7 legendary cards including these two for an entire season for FREE! Stay tuned.

ENEMY'S BATTLE LINEUP - A VARIETY OF CARDS

The enemy's lineup turned out to be different than I expected - A very range-influenced attack. This meant my monsters will have to hold their guard while taking the enemy monsters one by one. Their healing monster, the Haunted Spirit went down shortly, thanks to the thorns summoner and the Stone golem. Once it was eliminated, the rest of the battle went on like a breeze.

MY STRATEGY - DID IT WORK?

Honestly, I didn't expect to have a straight win with zero casualties. My attack was planned based upon a very contrasting strategy, yet I managed to pull an easy win.
It clearly worked, thanks to well-grounded fundamentals - A sturdy defender holding the front and the back, with a strong magic attacker in the middle.
Still, I think the battle would have ended relatively quickly if I had included some low mana-cost monsters, especially with the sneak ability.

CONCLUSION

If you look at the overall picture, some would argue that it was an unfair battle. I had 2 strong legendaries on my team, while the enemy had none. But despite having frequent legendary cards on my deck, I've had some brutal defeats in the past.
I would give most of the credit for this win to Stone Golem, who strongly held his ground while Kron constantly discharged heavy magic attacks to the enemy monsters.

What would you do against an enemy lineup like this one?

Also, I'd love to see how all your Stone Golem battles turned out - leave the link to the battle/blog in the comments below.

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Until the next themed battle my friends, KEEP BRAWLING!!!