Crush Hard by Cruel Sethropod

This week's featured monster in Splinterlands Share Your Battle is none other than CRUEL SETHROPOD. A lot of you may think this is not the usual monster that you would want in your deck or in your line-up. You rarely see this monster being used because it does not have abilities nor has a high damage for a tank. But here, I will share some of the things for you to consider getting in using this card.

CRUEL SETHROPOD is known for its strong pincers and teeth as sharps as spears. This monsters attack anything that gets near it. Once Cruel Sethropod's pincers or teeth locked on your body, it will be impossible to remove it. A lot of sailors feared to encounter this monsters on seas.

Stats and Abilities

Stats:

Attack Type: Melee
Damage: 1 to 3
Speed: 1 to 2
Armor: 3 to 6
Health: 4 to 7

Abilities:

None. This monster does not have any ability even at its max level. Every time you level-up this card, it gains additional stats whether on melee damage, speed, armor, and or Health.

Monster Compatibility

Since CRUEL SETHROPOD will most like shine in the low mana cap battles or ruleset like Little League, I will only select monsters that can also be use in this battle conditions. Other than this, you can also include higher zero mana monster but we will not include it for now since 0 mana monster can be literally place anywhere.

MERDAALI GUARDIAN is one of the best support monster available for Water Splinter. It both has the Tank Heal and Repair ability to regenerate health and armor of its friendly monster.

At CRUEL SETHROPOD's max level, it can have upto 6 armor and 7 HP. When used as tank and partnered with Merdaali Guardian, both armor and HP can be regenerated by using Repair and Tank Heal. At a low mana cap battle, this is a great combo already.

SCAVO HIRELING is a Neutral monster with Repair ability at its initial level and gains Camouflage and Slow at higher levels. Similar with how Merdaali Guardian supports CRUEL SETHROPOD, Scavo Hireling can also provide the needed regeneration to the monster's armor.

Although this monster cannot provide the Health regeneration, this monster will be atleast harder to take down since it has the Camouflage ability. When place at the backline, this monster can continuously provide the needed armor repair without worrying on being targeted by Sneak attacks.

ALBATROSS is a Water monster with no-attack. It has Flying ability at its initial level and gains Tank Heal at higher levels. With only a 1 mana requirement, this is also a good monster to have for a low mana cap battle. You can combine this with Merdaali Guardian to have a dual Tank Heal or combine with Scavo Hireling as both of this monster will be hard to target.

IGOR DARKSPEAR is a Water monster with a ranged attack. Aside from the Support monster, you can also partner some damage dealing monster with Cruel Sethropod for added overall damage. Igor has the STUN ability at higher levels. This will be very helpful as well considering it only has a 2 mana requirement.

Summoner Compatibility

KELYA FRENDUL is the one of the most common Summoner for Water Splinter especially with the new meta High Speed Water. And in Modern format, it will be the most picked Summoner for Water as well specially if we are taking about Little League ruleset.

Kelya can increase both Speed and Armor of all friendly monsters. This is perfect especially if we are using Merdaali Guardian or Scavo Hireling's armor repair ability.

BORTUS is my old favorite summoner from Water during those times that Water Magic dominates the league. Bortus is an anti-magic summoner which reduces the magic damage of enemy monsters by 1. Cruel Sethropod may have a high armor but that won't save him from magic damage.

Ruleset Compatibility

Rules
Little League - Only Monsters & Summoners that cost 4 Mana or less may be used in battles.	Cruel Sethropod only requires 3 mana. This is the perfect ruleset for Cruel Sethropod as it will be match to lower mana monsters as well. Against monster with higher mana, it will most likely be at disadvantage when place as a tank.
Melee Mayhem - Melee attack monsters can attack from any position. Equal Opportunity - All Monsters have the Opportunity ability. Super Sneak - All Melee attack Monsters have the Sneak ability.	This allows Cruel Sethropod to attack even from the backline. This monster doesn't have enough health if match against higher mana monster so it is best if you can use it as a pseudo tank rather than the main tank.
Weak Magic - Magic attacks hit Armor before reducing Health. Lost Magic - Monsters with Magic attack may not be used in battles.	Cruel Sethropod has high armor which can help him survive longer if magic will hit the armor first. Combine with support monsters that can repair armor will be good as well. Totally banning magic monster will also be good for Cruel Sethropod as both melee and ranged attacks will hit the armor first.

How to Counter Cruel Sethropod

To be honest, this is one of least monster you will think about countering. Compare with the Llama+Kron or Llama+Golem combination, it will be very rare to encounter this monster especially in medium or high mana battle. But just to give you some idea on how to counter this kind of monster, I will be sharing some tips you might not know or just did not even consider thinking about.

As I always mentioned, one of the most worthy stats Cruel Sethropod has is the high armor. With this, having a monster with SHATTER ability. Target's armor is destroyed when hit by an attack from Monsters with Shatter ability.
This is the direct counter to its high armor stats.
Magic attacks! Plain and simple. Even with high armor, Cruel Sethropod is still susceptible to damage with magic attacks.
THORNS and RETALIATE ability to return melee damage when hit by Cruel Sethropod.

For me, it will always be better to strategized depending on the battle conditions. Which ruleset is applicable and the available Splinter to play with it.

FEATURED BATTLE

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_4ee0590400dfadc76259fdcde6ad28ab&ref=jpleron

Battle Condition
Rule #1	Lost Legendaries: Legendary Monsters may not be used in battles.
Mana Cap	16
Allowed Splinter	Water, Life, Death, Dragon, and Earth

MY LINE-UP

In this match, Legendary monsters are banned and we are limited to Common, Rare and Epic monsters only. This will limit our choices to few monsters so we must choose wisely and create a line-up with very good compatibility with each other.

Summoner:

Kelya Frendul : I opted to used Kelya Frendul because this is a low mana battle and I know I have a lot of good monsters with low mana requirement.

Monster:

CRUEL SETHROPOD - our featured monster of the week. Cruel Sethropod only requires 3 mana to be deployed but gives us a decent melee damage with high HP and high armor for low mana monster. I wanted to utilized this stats that is why I placed a lot of supports behind this monster to regenerate its health and armor continuously.
Furious Chicken - this is a zero mana monster that I used as a decoy for both Snipe and Opportunity attacks. If Torrent Fiend is also available, then I will place Fiend at the back as a possible decoy for Sneak attack as well. I correctly predicted that my opponent will use a Snipe monster so placing this Furious Chicken in the second position is really worth it.
Merdaali Guardian - This is a support monster with both Tank Heal and Repair abilities to regenerate the health and armor of our Tank monster. A really perfect combo monster for Cruel Sethropod.
Albatross - Another support monster with Flying and Tank Heal abilities. It is only a one mana monster so this is really healpful for low mana battles.
Igor Darkspear - I wanted to place another attacking monster just in case our Cruel Sethropod gets taken down. Igor Darkspear has a 2 ranged damage with Stun ability. This is the best 2 mana monster so far for Water deck as this has the ability to stun target monsters making them unable to attack during their turn.
Scavo Hireling - This monster has the Repair ability same with Merdaali Guardian. Aside from repairing the armor, it also has the Camouflage ability making it to be unable to be targeted by opponent monsters ensuring longer survivability.

Summary:

I wanted to looked for a match with the Little League ruleset since this is the most compatible battle condition for a Cruel Sethropod. But I think the Lost Legendary with the low mana cap will also be a good example to show that even without the Little League ruleset, we can still use Cruel Sethropod and secure a high probability of winning the match. Aside from Lost Legendary, Rise of the Commons will be more effective since not only Legendary monsters are prohibited but also Epic monsters making less option to choose from.

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