Welcome back Splinterlands battlemages to another edition of "For Guild & Glory," my brawl report series with all the details on my battles and my guilds' performances in Tiers 3 and 2. This will be a bit of a double feature since I wasn't able to get #108 out on time, so I will touch on the results from the older brawl before providing the usual links for my most current set of battles for Brawl #109. You can see my last report for Brawl #107 here.
This cycle, the total number of guilds in Tier 3 was smack on 20, so 
Well woe is me, I forgot to clip the standings of Brawl #108 for the SHIELD OF GLORY, just goes to show how out of rhythm I was with operations last week. Overall though, Brawl #108 marked our most successful performance and earnings in Tier 3 as a guild, finishing 3rd from a loaded 9-guild brawl, again only finishing behind the likes of Summoner's Tribe and Legendary Dragons. We earned 88 crowns and 4889 Merits. These crowns are a very welcomed sight as SHIELD OF GLORY has lots of renovations planned for its buildings in the near future!
I also turned in my most successful record defending Fray 16 - Modern Silver Gold Foil finishing 5-3. For the 2nd brawl running I beat Spirits4You from Legendary Dragons, but then got crushed handily by Cyberblock from the 1st place Summoner's Tribe. My other two loses were to Wiggl3 from Phoenix Ivy and Blastedzeus from Legendary Wyverns.
Brawl #109 brought the most fierce competition we've yet seen in Tier 3. Just look at the legendary guilds in that Top 5 and consider that Immortal Gods finished in a distant 7th with some no-shows leading to a dismal 62-90 record. SHIELD OF GLORY finished a very respectable 5th with a positive record of 77-75, earning 65 crowns and 3,611 merits, which was down a bit from last week.
We were led by a near-flawless, 8-1 performance from 
@happychillmore
@zawarrior 
@naturalkiller 
@fezzz 
@prince.kai 
@spirits4you 
@cyberblock I got outplayed in Battle #1 as HappyChillmore finally bested me for the first time in Tier 3. Their choice to get Supply Runner into the lineup was the difference maker in the Kelya mirror match as the extra speed allowed their forces to strike first since we started the same other five monsters. Zawarrior trashed me with a stacked Kralus lineup for the noxious fumes battle that my Forgotten One fire squad could not overcome.
I was able to take both battles off of Team Possible and its feeder guild, including an impressive win by my four-monster Kelya team over Natural Killer's six-monster Mylor squad. Diemonshark and Isgald Vorst were able to overpower the smaller monsters despite the thorny opposition.
Things went poorly with my last three battles, all against guilds that finished ahead of us in the standings. In Battle #5, a Camila mirror match saw my plans thwarted by the shield ability from Chaos Knight after I roared out to an early lead. Then Spirits4You beat my Kitty lineup with an aggressive Quix build using Captain Katie, and finally Cyberblock outclassed me in a 99-mana Kitty mirror with Katrelba Gobson.
Things continue to remain challenging in Tier 2 for THE 420 SYNDICATE, as we are still reorganizing some of our membership and sorting out the ideal fray positioning of newer guildmates. Brawl #108 brought a bounty of 27 crowns and 1,181 merits for a 7th place finish out of 10 guilds, with The Anti Social Club taking 1st. I posted a disappointing 3-4 in Fray 14 - Modern Bronze Gold Foil.
Much of the same again for THE 420 SYNDICATE in Brawl #109. We actually earned slightly better prize of 28 crowns and 1,225 merits based on the opponents in our brawl, despite finishing a place lower, 8th out of 10. Although we finished 15 games under .500, we still had some strong performances led by 
My Kelya team outlasted my opponent's Chaos Dragon in the first battle, but I fell victim to a Bloom-powered Grum lineup in the fire-vs-fire 2nd battle. It was a Tarsa mirror match for Battle #3 and I loaded up my lineup with heavy health to win this noxious fumes battle. On the contrary, I did not have enough health to stick around in the low-mana Battle #4, where Goblic Psychic reigned supreme.
I swept the last three battles, starting with a convincing Keyla mirror using Wave Brood to distract their Deeplurker. I beat another Bloom lineup in Battle #6 as my Kelya lineup leveraged Chaos Agent for a few key misses against their water-based team. In the last battle, I won with Sloan, overcoming another Bloom team and the shielded tank Alva the Crusher with my potent onslaught of ranged attack.
ZENSPORTS enjoyed its best finish in Brawl #108, finishing an astonishing 3rd place out of nine guilds, earning a remarkable 37 crowns and 1,388 merits. HD2 Marauders of Crom finished first in our brawl, and they handed me one of my three loses in Fray 15 - Wild Silver Gold Foil.
Our luck ran out in Brawl #109 and we slumped back to 8th place out of 10 guilds, which earned us 23 crowns and 863 merits. Humen Not Welcome finished in 1st, and we were well off the hunt losing 23 more games than we won. Despite the poor showing, we had some very strong brawl performances including a 7-2 from our new Co-Leader 
In Battle #1, I was no match for my opponent's superior lineup in the 12-mana Obsidian mirror, and in Battle #2, my range-heavy Sloan lineup could not win the no-melee battle against my opponent's potent magic onslaught by Obsidian.
I turned it around in Battle #3, as my Regal Peryton coaxed a few misses from my opponent's Tenyii Striker, and my earth team took out their Tarsa team. In Battle #4, my Contessa summoner was a complete miss against my opponent's all-melee water team in this no-magic contest. And finally in the 5th battle, I walked away with the win by using a 3-mana summoner that allowed me to squeak an extra Chaos Agent into our similar lineups against their more expensive Quix for this 16-mana encounter.
Five more Gladius Cases opened by DuceCrypto, and 25 more misses at opening a Gold Foil for those GF frays. I was lucky enough to open the neutral legend on one of my alts, but still, I don't think I will be able to play with it any time soon.
For the upcoming Brawl #110, SHIELD OF GLORY will only have seven other guilds in its Tier 3 group. The Guild of Neoxian and Knights United will provide the stiffest competition, but there is a good chance for us to finish in the Top 3 once again.
THE 420 SYNDICATE is the third-highest ranked guild in its Tier 2 brawl, with The MobyDicks as the only Top 100 ranked guild out of 10. We've got a good shot at placing in the Top 3 here as well.
In contrast, there are five guilds in the Top 100 of ZENSPORTS' brawl group and our guild is the second-lowest ranked out of all 10. Therefore, getting back to third place is going to be quite the challenge, but with some new members joining the guild, we are up for it!
Finally, if you happen to be out in Las Vegas this weekend for Splinterfest, don't be shy, come say HI! It is always fun to match a face and personality to the IGNs that follow my work and battle with me in the Splinterlands. I'll be wearing some Tshirts with my favorite NFTs on them, or just ping me on Discord at this game if you're so inclined to meet up.
Well that's a wrap for me. Best of luck brawling this week and I'll catch you in the Splinterlands (or Las Vegas)!
