This is my entry to the Splinterlands Share Your Battle featuring the DRAGONS. If you want to join in this challenge, you can check this link. Alright, let's start first with the monster's lore, then deep dive into its compatible summoners, monster's stats & abilities, and the highlighted battle. I chose DESERT DRAGON to featured in this post.
DESERT DRAGON
When the Venari dug their tunnels and burrows, creating the Realm of Silence, little did they know of the ancient creatures they disturbed hidden beneath the ground. Forgotten, from almost a millennia ago, these dragons were awakened and gripped by an everlasting hunger. Unfortunately for the Venari, they were the first poor souls to run into these feral beasts and were sent fleeing through their tunnels in horror at what they’d uncovered.”
The Desert Dragon is most commonly found east of the Jade Thickett, on the sandy plains of the Ixzoc. Its long neck is banded red and black, with savage horns that sprout from its head and vicious fangs more wicked than scimitars that line its jaws. Quite often assumed as a lumbering, flightless giant with wings that are tattered and torn, many make the mistake that it cannot move quickly and will sometimes stray too close. But any that have seen it hunt the plain grazers will know, not only can the beast move with considerable speed, the terrifying charge will often leave its target rooted to the spot with terror, unable to flee its impending doom. The Desert Dragon is so big that on rare occasions its attack has been mistaken for seismic activity and minor earthquakes.
DESERT DRAGON is one of the newest additions in the Dragon Splinter from the Chaos Legion release. It is one of the Dragon monsters that does not have the Flying Ability. DESERT DRAGON is not wingless but as you can see in the image, its wings are damage making it unable to fly. But beware, it may not have the ability to fly, but it can definitely pulverized you in an instant. In a match were STAMPEDE is one of the rules, DESERT DRAGON can definitely delivered a sweeping to enemy line-up.
STATS and ABILITIES
At its initial level, it has a 4 melee attack, 3 armor, and 6 HP with the Trample ability. This is already a good combination of stats for a 7 mana cap card.
At level 2, it gains a Piercing ability. This is one of the best combination with Trample ability since with the Piercing, the damage on top of the armor will be directed to target's HP which gives DESERT DRAGON to deliver a kill. And once the targeted monster died from its attack, DESERT DRAGON will have another chance to attack because of the Trample ability.
At level 3, it gains another ability that can counter melee attacking monsters with its Retaliate ability.
And at its max level 4, it gains Giant Killer which can is good against monsters with 10 or more mana cap requirement.
Abilities:
| Trample When a Monster with Trample hits and kills its target, it will perform another attack on the next Monster on the enemy Team. | |
|---|---|
| Piercing If Melee or Ranged attack damage is in excess of the target's Armor, the remainder will damage the target's Health. | |
| Retaliate When hit with a Melee attack, Monsters with Retaliate have a chance (50%) of attacking their attacker | |
| Giant Killer Does double damage against targets that cost 10 or more mana. This is one of the newest ability that was also introduced with the release of Chaos Legion card edition. So far there are only 7 monsters with this ability. |
SUMMONER COMPATIBILITY
- DARIA DRAGONSCALE increases the melee damage of all friendly monsters. Since DESERT DRAGON is a melee attacking monsters, the additional damage will greatly increases its damage. Take note that most of his abilities relies on melee damage like for Giant Killer, it doubles the damage when attacking monsters with 10 or more mana requirement. DESERT DRAGON is an offensive type of monster, and that added melee damage can one hit enemies, or much worse sweep enemies in a single turn.
- ARCHMAGE ARIUS increases the melee, ranged and magic damage by 1. Its effect for DESERT DRAGON is just similar with what DARIA DRAGONSCALE can provide. ARCHMAGE ARIUS is better for monsters with dual-attack type (melee and ranged, melee and magic, or magic and ranged) to utilize its buff effect.
