No Flying? No Problem!

^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

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^{The tips and possible advises in this article are designed for Bronze League, in which I am in right now.}

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^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

The team is made for fast fights with Giant Alpine Skink and Coralforged doing their best to hold the frontline. They are built to take hits for the team so the rest of the lineup can attack without worry. When they hold the line, your magic damage monsters get the time they need to win quick.

The lineup uses mostly magic damage so you can push for an early win before Earthquake damage stacks up. Each monster has a clear role, either tanking in front or dealing consistent magic damage from the back. When all parts work together, even a modifier that deals damage every round like the Earthquake modifier becomes easy to handle because the fight ends before all those damage gets to your team.

^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

Giant Alpine Skink has really good stats for a tank. He is faster than normal with the 5 Speed but that also combos with one of his abilities. The nice 9 health and 5 melee damage for an 8 mana monster is a good combination as well. The 8 mana cost is a decent number for a tank that can deal huge damage and overall, if you get Giant Alpine Skink to max level, you can certainly get good results with him.

Giant Alpine Skink's best ability is still the Shield ability because it's reliable when your opponents have a lot of melee and range monsters. Unlike Phase or Stun, the Shield ability does not rely on chances. There's no chance that Shield will not apply if the opponent's melee or range monster attacks Giant Alpine Skink making it one of the best defensive abilities in the game.

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💊 Abilities 💊

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Shield: [Defense] Monsters with Shield ability reduces the incoming melee and range damage by half. If the damage is 1, before the effect applies, the damage is negated and becomes 0.

Phase: [Defense] Monsters with Phase ability are allowed to evade opponent's magic damage. The hit and miss chance is calculated normally as if the monster was attacked by melee or range.

Stun: [Negative Status] Monsters attacked by this monster has a chance to get Stunned status. Stunned Monsters have their next turn skipped. All abilities that activate at the start of that monster's turn are also disabled for that round.

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^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

Rank	Modifier	Description
	Earthquake	All non-Flying monsters on the board takes 2 melee damage at the start of every round: Earthquake deals damage each round, but Shield helps lower that damage for Giant Alpine Skink. This gives him a big edge because others lose health faster. While having no Flying in this battle is not ideal, you can still make due with just Shield ability.
	Heavy Hitters	All monsters do double damage to opponent's monster that has Stunned status: Heavy Hitters gives double damage on stunned units and Giant Alpine Skink can do the stunning. When Giant Alpine Skink lands a stun, all of your monsters can now deal twice the damage to that monster and makes the opponent melts faster than normal. This modifier makes his Stun much more important than normal.
	Equalizer	The Max Health of all monsters on the board will be equal to the Max Health of the monster with the highest max health: Equalizer gives all monsters the highest health on the board which helps Giant Alpine Skink a lot. Since he deals big damage, he can make the most out of the extra health. This makes him even better at becoming a tank.

^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

Rank	Abilities	Description
		Flank: [Attack Modifier] Melee monsters next to this card gains Reach ability. This monster must be on 1st position to activate this effect. Tips: Flank ability gives Giant Alpine Skink extra help in the front without losing his damage spot. This allows another tank to stand first while he still get some hits while acting as a second tank. It keeps him dealing those huge damage while staying safer.
		Tank Heal: [Support] At the start of this monster's turn, restore the friendly monster's health, that is on 1st position, by 1/3 of its max health. Tips: Tank Heal lets Giant Alpine Skink stay up longer while he blocks and hits. Healing keeps his Shield more valuable which means less damage over time to your team. With healing, he becomes very hard to take down immediately which means your team being harder to die.
		Life Leech: [Stat Modifier] When this monster damages an opponent's health, increase their max health by half the damage. Tips: Life Leech works well with Giant Alpine Skink because he hits hard and often. The more he hits, the more health he grows. His speed also helps so his big hits do not miss while avoiding the opponent's melee and range attacks and also magic attacks when Giant Alpine Skink also have Phase.

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^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

In this match, the goal was to let Shield and armor carry most of the damage from Earthquake. Giant Alpine Skink could survive longer because it takes less damage from melee and range damage and from the Earthquake damage as well. While they stay alive, I'll have the other monsters from the back deal damage from different directions. Spreading the damage using Sneak and Snipe will be useful as Earthquake deals damage to all monsters at once and not one monster per round.

Lineup

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^{Marlai Singariel}

Marlai increases magic damage to help strike directly through health. Magic damage makes battles smoother because it cannot miss. She is there mainly to keep everyone's damage up while Coralforged and Giant Alpine Skink tanks the opponent's attacks.

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^Coralforged

Coralforged has 2 melee and 7 health which helps him tank fights. Flank lets another melee monster attack from behind him without being stuck at the back. He gives extra tankiness to your tanks that do need some extra support to be tanks.

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^{Giant Alpine Skink}

Giant Alpine Skink has 4 melee damage, 6 health, and 3 speed with strong Shield at low level. Shield lets him take much less damage from melee and ranged attacks making him last longer. This also helps him stay alive during Earthquake modifier since the Earthquake damage is reduced by half due to Shield ability.

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^{Abyssal Elemental}

Abyssal Elemental provides 2 magic damage and 5 health and 2 armor to act as an emergency tank. Resurgence can give Abyssal Elemental team more staying power by bringing himself back if he falls. Remember to use a level 2 Abyssal Elemental on your battles as the level 2 gives you 2 magic damage whie a level 1 only gives 1 magic damage.

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^{Mystic Scaleweaver}

Mystic Scaleweaver costs 9 mana but brings in 2 magic damage and 7 health. The health and damage is good enough for the high mana cost and makes her a good monster complementing Marlai Singariel.

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^{Saltwater Mage}

Saltwater Mage costs 8 mana but also brings 2 magic damage with Sneak. She targets the backline to break healers or weaker supports. This makes your whole attack have more pressure across the enemy team.

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^{Torrent Sniper}

Torrent Sniper has 7 mana cost, 2 armor, 8 health and 2 magic damage with Snipe. Snipe can bypass tanks but unlike Sneak, the target is most likely in the middle of the pack. With Torrent Sniper on the group, my team is attacking from three different angles, front, mid and back.

^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

At first I thought I would lose this battle because the opponents have high health units and also a flying unit to counter Earthquake damage. Then, after a few attacks and a few earthquake damage, my team starts to win. Giant Alpine Skink and Coralforged died after round 2 but good thing is that my team have good enough health to still survive after my first two tanks fall. I think one of the biggest mistake of my opponent is not relying more on that Inspire and not using more melee units because my armor will surely be removed by a round of Earthquake then he's free to attack my units with their higher melee damage.

^{> > Click here to view the full battle < <}

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The Giant Alpine Skink is already good at low levels but he becomes even better when he has higher health and better abilities. With more health, his Shield makes him last much longer than other tanks. This lets him stay in the fight more while your team deals damage safely behind him.

Earthquake can be a real problem in many battles especially when fights last too long. However, if your team can hit fast and hard to finish the opponents early, you do not need to worry much about it. The key is to have a team that can quickly eliminate the team while Giant Alpine Skink protects them and end the fight before Earthquake damage takes too much from you.

• This post is an entry for Splinterlands Social Media Contest.
• Animated Banners and Dividers are edited in Canva Pro.
• Other sources that I do not own are cited under their respective photos.
• Some of the fonts used are from instafonts.io

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