Welcome back Splinterlands battlemages to another edition of "For Guild & Glory," my brawl report series covering all the action from 
With brawl cycle #243 came another mediocre performance from Shield of Glory, as we stumbled to a 4th place finish behind a few guilds I've grown accustomed to beating in Tier 5. We were only 3 wins off of 3rd place and 11 wins shy of 1st. Admittedly, some of my guildmates suffered from connectivity issues this week as well as falling victim to the glitchiness that plagued the new modernized brawl technology.
I know Shield of Glory will be back stronger next cycle. Despite the lower than expected finish, we still earned 201 crowns, 9648 merits, and 363 SPS.
On the other hand, I enjoyed my second straight sweep of Fray 20 - Gold Foil Modern Silver League. Let's take a quick look at the matchups and strategies I used:
@omochi of Samurai Soul
I was surprised omochi fielded an underpowered bronze-level summoner in this battle. I assume they just didn't have the right options for the elements available for selection, especially in my home arena.
In the low-mana battle, I took advantage of the odds-only rule and our barracks bonus mana to bring an extra 1-mana monster to battle, like the standout speedy Gladiator Cutter Brieze. Mycelic Morphoid punished their sneak attackers with its thorns and the magic attack of Regal Peryton was enough to take down this battle.
@splintercogg of Legendary Raptors
Another brawl battle with life available meant another great opportunity to punish the opposition with a dual attacking Helmet Kharafax. I decided to select Quix as my summoner instead of Ilthain for the added benefit of access to Runeseer Sevaya for the protect ability.
My strategy of placing Thanalorian Archer as tank worked well in the Target Practice battle. Although they only used one ranged attacker for the snipe ruleset, Archer's lookout ability mitigated the damage dealt by four of their five monsters. Monsters given lookout halve the damage from all snipe, sneak, and opportunity attacks, which helped to slow down their Deeplurker and Isgald Vorst.
@buloy of The Guild of NeoxianThey fled! That was easy!
@helpyou of Legendary Dragons
Bold move of them to go for earth's double Gladiator play, by using Lobb Lowland as summoner to select both common Gobsons for a potent melee attack. Unfortunately for them, I countered with Eternal Tofu, giving all my monsters thorns to slowly kill off those pesky Gobson attackers.
Interestingly, I chose two weapon trainers but only one null attack monster. With the high mana cap, I only needed the weapon trainers to give Kharafax a dual attack, while selecting bigger threats with my other three monster slots. Don't feel forced into playing null attack monsters on both sides of a weapon trainer if you have more mana to do something bigger and better! This was another very comfortable win.
@odinsonzclan of The MobyDicks
Well wouldn't you know, Helmet Kharafax is back with another dual attack in this scattershot battle. There's so much to like about this double weapon trainers setup including how they both have divine shield. The triage from Albahoo Forester is also clutch with random attackers hitting the backline. Finally, for my choice as tank, I picked Imperial Knight for its resiliency with heal and void armor.
The armor provided by Lux Vega was clutch against their attack which featured no magic monsters. It basically gave all my monsters a second layer of divine shield against their melee and ranged attackers. The opposition could not get through my defenses before Kharafax took over the battle. Another one bites the dust!
@rebelyell666 of [YGG] Legion
Firstly, let's give props to my opponent for choosing a badass Billy Idol song/album for their Hive handle. More props are in order for their Gold Foil Quora, a mighty Gladiator feared by brawlers across the land. But alas for my poor opponent, even Quora was not enough to save them.
I took a break from giving Helmet Kharafax a dual attack, and gave that honor to Krash Wanderford instead. With no legendaries allowed in this battle, I decided to use fire's epic range weapon trainer Daulthin Ironhood and Rebellion rare staple Moxian Rebel to give the speedy Gladiator magic and range attacks.
Ultimately, the magic attacks bestowed by Moxian Rebel were mostly neutralized by Immortalis' void ability, but the cripple ruleset meant that each enemy monster still lost a point of health for each magic attack. This was especially important against Quora, because once the taunting Slipspawn was cleared from the backline, those cripple attacks meant Quora healed for less health.
Then there was the faceoff between Quora and Arkemis. With its halving ability and the impede tactic granted by Drath Risqruel, the big bear stood toe-to-toe with Quora without flinching. Of course, Slipspawn helped Quora outlast Arkemis, but the damage was done and Quora died off soon after. This was an exciting victory and proof of concept for another dual attack Gladiator outside of Quora and Kharafax!
The Gladius Cases did not yield many useful cards. I opened one Edith Emberstar epic I needed and two common gold foils, but all the other common, rare, and legendary cards were superfluous to my maxed regular foil collection and burned for merits. I'm still one Larissa away from maxing out that legendary dragon Gladiator and getting the clutch third point of magic attack.
That's a wrap for me on another successful Tier 5 Brawl where I swept away the competition. I wish I could say the same for some of my guildmates, but it takes time and resources to get the pairings right for 25 frays in Tier 5. It will always be a work in progress, so I give many thanks to my guildmates for always trying their best and improving their decks to compete at the highest tier. Until next brawl...
If you are interested in any of the guilds I belong to,
I've linked the pictures below with an invite to each guild Discord server.
Come by, give me a shout, and check us out!
Proud member of the original KoG alliance guild
Proud member of the YGG Brawlers alliance within 
Proud member of my original guild and YGG member,
the always affable YGG 420 Fam, on Hive as 
