Is the Cruel Sethropod the The Best Low-Mana Tank on Spliinterlands?
This post is an entry to the SHARE YOUR BATTLE Weekly Challenge - CRUEL SETHROPOD!
LORE
Sailors tell many tales of the dangers of the Cruel Sethropods. Armed with strong pincers and teeth as sharp as spears, they attack anything that gets within range. It is nearly impossible to remove a Cruel Sethropod once it has latched on, and many a sailor has the scars to show where they ventured too close...
CARD DETAILS (Level 1)
Mana Cost: 3
Splinter: WATER
Edition: CHAOS LEGION
Rarity: COMMON
Stats: 1 Melee Attack, 4 Health, 3 Armor, 1 Speed
Ability: None ☹️
Cruel Sethropod is one of the few Monsters that does not have ANY kind of ability, even at Level 10. This can make this card fly under the radar to the inexperienced player that's looking for flashy abilities.
But he makes up for that lack of abilities with his huge raw stats. Think about it: with a Mana Cost of only 3, he brings a total of 9 "Points" to the game: 1+1+3+4 (Health+Speed+Armor+Health).
Similarly to the Scavo Firebolt, featured in my last week's Share Your Battle post, the Cruel Sethropod is also a very effective card, and will be your to-go tank on Low Mana Matches, in which the players are restrained by the small Mana Limit. This card makes up for a reasonably effective Tank and his low Mana Cost will allow you to play several other cards.
What's even more interesting is that the Cruel Sethropod, as a very defensive card, combos well with Kelya Frendul, the current most popular Water Splinter that gives +1 Armor and +1 Speed to all your team. The extra Speed literally doubles his Speed from 1 to 2, putting his Speed on par with the majority of the cards of the game. And the extra Armor means that he'll be able to stay alive even longer, protecting your team from the damage and allowing them to kill the enemy tank first.
Obviously, the Sethropod has his own limitations: he's doesn't have Health and Armor as high as as other more Mana-Hungry Tanks (like the Mycelic Infantry), and doesn't have any useful tanking abilities like Void (like Torhilo the Frozen) or Shield (like Living Lava). This Monster is a (very) Low Mana Monster, and his value is on Low Mana Matches: the more Mana you have available, the less value the Sethropod has.
If you end up in a High Mana Match, you'll usually have better, stronger tanks to play. But, as you can see on the match that's being analyzed, even on a Match with 30 Mana, the Sethropod was still a strong card to be played: by saving a lot of Mana on my main tank, I was able to play several incredibly-strong (but Mana-costly) Monsters in my backline, including Djinn Oshannus that worked as a secondary tank that worked perfectly fine to absorb the damage from the Blast ability given by the Explosive Set Ruleset.
Let's analyze my team!
My Summoner is Bortus. I very rarely use Bortus on my matches, but this game was an exception due the Reverse Speed Ruleset: Kelya Frendul gives +1 Speed to all my Monsters and, on this Ruleset, I would be shooting myself in the foot and debuffing my team. So I went the other route and played Bortus, with his -1 Magic Damage to all enemy Monsters. Unfortunately, my opponent didn't played a single Magic Monster and Bortus ability was 100% useless... we can't always be right, right? 😝
The frontline tank is the Cruel Sethropod. When I play with the Water Splinter, I have available several strong, Legendary Monsters that I always want to use, but they're very costly in terms of Mana. So I decided to play the Cruel Sethropod in order to save Mana to be able to play those other cards. It was a strategy that paid out well!
My 2nd Monster is the Djinn Oshannus. This card is one of the strongest, in my opinion, on the Water Splinter, as he has a huge Health AND the Void ability, making him incredibly strong against Magic Monsters. Together with the -1 Magic Damage of Bortus, I was protected against Magic Damage!
My 3rd Monster is River Hellondale. I just love this card due the Ressurect ability: your first dead Monster is ressurected with 1 Health. It combos great with the Venari Wavesmith, as the ressurected Monster receives AGAIN the +2 Armor. Two-for-One Deal? Count me in!
My 4th Monster is the Venari Wavesmith. While Bortus and Djinn Oshannus were my counters against Magic Damage, the Wavesmith's ability Protect was my counter against Melee and Ranged Damage. The +2 Armor for every Monster is a headache for Summoners like Tarsa!
My 5th Monster is the River Nymph. I had 4 Mana left and wanted to play another Magic Monster in order to focus my damage on the enemy tank, and the Nymph was the best Monster available in that Mana range. If I had 2 or 3 extra Mana, I would prefer playing the Sea Genie or the Captain's Ghost, but hey! We have to use what we have!
My 6th and last Monster is the Furious Chicken. The Chicken is a staple on Splinterlands, and I played this card in the last place of my team in order to protect my backline from Sneak attack. In this match, it was a successful strategy, as my enemy played the very-much powerful Tenyii Striker.
Good News, Everyone! The battle was a Success!
The match was a landslide!
A good part of my strategy was based around countering Magic Damage, and my enemy didn't played a single Magic Monster. Even then, I was able to easily win the game!
I already talked about this before here on Hive, but my opponent made a very common mistake: his damage was split across the board. By not focusing the damage, he was able to damage lots of different Monsters, but wasn't able to actually KILL anything until very late in the game.
He had FOUR different fronts: 1) His tank attacked my own tank; 2) Serpentine Spy attacked the Monster with lowest Health; 3) Tenyii Striker always attacked the last Monster, and 4) Lava Spider attacked my 2nd Monster.
His split damage wasn't able to kill anything but my two weakest cards: Furious Chicken and Cruel Sethropod. Even then: due River Hellondale ability, the Sethropod was able to came back to the match.
In the other hand, I focused all my damage on his Tank, and was able to easily pick my opponent's Monsters one by one.
GGWP
Thanks for reading this Battle Report, and until next time!
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Thanks for reading this post, and until next time!
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