Welcome back to another cool and fresh Splinterlands post, guys, and I hope all of you are doing pretty great in your lives and enjoying another wonderful day with your family and friends while eagerly waiting for the weekend. Now, if you are one of those who are actively playing this amazing web3 strategy game without being affected by the brutal market every day and constantly expanding their collection of NFT cards, tokens, and other in-game assets, I hope you are also actively playing the ranked season, which is going on exactly right now. If you are playing in the current ranked season, which has only around 2 days and 30 minutes remaining before it comes to an end. I think that this is the perfect time to make one final push toward your desired goal, whether it requires a high trophy target or a seat in the top champion leaderboard. All the best, and I hope all of you reach your goals before the season resets.
Now, talking about my own progress in the Frontier mode of this game, I am currently competing in the highest Gold I league and sitting at 3,840 trophies. As always, my first objective remains reaching around 4,200 trophy mark first, and after that, if I still have enough battle energy and time remaining, I will once again try my luck at securing a leaderboard position before the season ends.
Moving on and talking about today's Frontier Daily Wheel rewards, I wasn't particularly lucky this time as well, but every little reward helps. I received 75 Sparks along with another 15 bonus Sparks, bringing my total Sparks balance up to 17,576. I am now patiently waiting to cross the 20K Sparks milestone, which hopefully won't take much longer.
Looking now at my weekly raffle progress, I currently have 45 entries collected. There are still around 1 day and 23 hours remaining before the raffle ends, so my target is to finish somewhere between 54 and 57 entries at least, if everything goes according to plan. Apart from that, today I also opened 6 Foundation Packs that I earned from the last two days' daily missions. The results were fairly satisfying as I managed to pull 1 Legendary, 4 Rare cards including 1 Archon, 1 Gold Foil Common, while the remaining cards were regular Common cards.
Now moving on to today's featured monster, I would like to introduce another interesting card from the newest Escalation mini card set. As you have already seen in the title and thumbnail above, today we will be taking a closer look at the Ironcoil Bulwark.
The Ironcoil Bulwark is a monster type card that was first seen in Splonterlands with the launch of the latest escalation mini card edition. This monster card belongs to the Dragon element and comes from the Saurian bloodline. It is classified as a Rare monster card, meaning players need a total of 115 CC cards to fully upgrade it to its maximum level. This monster costs 9 mana to deploy and uses Melee attacks to deal damage. However, what really makes this monster stand out is its incredible defensive profile. Right from its initial level, it possesses a massive amount of Armor and Health while maintaining an impressive Speed stat. As it levels up, it unlocks abilities that make it even more dangerous during long battles. Let us now take a closer look at its stats and abilities across different leagues.
At Level 2, the Ironcoil Bulwark possesses 3 Melee attack, 5 Speed, 5 Armor, and 8 Health. At this level, it already gains its first ability called Enrage.
ENRAGE – Gains +50% Melee attack and +50% Speed (rounded up) whenever it is no longer at full health.
At Level 4, the monster maintains its 3 Melee attack and 5 Speed, while improving its defensive stats to 8 Armor and 9 Health. Although it gains no new ability at this stage, the huge increase in Armor makes it significantly harder to bring down.
At Level 6, Ironcoil Bulwark becomes even more threatening with 4 Melee attack, 5 Speed, 8 Armor, and 9 Health. At this level, it unlocks another excellent ability called Retaliate.
RETALIATE – Has a 50% chance to counterattack after receiving a successful melee attack, even if this unit is defeated.
At Level 8, the Ironcoil Bulwark reaches its maximum form with 5 Melee attack, 5 Speed, 8 Armor, and 11 Health. At this level, it gains its final ability called Trample.
TRAMPLE – After defeating an enemy with a melee attack, this monster immediately performs another melee attack against the next enemy in line.
Last but not least, I think the Ironcoil Bulwark is one of the toughest defensive monsters introduced in the Escalation mini set. The first thing that immediately caught my attention is its incredible combination of Armor and Health. Even before considering its abilities, this monster already feels extremely difficult to take down, especially against melee and ranged lineups. On top of that, it comes with a powerful melee attack and a high Speed stat, allowing it to attack before many opposing monsters. Another aspect that I really like is the combination of Enrage and Trample. Once this monster takes some damage, Enrage boosts both its Speed and Melee attack, making it significantly more dangerous. Now imagine combining that extra attack power with Trample. Every defeated enemy can immediately lead to another attack, creating devastating chain attacks during battle. The Retaliate ability is another excellent addition. Since this monster is designed to absorb melee attacks, having a 50% chance to strike back at attackers makes every melee hit against it a risky decision. Sometimes your opponent may end up receiving more damage than they originally intended. Finally, the Trample ability deserves special mention. Every time Ironcoil Bulwark defeats an enemy monster with its melee attack, it instantly launches another attack against the next monster in line. When you combine Trample with Enrage and Retaliate, this monster becomes an absolute nightmare to deal with. Free counterattacks, bonus attacks after every kill, and increased damage from Enrage all work together beautifully, making Ironcoil Bulwark one of the most exciting melee tanks from the Escalation mini set.
