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Hello to any of my readers and "Dear (weekly) Diary" 😜

It's that day of the week in which I find the most interesting Splinterlands experience I've had over the past week to share! That fits in perfectly with the theme of the weekly Splinterlands Social Media Challenge too!

But first, a quick look at what happened this week in the world of crypto.

This past week has been a whirlwind in the crypto space. Bitcoin (BTC) has been holding steady above the $96,700 mark, showing resilience amidst a mixed performance in the altcoin market. Notably, XRP experienced a significant surge, climbing 9.1% to just below $2.73. This uptick came on the heels of the SEC acknowledging Grayscale's application to list an XRP-focused ETF. While this acknowledgment doesn't equate to approval, it has certainly injected a dose of optimism into the market.

In a surprising twist, GameStop's shares jumped by 7% after CEO Ryan Cohen posted a photo with Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy and a well-known Bitcoin advocate. This fueled speculation that GameStop might be venturing into the crypto realm, especially considering MicroStrategy's substantial Bitcoin holdings.

What about HIVE? As for HIVE, it has mostly remained ranged bound at around the 30cents mark area. This is somewhat disappointing of course, but no surprise given how much the alt coin market has dipped as compared to BTC. That being said, I still do intend to HODL and have complete faith in the potential of HIVE. Is this the last chance to buy BTC (and HIVE 🤑) on the cheap? Who knows?

Of course, I could be completely wrong too, so, please do not heed my advice for your own investment purposes! 😜📈🚀

A brief introduction before I start though...

Good Day to all Splinterlands players! (and people of HIVE! 😜) I've made it a point to blog about my weekly progress and experiences in Splinterlands/HIVE in my "weekly diary". Splinterlands & HIVE are what I'd consider to be my entry point into the World of Crypto, and I intend to use this as a means to look back on the path I've taken in the years ahead.⏳⏳⏳

This is now the 169th consecutive week writing in my Diary (of sorts) detailing my Splinterlands Journey ever since I started this game. I talk about what has gone on my personal Splinterlands playing experience, my weekly Guild Brawl Reports, and also any Splinterlands ingame news. 🎉🥳🎊

No week goes by in Splinterlands without some news event happening though. And here's my pick of some of the most interesting ones in my opinion. 📰📰📰

🗺️🧳✈️Updates on my Splinterlands Journey🗺️🧳✈️

This week's Social Media Challenge is all about sharing our remarkable Splinterlands moments. I'd have shared my daily and weekly activities in the past, BUT, usually, nothing really special really happens in my daily Splinterlands daily grind, so let's hope this is more interesting for reading?... let's get down to it! 🤣

The winds of change are sweeping through the Splinterlands as the Chaos Legion era makes way for the new Rebellion reward cards. However, with all of that happening, my collection of new reward cards are still rather sparse and there doesn't seem to be anything in particular which stands out to me. So I guess we should just move on to the most exciting thing about Splinterlands — the game itself!

My quest for more Gold Foil Legendary cards from ~~my rewards chests~~ "The New Glint Shop" continues on ("Greed is Good!" 😈). It's STILL a ~~0.008% chance, at base level,~~ ridiculously low chance to pull a legendary gold foil, in case you were wondering 😉. Here's to more jackpot strikes in the future (i hope) 🤞🏻🍀🤞🏻🍀🤞🏻🍀.

⚔️🛡️My Battle Showcase🛡️⚔️

The removal of League Level limits in battles allowed some really interesting matchups. No longer are "low level" players protected by their league limits. This often leads to some very lopsided battles. However, there is also the opportunity here to punch above your weight and secure a David VS Goliath win. As always, let me once again showcase some really great underdog victories I have achieved this past week!

Let me present a battle (or some battles) I fought recently in which I managed, against all odds, to win these players who out levelled me on an order of magnitude that I couldn't imagine. Victory or defeat would lie in the small details. 😱

LINK TO MY FIGHT

I would say this was a fight of epic lop-sidedness! 😱

If it wasn't bad enough that I was facing a MAXIMUM level SUMMONER opponent VS myself at just a "puny" level 4, I was also using mostly level 1 units. That meant despite my "middling Summoner level", my team was actually a lot lower in level in reality. Simply put, it was more akin to a level 1 VS max levels! 😱

The opponent was using a max level deck with his MAXIMUM Level 8 RARE summoner Kelya Frendul from the Chaos Legion edition while I was ONLY using a Level 4 RARE Kelya Frendul (Hooray for mirror matchups? 🤣) from the Chaos Legion edition. And if that wasn't enough, his units were maxed out with far superior levels to mine! This "MIRROR" matchup battle of "Water VS Water" had me at the clear disadvantage as I was going to lose out to the opponent purely to sheer power and level.

At the end of the day, there were a few factors which resulted in my unexpected win.

