Hello again and welcome back to another installment of the @shield-of-glory BRAWLS OF STEEL report. As always, we cover guild rankings and brawl results from tier 2 @splinterlands guilds. We also give our thoughts on brawl strategy, improvements to the brawl format and, most importantly, GLADIUS cards!
++ Top Guild Rankings ++
Let's start with the current rankings for the top 5 guilds. After today's end-of-season reset, the rankings look similar to last season with TEAM POSSIBLE taking the top spot, followed by SHIELD OF GLORY, IMMORTAL GODS, KNIGHTS UNITED and THE GUILD OF NEOXIAN.
++ TIER 2 Brawl Results ++
#2 SHIELD OF GLORY took first place again this week, dominating its TIER 2 group. #19 ranked ARCHMAGE ARIUS' DISCIPLES took third and up and coming #123 ranked HD2 MARAUDERS OF CROM took second.
The other TIER 2 brawls saw 1st place finishes from #6 LEGENDARY DRAGONS and #3 IMMORTAL GODS ...
... #4 KNIGHTS UNITED and #5 THE GUILD OF NEOXIAN ...
... and #16 IMMORTAL GODS 4.
++ BATTLE BREADOWN OF THE WEEK ++
GLADIUS cards played a pivotal role in many battles again this week. A particularly spectacular battle was played by Franzol in the Fray 9 spot (Silver; Chaos Legion) against Aftersound of ARCHMAGE ARIUS' DISCIPLES. The battle highlighted the fearsome power of Katrelba Gobson yet again. Death, Earth and Dragon were the available splinters. Franzol chose Earth Summoner Obsidian for a 40 mana battle with SPREADING FURY and RISE OF THE COMMONS battle rulesets. Things looked to be going sideways for Franzol at first, until an enraged Katrelba got her first bloodlust kill. After that, she absolutely took over, killing the last five remaining enemies in a row. The full battle can be viewed on the Hive blockchain here.
Katrelba ended up with some mind-blowing stats!
++ GLADIUS SPOTLIGHT ++
As we've discussed before, Katrelba Gobson is one powerful little goblin! Despite that, she's often skipped over for brawls in favor of her utterly overpowered splinter-mate Quora Towershead. (Note: In Brawls, players can only choose one GLADIUS card per line-up). However, with Katrelba's double-strike sneak, even at level 1, she's a powerhouse threat right out of the box--one that should not be overlooked as Franzol demonstrated above. In some ways, even a level 1 Katrelba is like a leveled-up Silvershield Assassin (but with Bloodlust instead if Poison). Note that at even higher levels, Katrelba gains Snare (Lvl. 5) and Cripple (Lvl. 9) as well.
++ SHIELD OF GLORY PLAYER STATS ++
Last but certainly not least, here's a big shout out to Vugtis and Azircon who both turned in shutout performances this week for SoG's brawl squad! Also a big welcome back to Deceth who played in a brawl this week after a taking a long time off.
As you know, our ever-evolving system for fray selection involves a guaranteed spot in the next brawl for the top 5 by W/L%, whereas the bottom 5 must sit out the next brawl. When there is a tie for a Top 5 or Bottom 5 spot, overall W/L% from all recorded brawls will break the tie. Players competing in a Gold Foil fray are immune from benching despite their W/L%.
The top performers for SoG this week were Vugtis (6-0) and Azircon (4-0) with their impressive sweeps. Anasazi (6-1) took the #3 spot with a dominating performance, and the #4 and #5 spots went to Star-shroud and Lenonmc21 who beat out Heroldius, Franzol and Bluestreak240 by the tie-breaker system. These 5 players are guaranteed a spot in the next brawl. Please post you preferred fray spot on the TAVERN CHAT before sign-ups begin for the next brawl.
The bottom 5 for SHIELD OF GLORY this week were Misterrogers (1-2), Shadowwolf888 (2-2), Deceth (3-3), Xsuilx (4-2) and Sinistry (5-2). Certainly those last two records don't warrant a benching, but that's how the numbers played out. There were many strong performances overall and Gold Foil frays are immune from benching.
Obviously, Xsuilx and Sinistry of are two of our best brawlers. So perhaps we'll need to think about how and if the system can be tweaked to account for issues like this in the future. One idea would be to modify the rule so Gold Foil fray players can still be in the bottom 5, despite retaining their immunity from being benched. The effect would be that, some weeks, less than 5 people will get benched. The trade-off is less opportunities for all guild members to get a spot to play if they want one. These are things to consider. Please comment below if you have thoughts on this or other ideas.
For now though, these 5 members will sit out the next brawl, heal their wounds, analyze their strategies and cards, and come back stronger than ever the next time around.
++ Thank you ++
As always, thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next installment. This series is committed to providing great coverage of Splinterlands and Splinterlands brawls in particular. We're always looking to keep improving so please leave comments below 🙂 In the meantime, keep grinding and brawling!
Great report... some Gladius are real killing machines 😀
Thanks! Seriously, I love these how these cards can go nuts!
Excellent, thanks as always for this fabulous report as always, this is great work.
@tipu curate 2
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 31/51) Liquid rewards.
Awesome, thanks! Great performance this week!
Nice job. I hadn't realized Katrelba was such a powerful card until I watched the battle in the link.
Thanks for reading! There's no doubt-- Katrelba can go wild!
Impressive, as always, !BRO
I hope someday you'll be using tags when you mention other guilds so we can get some good old fashioned cross pollination and rivalries emerging.
I don't know if other guilds have hive accounts or not, but if not I hope it catches on.