Welcome back to another fresh and awesome Splinterlands post everyone, and I hope all of you are doing pretty great in your lives and enjoying an energetic and vibrant day with your family and friends. Now, I also hope all of you are staying immune to the market chart update and focusing on your ranked battles while playing in this ongoing ranked season arena in this game. I hope everything is going well and that you are steadily climbing the trophy ladder and reaching closer to your goal while collecting plenty of rewards along the way. I we take a quick peak at the ongoing season's clock, the current ranked season still has around 11 days and 23 hours remaining, so there is still plenty of time for all of us to continue grinding trophies, completing our daily missions, and strengthening our collections before the season finally comes to an end.
Talking about my own progress in the Frontier mode in this game, I am currently competing in the highest Gold I league and sitting at 3,400 trophies. As always, my first objective is to reach the 4,200 trophy mark. After that, if I still have enough battle energy and sufficient time remaining, I will once again try my luck at securing a leaderboard position before the season ends. Looking at the weekly raffle progress, I currently have 33 raffle entries collected so far. There are still around 2 days and 22 hours remaining before the raffle ends, so my target remains the same as always, somewhere between 54 and 57 entries.
Today's Frontier Daily Wheel turned out to be another rewarding one. This time I landed on a Pit Challenge together with 200 + 40 bonus Sparks, as i am still protecting my 20% streak bonus. Anyways, after entering the challenge, I decided to fight the medium boss, "The Big Leronski," and fortunately managed to defeat it without much trouble. Completing the challenge rewarded me with another 500 Sparks, bringing my total Sparks balance to 199,936. I am now only a few steps away from crossing the massive 200K Sparks milestone.
Apart from that, today I also opened 5 Foundation Packs that I earned from the last two days' daily rewards. This time the results were pretty decent. I managed to pull 1 Epic card, 8 Rare cards including 3 Archons, 2 Gold Foil Common cards, while the remaining cards were all regular Common cards. Overall, I am quite happy with today's pack opening.
Now moving on to today's featured monster, I would like to introduce another interesting card from the newest Escalation card set. As you have already seen in the title and thumbnail above, today we will be taking a closer look at the Steelshield Arbalest.
The Steelshield Arbalest is a monster type card that was launched with the introduction of the latest Escalation mini card set edition. It is a Neutral element monster that belongs to the Human bloodline. It is classified as a Common card, meaning players need a total of 400 CC cards to fully upgrade it to its maximum level. This monster costs 9 mana to deploy and uses Ranged attacks to deal damage, so it is ideal to use this monster in medium to high mana limit matches. While its attack power is respectable, the real attraction of this monster is its incredible defensive profile. It possesses an enormous amount of Armor combined with solid Health and several defensive abilities that make it extremely difficult to eliminate. At maximum level, it unlocks a total of four abilities, many of which work together to counter specific enemy strategies. Let us now take a closer look at its stats and abilities across different leagues.
At Level 3, the Steelshield Arbalest possesses 2 Ranged attack, 5 Speed, 5 Armor, and 6 Health. Right from this level, it gains its first ability called Decoy.
DECOY – Draws enemy attacks with Snipe, Apex Strike, and Opportunity, unless an allied Taunt unit is present. Does not affect enemy units in the first position.
At Level 5, the monster improves to 2 Ranged attack, 5 Speed, 5 Armor, and 7 Health. At this level, it unlocks another useful support ability called Reveal.
REVEAL – Each round, applies Reveal to one enemy unit with Camouflage. Revealed units can then be targeted by direct attacks.
At Level 8, the Steelshield Arbalest becomes stronger with 3 Ranged attack, 5 Speed, 6 Armor, and 7 Health. At this stage, it unlocks another excellent defensive ability.
PHASE – Magic attacks against this monster have the same chance to miss as physical attacks.
At Level 10, the Steelshield Arbalest reaches its maximum form with 3 Ranged attack, 5 Speed, 9 Armor, and 8 Health. At maximum level, it gains its final defensive ability.
VOID ARMOR – Enemy Magic attacks strike Armor before damaging Health.
Last but not least, I think the Steelshield Arbalest is one of the strongest defensive ranged monsters introduced in the Escalation set. The very first thing that catches my attention is its incredible durability. With an enormous amount of Armor combined with respectable Health and naturally high Speed, this monster can survive for a surprisingly long time while continuously dealing ranged damage from the backline. Another ability that I really like is Decoy. Instead of allowing enemy Snipe, Opportunity, or Apex Strike monsters to freely attack your fragile support units, Steelshield Arbalest redirects those attacks toward itself. Since this monster is already built like a defensive fortress, it performs this role extremely well and helps protect the rest of your lineup. The defensive combination of Phase and Void Armor is probably my favourite part of this monster. Thanks to Phase, enemy Magic attacks can actually miss this monster, something that normally doesn't happen against Magic damage. Even when those attacks do connect, Void Armor forces the damage to hit its massive Armor first before reaching its Health. Together, these two abilities make Steelshield Arbalest surprisingly effective against Magic-heavy teams despite being primarily designed as a defensive ranged unit. Finally, the Reveal ability makes this monster an excellent counter against Camouflage strategies. Every round it exposes hidden enemy monsters, allowing your team to target units that would otherwise remain completely safe throughout the battle. Overall, I believe Steelshield Arbalest offers an excellent balance of offence, survivability, and utility. If you are looking for a durable ranged monster capable of protecting your team while disrupting several enemy strategies at once, this card is definitely worth considering.
