RULES OF THE GAME

THE THEME: SAND WORM

Edition: REWARD
Rarity: COMMON
Element: NEUTRAL
ATTACK: MELEE
ABILITIES:

• Sneak @ level 1
• Snare @ level 6
• Piercing @ level 10
  
  
  
  

Note 1 - the card image to the right shows the max level Sand Worm.
Note 2 - the card I used is only a level 1.
Final Note - a big ole WTF for myself after discovering I had all the cards I needed for a level 2, I just hadn't merged them yet

My Feelings on SAND WORM

Play it well and it can clean house. A little bit of bad luck or a poor choice and it could fizzle. It is not the glassiest of glass cannons but it does get one-shot occasionally and that is pretty disappointing when you are counting on it's damage to wear down your opponent's line from the back.

Did you say Sand Worm!?

Look how cute it is.

My preference for using it has been to avoid putting it at the back of the line, usually somewhere between positions 3 and 5. I avoid position 2 because at lower levels I'm concerned about combustion. I also avoid the back spot with concerns about the other team having faster sneak as the Sand Worm is slow.

Rulesets and other situation where I like this card.

• High mana w/ Equalizer. Sand Worm has great damage with fairly low health making it a strong choice for this scenario. As equalizer will normally power up it's health and it will still have a proportionally high damage output.
• Reverse Speed. Probably still need relatively high mana but with 1 speed he can often get an early strike in potentially eliminating an opposing monster.

My Match(es)

This week lets take a peak at 3 separate matches. 2 will come from Brawls and 1 from rank battle.

Brawl #1 (Bronze league level caps) WIN

So we start with 36 mana and Reverse Speed for a ruleset. The brawl is limited to Death or Earth splinters. I chose Earth because I have largely been avoiding Death recently and I don't know why. Anyhow, as the match starts we can see taht I have put Sand Worm in the #4 spot and pulled a CYA by putting Furious Chicken in the 5 spot. This was bit of a gamble as an opponent with 2 sneak monsters may have been able to land at least one blow on Sand Worm. Instead though, I got really lucky and my opponent did not bring a single sneak monster.

Now because this was a reverse speed battle, after all the buffs and debuffs got handed out, Sand Worm moved first. In that move he landed a super solid blow on my opponent's Grim Reaper. The opponent's debuff to melee left us with just enough damage to take down the Grim Reaper in a single shot. That starting value of 5 means a lot sometimes.

Round 2 opens with my team still in place and once again Sand Worm goes first. This time it's able to bring Twisted Jester down to 1 health.

In round 3 it eliminates Twisted Jester.

In round 4 it eliminates the Undead Priest.

In round 5 is does 4 of the final 5 damage necessary to take down the Haunted Spirit.

Winner winner, chicken dinner!

It would be probably be possible to substitute for Sand Worm in this matchup and still win. Maybe you find a combination of 2 or 3 monsters with some mix of sneak / opportunity / snipe. The Twisted Jester was stuck taking futile shots at Kron and the opponent had no other units putting damage beyond the #1 spot so it would be a real race but as long as you elimate the damage coming from the back of that line up you would be okay.

Brawl #2 (Bronze league level caps) LOSS

The Brawl was a 46 mana match with Rise of the Commons and Armor Up for a ruleset. I chose to counter Armor Up with my summoner choice which I think was a good but probably not enough to make up for my opponent's summoner choice.

My opponent put a mountain of HP at the back of their lineup and combustion very quickly eliminated my armor advantage.

By the start of round 3 Sand Worm has landed one hit and one miss on the Efreet Elder and solely due to combustion has lost 2 shield and 2 HPs. Before round 3 is closed, combustion does my Sand Worm in.

The miss was significant but only to the accomplishments of the Sand Worm. Miss or not, I was going to lose this match without a serious overhaul of this lineup. The lesson here, specific to Sand Worm, may have been to move it back a spot or two to give it more time to work.

Rank Match WIN

For this match, we had 99 mana, Super Sneak, and 4 of the 6 splinters to choose from. I had recently acquired a new card or two thinking to myself, "If you can't beat em, join em."

Now had my first ranked match with Yodin Zaku been against a human I may have felt a bit bad about this choice but it wasn't and I don't, this one was just a bunch of fun. The bot chose a super solid counter summoner in Mylor Crowling and against most others may have been all the advantage that was needed.

My choice of War Chaang in the #6 spot on a Super Sneak match cut both ways. Every round that War Chaang is alive I get 2 attacks out of it, ranged first and then a melee Sneak attack second. The Sneak attack though triggers thorns forcing War Chaang to take 2 damage. THEN every melee sneak that targets War Chaang potentially triggers Retaliate which hits the opponent for 2 melee and a combustion hit to both that monster's neighbors but another 2 damage thorns hit to WAR Chaang . War Chaang survives round 1 but only barely and only because of

After one round, we were each out 1 monster but 4 of my opponent's 5 remaining monsters are pretty significantly damaged. Sand Worm (remember, that's why we are here) has managed one attack on a very heavily armored level 3 Goblin Mech. Sand Worm then proceeded to swing and miss on a few attacks which is the only reason it makes it to round 4. At the end of the match Sand Worm has survived but only by the skin of it's teeth and dare I say, it's own ineptitude. That might seem harsh but watch the match and decide for yourself. I might have lost had it landed a hit in round 2, 3, or 4.

Ultimately, I would say Yodin Zaku was the real difference maker here. I may have swapped War Chaang for a ranged attacker and moved Cornelius to the 6 spot but if Sand Worm lands an earlier hit, it may have put the Ettin Spearman into first position earlier taking away some serious damage.

Do I love a Sand Worm?

Nah, I can't say that I do but I also don't hate it. It's probably just misunderstood. Sometimes it's the bee's knees and other times it's a soggy firework. Maybe I just need to level mine up.

Do you play Splinterlands already? Gimme a shout.
Are you interested in playing? Click this link --> SPLINTERLANDS and then gimme a shout.
Did I get something wrong? Do you disagree? Did I miss a critical bit of detail? Let me hear about it.



As always, where ever and when ever this finds you, be well and have a spectacular time interval.

Cheers,
MagooZ