Hi everyone!

In this week's challenge we meet a well-known card, our friend the spiny turtle. For its great utility in low-mana battles, I have cherished it in my deck for a long time. Additionally, her Thorns ability makes her very powerful against first- and second-line melee attacks.

As you already know, my intention is to show a truly special battle. But what does "special" mean to me? To summarize a bit, the game that you see over and over again, in which the two teams are balanced and in which all the cards of the winning team play an essential role.

So here we go!

PREP STAGE

The water mallet is my second favorite indeed. So the proposed card is no mystery to me. The important thing was to take advantage of the advantages that our spiny turtle offers and compensate for its weaknesses. Being a tank and not having protection against magic, it is very exposed to a quick death. But we will talk about this later.

Now the important thing was to choose the cards. All are part of my collection, however in the image of the combat you can see its rental value, remember that with an excess of supply, the opportunities to rent are many.

COMBAT STAGE

Here you can see the battle!

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_781edb461bc9eca5253197c53c8dce6d

Battle conditions: Earthquake / Stampede / 17 Mana

Understanding rival strategy

The opponent chose a very smart defensive strategy. Since the earthquake condition is present, he chose as his tank Gloridax Soldier(1), a flying creature with shield ability. He also chose the healer Merdaali (4) to heal him while his Alchemist (5) would break my tank weapon so as not to damage his. His furious chicken (3) would also serve as a secondary shield should his first two cards die. Let's not forget the defensive role of her summoner CAMILA either. Subtracting 1 melee damage would make it easier for Gloridax's shield to disable all my attack on him.

His offensive strategy was not as remarkable as his defense. However, his tank did 2 melee damage per round as did his Manticore (2) with its Reach ability. The alchemist also damaged me 1 per round and at one point his chicken could attack me a little.

I think his strategy could have improved if he hadn't focused so much on defense.

Understanding my strategy

In a battle with the condition of earthquake the main thing is, how to prevent my creatures from being killed by the earthquake? Among all the options that there are my favorite is to choose Brighton Bloom, the summoner who turns all the creatures into flying. Likewise, it was vital to recover the damage caused against my turtle, since when using it as a tank I was more exposed to enemy damage, especially magic damage worried me. With this in mind I decided to create the following setup:

🌬BLOOM: Turn all the creatures into flying to avoid the earthquake.

🐢SPINEBACK TURTLE (A) I used her as a tank to do damage with her spines.

Torrent Fiend (B) I needed a secondary shield in case of facing Blast abilities

✨ Crustacean King (C) His main mission is to heal the tank for as long as possible.

✨ Merdaali Guardian (D) Just like the above, her main mission is to heal the tank for as long as possible.

Angelic Mandarin (E) To defend myself against blasters, sneakers or snipers, it is always good to have a second-line healer.

🐣 Furious Chicken (F) It is always good to add a final card as a secondary shield against sneakers.

My strategy would have been improved if I had used a magic attack to avoid his shield.

RESULTS

The key to winning this battle was the combination of the use of my summoner with the healers in the second line and the thorns of our turtle that were slowly sapping the armor and the life of the opponent. Although he chose very good flying cards, he did not prepare the game thinking that Bloom could be in front.

Despite everything, the two opponents used good strategies with small flaws, typical of experienced players, and it is always a pleasure to find well-armed strategies.👌

My experience with Spineback Turtle

About Spineback turtle, what to say, good wines get better with age. My experience has been unbeatable, since I have used it a lot previously. Our prickly friend is always useful in low mana battles, reverse speed battles, as a back shield for Super Sneak. If you are thinking of acquiring or renting it, it would be a great idea! You just have to be careful that the opponent never knows how to make turtle soup!

Thank you very much for your reading!

See you soon, on the battlefield and in our clan, Fallen Angels!