- BRIGHTON BLOOM on the other hand provides FLYING ability to all friendly monsters. As we know, DESERT DRAGON does not have the Flying ability. Once you are in a match with Earthquake rule, it is best to use monsters with Flying ability or just use BRIGHTON BLOOM to provide all friendly monsters with Flying ability.
- BYZANTINE KITTY provides all friendly monsters with +2 Speed and Truestrike ability. It also heals the monster on the first position every round. DESERT DRAGON lacks the sustain part, having KITTY as the Summoner will help DESERT DRAGON to survive longer by healing it. Truestrike also allows DESERT DRAGON to secure a hit on the target monster. A high damage attack will be useless if it doesn't connect.
There are other Summoners from Dragon Splinter that are more on the defensive side.
FEATURED BATTLE
| Battle Condition | |
|---|---|
| Rule #1 | Healed Out - All healing abilities are removed from monsters and summoners. |
| Rule #2 | Up Close and Personal - Only monsters with melee attack may be used in battles. |
| Mana Cap | 26 |
| Allowed Splinter | Fire, Water, Life, Death and Dragon |
MY LINE-UP
| CARDS | Description |
|---|---|
| DARIA DRAGONSCALE provides plus 1 Melee damage all your monsters. The +1 melee damage will be crucial since all monsters has melee attacking capability. Although in this matched, our opponent's summoner negated the buff provided by DARIA DRAGONSCALE. | |
| DESERT DRAGON, our featured monster in this week's challenge, has a high melee damage, a decent armor, and high HP which is great to place in the first position. It also has Trample ability which can provide an additional attack when killing the target monster. With its Piercing ability, it can also deal direct damage on top of enemy's armor | |
| DEEPLURKER has a high melee damage with Opportunity ability. It can attack at any position and will always target enemy monster with the lowest health. | |
| URAES has a Sneak ability so it can also attack at any position. It has a mediocre stat for a 3 mana monsters. The 1 armor protects it from any potential physical damage. | |
| BATTERING RAM a 2 mana monster with Opportunity ability. It's one of the most use monsters at low mana cap battle if you need Opportunity ability. | |
| CREEPING OOZE is a Neutral monster with SLOW ability. SLOW ability reduces the enemy monsters Speed. This minimal reduction in Speed can be critical since it can dictate the attack order per round. | |
| PELACOR BANDIT is a melee monster with Sneak and Flying ability. I placed this in the last position since it has higher chance to evade attacks due to its Flying ability. |
ROUND 1
At the end of round 1, we were able to eliminate two monsters from enemy side. Enemy's Undead Badger did not have the chance to attack. Enemy's Silent Sha-vi missed the attack to our Pelacor Bandit because of the flying ability. Our strategy works here.
ROUND 2
At the end of round 2, we eliminated Silent Sha-vi and dealt a lot of damage to Cursed Windeku. Although the Thorns ability from Cursed Windeku hurts our monsters, it is still a good trade.
ROUND 3
In round 3, we were able to take down enemy's Cursed Windeku in exhange of some of casualty on our side monster. Thorns is really effective in a melee battle. But with Harklaw the only monster on enemy side, even with its Shield ability we can still deal a lot of damage due to our high damage.
ROUND 4
This was the end of the matched. Harklaw cannot defend our attacks from both DESERT DRAGON and DEEPLURKER.
Check this link to watch the full battle replay:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_0a8a9fcbd3f59879f10faca9212a97cb&ref=jpleron
SUMMARY
Did your strategy work?
- My strategy is to go with full attack mode using monsters with high damage and melee monsters which can attack in any position. Even with the debuff from enemy summoners and the Shield ability from Harklaw, they cannot handle our offense. The SLOW debuff from Creeping Ooze also helps us to equalize the SLOW debuff from enemy summoner as well.
What will you try differently next time?
- Given the same battle ruleset, I may opted to use Djinn Chwala as my Tank to gain access to Thorns ability as well.
VERDICT | Is DESERT DRAGON a good card?
- Definitely, Desert Dragon is one of the must have cards in the Dragon Splinter. It has high damage and most of its ability is also offensive.
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