Splinterlands Social Media Challenge!

Before having a look at the battle I've picked for this Social Media Challenge, let's have a look at the newest pair of promo cards which are being released in just less than 14 days:

From the previous pair I got both cards off the market for a little bit of discount - a maxed Riklauniman and a level 4 Rune Arcanist. So, let's see if these two are worthy buys and if anything other than max level makes sense for them.

I'll start with the Rare Card - Meriput Mossmender. Her price is the same as those of the previous rares - 3,000 DEC/ 3,000 Credits. I will probably buy her from the shop as every 25 copies guaranteed a gold foil, and buying a maxed one should get me enough GFs to justify the higher price (and I might also get lucky - even though that happens quite rarely). So, she is a dual-element (Earth/Life) unit and at level 1 she starts with 2 Magic Attack, 1 Speed, 1 Armor and 2 Health and the Repair ability. This time the new ability is at max level (we'll get to it), however, a repair Monster is not a bad addition for some teams even at level 1 even though at the cost of 6 mana, you probably have better options in your deck. Next at 2 level (5 copies - 15,000 DEC) she gains Dodge. I don't think Dodge does much for her with her 1 Speed and 2 Health apart for the cases when you play her in Reverse Speed. Then at level 4 (25 copies) she gains Cleanse. Level 4 makes her a decent support unit but nothing to write home about, and she still has just 3 Health. Now we jump from level 4 straight to her max level - 8. THe stats here are 2 Magic Attack, 1 Speed, 2 Armor, 6 Health but most importantly she gains a completely new ability - Echo. As you can see from its description above, it is pretty much mandatory to get if you want to take advantage of the full capacity of the Meriput Mossmender. Now from mediocre at best she suddenly turns into a very powerful card. She already has Repair and Cleanse so she automatically boosts 2 of her abilities to be cast twice each round. Most units at max level have Heal, Tank Heal, Triage, Repair, Cleanse so that's a long list of abilities that get boosted by Echo. I think getting a max copy of her is definitely worth it.

Now for the Legendary card - Nephket. His shop price is 50,000 DEC/50,000 Credits. I think it is wise to buy the legendary cards from the marketplace at a reasonable discount rather than from the shop. Yeah, you can get lucky and land a GF legendary (if you are not me) but I prefer to leave the big boys to buy batches of 25 Legendaries, get their guaranteed gold foils and flip the regular foils. The more big fish do that, the better for the smaller fish. Now for the card - he is a dual-element (Life/Water) 7-mana dual-attack (Ranged/Melee) unit. His stats at level 1 are 2 Melee Attack, 1 Ranged Attack, 3 Speed, 0 Armor, 5 Health. His mana cost is 7. He starts with 2 abilities - Sneak and Stun. When you level him up to level 2 (3 copies - 150,000 DEC) he gains 1 More Melee Damage and Knock Out. Which means his abilities are very synergistic now. If you land a Stun with the first attack, you immediately deal double damage with the second one - which in his case is melee. That's pretty significant (if you get lucky). Then the next ability is Divine Shield. Not a bad ability to have in the world of Tofu spam but I don't think it's crucial in general. He does not gain any stats at level 3. Finally at level 4 (max - 550,000 DEC) he also gains Piercing. Piercing is synergistic with his other offensive abilities for sure, however, is it really worth 250,000 DEC (the cost of 5 copies). I am not sure about that at all. The fact that he gains 1 more melee attack point is significant though cause it can be doubled (as we already discussed) for a total of 8. Nevertheless I am still not really convinced if I need this card. Yeah, he's cool but I don't see him as a must-have. And when you are working on budget you definitely have to keep that into consideration. Maybe a level 2 will do just to have him as an option.

Let's now have a look at one very fun and also very lucky battle featuring probably the best Gladiator card currently in the game - Quora Towershead.

Now before we get into the stats discussion of Quora, let's have a sneak peek into her LORE.

So Quora's father really wanted a male child to carry on his family name but since all he got was Quora, he tried to press her into becoming a gladiator where she could someday potentially find a powerful fighter to become her husband. She did not really like that idea of a marriage but she did honor her fathers' wishes to join the guild, and that's how her legendary adventure began...

Alright, we've got some idea of who Quora is, after glancing at her lore. Let us have a look at her stats and abilities at different key levels now.

Quora Towershead is an Epic Monster. At level 1 she has 2 Magic Attack, 2 Melee Attack, 3 Speed, 0 Armor and 11 Health and she starts off with Bloodlust (Every time this Monster defeats an opponent, it gets +1 to all stats) and Heal (Restores a portion of the Monster's health each round). Bloodlust is a signature ability for all Gladiator cards, while Heal in combination with her 2 attack types makes her a very formidable weapon.
At level 3 she gains her 3rd ability which makes her even better - I'm sure you did not think this was possible - Immunity (This monster is immune to negative status effects).
At level 5 she gains his 4th ability and final ability - Dispel (When this monster hits an enemy, it clears all positive status effects on that enemy)
Finally, maxed out at level 6 she has 2 Magic Attack, 3 Melee Attack, 3 Speed, 0 Armor and 13 Health. It is worth noting that getting her to max level is a feat of strength of massive proportions since leveling Gladiator cards is really hard. I've been playing the game and doing brawls for more than 2 years now, and my Quora is barely midway through level 3.