Firstly, the rulesets SUPER SNEAK/ARMORED UP/BRIAR PATCH meant that my opponent would be, in all likelihood, be restricted to armoured and units in his team. Whilst SUPER SNEAK would normally encourage the use of melee units, BRIAIR PATCH complicates things by making the setup distinctly anti melee. As such, I would likely see only MAGIC or RANGED units. This would also infer the probability that his unit choices would be restricted to said units and that I should focus on fielding the most advantageous "ANTI RANGED TEAM" as possible in order to take advantage of such a ruleset.
This inadvertently also benefitted my lineup as I could then just focus on just choosing the most suitable Magic DPS units I owned for my team, instead of trying to fight on multiple fronts, seeing as I would have suffered an overwhelming disadvantage just based off the difference in our levels.
In fact, to throw the opponent off guard, I would completely defy his expectations by focusing on just 2 MAGIC DPS units in a glass canon build (so to speak), along with 2 MELEE units to act as TANKS (surprise!) in order to throw him off guard to allow my plan to take effect.
My strategy would be to depend purely on lasting as long as possible using the TANKING abilities of my frontline units. Halfling Refugee was lined up as my frontline tank unit with it's WEARY (DIS)ability and great stats to absorb the brunt of the initial damage. Ironically, WEARY's disadvantages would actually work in my favour here as the Halfling Refugee's chance of attacking decreased with each round, and thus ended up taking less self inflicted damage from THORNS. To further enhance my strategy, I would depend on the +1 ARMOR abilities thanks to my Summoner, Kelya Frendul, to give more protection from THORNS. This would be a risky move as a similar move by a higher level opponent with superior unit stats would have derailed my strategy completely.
Next thing of note was the MANA COST RESTRICTION of 17 mana. This meant that my opponent would very unlikely be able to unleash his full arsenal of heavy hitters with a vast array of abilities against me. I would thus be able to take advantage of this by fielding a leaner and more focused specialised lineup.
Of course, this was not going to be a walk in the park as the opponent still had the obvious advantage of much superior levels.
Fortunately, and surprisingly, the opponent played right into my hands by arrogantly deciding to field a vast array of low cost "small" units, thinking that he would be able to blitz me through sheer force of his superior DPS and mass swarm of forces, and ignoring the anti physical DPS effects of the ARMORED UP ruleset.
Making the most of such restrictions would turn out to be advantageous to me.
This turned out to be my saving grace in the end as my hyper focused gambit succeeded in gaining an advantage against the opponent's superior levels, eventually wearing him down. Even though my units were seriously lacking in levels and stats compared to my opponent's, my unit choices managed to absorb the brunt of the damage as I had hoped for. This allowed my Heavy Hitting Magic DPS units to simply destroy him by letting the prevailing conditions and ruleset do the dirty work for me! I guess this was akin to a desperate roll of the dice hoping for that 1 in a million jackpot win! 🤣

In the end, all I can say is that luck was on my side. 😜

Who would have guessed that my lowly teams would have been able to pull off such David VS Goliath upset wins? I guess nothing is impossible and sometimes, all you need is some luck and great strategy!

💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

I definitely can appreciate how utilising the most of your deck's strengths can lead to unexpected outcomes. This is one of those situations in which Davids can beat Goliaths if surrounded with the proper team. The role every single carefully selected unit brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

For any players who feel daunted with the new battle level changes, I hope this article has given you some insight into the potential of every single card regardless of it's level. 😉

🤑💰🍕Added Bonus of PIZZA Token🤑💰🍕

_{I will use my staked 🍕PIZZA🍕 to share a slice of 🍕PIZZA🍕 with anyone in the comments who also FOLLOWS & REBLOGS my post in the interests of spreading the Word of Pizza 🤣🤣🤣

Just let me know if you've done that so I can easily keep track. 👍

Any fellow 🍕PIZZA🍕 connoisseurs who !PIZZA me will also receive 🍕PIZZA🍕 back from me. 😊}

📣🍕SHOUTOUT to HivePizza📣🍕

_{The guys over at PIZZA DISCORD have been very helpful throughout my Splinterlands journey. I strongly recommend that you guys check it out if you haven't already done so.

PIZZA is an active gaming and creative arts crypto community on the HIVE blockchain. Popular games on HIVE like SPLINTERLANDS, RISING STAR, EXODE, HASHKINGS, WOO, TERRACORE have their own PIZZA communities here.}

_{Don't miss out more events that are always being organised. Join the PIZZA DISCORD. Even if you aren't interested in the 💰🍕🎁GIVEAWAYS & AIRDROPS💰🍕🎁, there is a vibrant and friendly community there awaiting you.}

_{Here's to wishing everyone all the best for the upcoming week 🎉🍀.}

_{To any new players who wish to explore the world of Splinterlands, do feel free to sign up with my REFERRAL LINK😊.}

Week 169 of my SplinterDiary📝📚. Water VS Water! Level 1 Beats Max Level!

🗺️🧳✈️Updates on my Splinterlands Journey🗺️🧳✈️

⚔️🛡️My Battle Showcase🛡️⚔️

💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

🤑💰🍕Added Bonus of PIZZA Token🤑💰🍕

📣🍕SHOUTOUT to HivePizza📣🍕