Now that we know what the card does (or doesn't do) at the different levels of play, let us have a look at the battle I have chosen to showcase.

<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>BATTLE<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>

The line-up of the Battle and the Ruleset:

The rulesets for this battle are Maneuvers (All units gain reach), Equal Opportunity (All Monsters have the Opportunity (Monsters with the Opportunity ability may attack from any position and will target the enemy Monster with the lowest health) ability) and Taking Sides (Neutral Monsters may not be used in battles) ability. The mana budget is 28 which is a fairly low amount so I will not be able to splurge on chunkier Monsters. Three Elements are available - Water, Earth and Death. I'll, of course, go with the Earth Element.

My Main Tank this battle is the Pelacor Mercenary. This Monster is a great tank, it has Flying (Has an increased chance of evading Melee or Ranged attacks from Monsters who do not have the Flying ability) which also makes it immune to Earthquake and Heal (Restores a portion of the Monster's health each round) as well as Retaliate (When hit with a Melee attack, Monsters with Retaliate have a chance of attacking their attacker). The only downfall of the Pelacor Mercenary is that it is susceptible to Magic Damage but that can now be fixed thanks to Immortalis.

Following immediately after is one of the soulbound cards which you can still get out of reward chests - the Fungus Flinger. It is maxed out but even if it wasn't it would still be enough because I am more more interested in its main ability - Martyr (When this Monster dies, adjacent Monsters get +1 to all stats). At this level in addition to Marty it also has Blind so that's a nice added bonus. It has only 4 health so that's generally not too hard to happen, especially in a battle such as this where it is guaranteed to get hit by Blast Damage due to its placement.

If there is a Monster in the game that is an absolute beast from level 1 that is Quora. She is a Gladiator card and used to only be available to be played in Brawls, however with the addition of the soulbound Summoners as well as the Are you not entertained? ruleset, it is now also usable in tourneys and on ladder. She is an Epic Monsters but should have been a Legendary one with her dual-attack Magic/Melee and Bloodlust (every time this Monster defeats an opponent, it gets +1 to all stats), and Heal (restores a portion of the Monster's health each round) abilities at level 1. At max level (which is really hard to achieve) she also has Immunity (this monster is immune to negative status effects) and Dispel (when this monster hits an enemy, it clears all positive status effects on that enemy) - an absolute powerhouse of a Monster.

The 4th place in the line-up goes to the Acid Shooter. It is a great Monster to include in basically every Earth setup when you have a 2 Mana or a bit more remaining and a spot to spare. It has 3 abilities at max level - Scattershot (This Monsters attacks hit a random enemy target), Cripple (Each time an enemy is hit by a Monster with Cripple it loses one max health) and Poison (Attacks have a chance to apply poison, which does automatic damage to the target at the beginning of each round after the poison is applied).

The 5th and final spot for this battle goes to the Fungus Fiend. It is a Monster which is an auto-include wherever you have a free spot in your line-up as it costs 0 Mana. At max level it also has Slow (Reduces the Speed of all enemy Monsters). Slow is always great unless one of the rulesets is Reverse Speed.

It is time for a quick round by round analysis:

As you may have already figured out, since the battle does not have the ruleset allowing me to use a Gladiator card, the Summoner I am going with is Lobb Lowland. He has the Conscript (Allows the use of one additional Gladiator card in battle) ability and also debuffs the whole enemy team, reducing their Speed by 1. The enemy has chosen to go with a standard Kelya play. The battles itself is from the currently active Diamond tourney.

After 1 round of exchanging blows I have lost two Monsters - the Fungus Fiend and the Fungus Flinger. The enemy has obviously sprayed me with a lot of fungicides. None the less Quora does not give up that easily.

Round 3 begins and I have also lost my Acid Shooter on the other hand I have managed to take down the enemy Pelacor Bandit and my Quora has gained additional attack values, speed and health.

Round 4 - my Quora is the only one remaining on the battleboard against the 4 remaining enemy Monsters.

Round 5 - my Quora is obviously in a hard spot even though she will heal first before any incoming damage.

Round 6 - well she's obviously still alive but the enemy Bakjeera won't be soon.

Round 7 - Quora surviving at 1 Health before healing herself. I need the enemy to miss so she can survive though.

Round 8 - well that was lucky.

Round 9 - Quora surviving again at 1 Health and this is going to seal the deal as she will be able to take down the enemy Deeplurker.

Round 10 - all that's left to do for my team is to kill off the last remaining enemy Monster.

Quora is a brokenly powerful Gladiator Monster. Unfortunately there is not much you can do in order to get her at a faster pace. Just do Brawls, open as many Gladiator packs as possible and hope you get lucky. You might even a get a GF Quora, who knows..

Over and Out,

Referral