Welcome back to another juicy Splinterlands post, and I hope all of you are doing absolutely great in your lives and enjoying another energetic day with your family and friends. If you also play splinterlands like me, then I also hope your ranked battles have been going well in this current ranked and you are steadily climbing the trophy ladder while collecting a lot of valuable rewards along the way. Looking at the current ranked season's timer, there are only around 2 days and 20 hours remaining before the season comes to an end. So, there is still some time left to make a final push toward your desired milestone, although the clock is definitely starting to show red signs now. I wish all of you the very best for the remaining battles and hope you finish this season exactly where you want to be.
Now, talking about my own progress in the Frontier mode in this game, I am currently battling in the Gold I league with 3,600 trophies. I have not been able to play as much as I would have liked this season, so I am setting my maximum target at around 4,300 trophies this time. Looking at the weekly raffle progress, I currently have 21 raffle entries collected, with around 4 days and 19 hours remaining before the raffle ends. My target is once again somewhere between 51 and 54 entries, so I still have quite a bit of grinding to do before reaching that number.
In Today's Frontier Daily Wheel, it brought me the Carnival card skin again, but since I already had that skin in my collection, the game rewarded me with 100 Sparks + 20 Sparks from my daily streak bonus. Today also marks my 86th consecutive daily streak, but my Sparks balance has suddenly become very small because I finally spent a huge amount of my accumulated Sparks and purchased my very first Frontier Special card, Gorm the Vengeful, for 30,000 Sparks. I also bought 2 Frontier Battle Energy for another 1,000 Sparks today and am now left with only 286 Sparks in my wallet.
Apart from that, today I also opened 10 Foundation Packs that I earned from the last four days' rewards. This time I managed to pull 1 Legendary card and 12 Rare cards including 4 Archons, while the remaining cards were all regular Common cards. There were no Gold Foil cards mentioned in today's opening, but getting 12 Rare cards and 4 Archons from 10 packs is still a pretty respectable result. Overall, I am quite satisfied with today's pack opening, especially seeing the number of Rare cards that came out of those packs.
Now moving on to today's featured monster, let me introduce another interesting card from the newest Conclave Arcana Reward card set. As you have already seen in the title and thumbnail above, today we will be taking a closer look at the Sten Slatehelm. So if you are interested, let's dive in.
The Sten Slatehelm is a monster type ard that was first seen in the game with the launch of the newest Conclave Arcana Reward card set. This monster belongs to the Water element and comes from the Dwarf bloodline. It is a Legendary monster card, making it one of the rarer cards in this reward card set and you would need a total of 11 cc cards to upgrade it to max level. This monster costs only 2 mana to deploy, so you can easily fit this card even when playing the smallest mana ruleset ones. It uses Ranged attacks and at maximum level, it also unlocks four different abilities. Let us now take a closer look at its stats and abilities across different leagues to know more about this little defensive beast.
At Level 1, Sten Slatehelm possesses 1 Ranged attack, 3 Speed, 3 Armor, and 4 Health. Even at its initial level, it already gains its first ability called Close Range. This immediately gives the monster an interesting positional advantage.
CLOSE RANGE – Allows this monster to use Ranged attacks from the first position.
At Level 2, Sten Slatehelm improves to 2 Ranged attack while maintaining 3 Speed and 3 Armor, with its Health increasing to 5. At this level, it unlocks another ability called Reckless.
RECKLESS – Each successful attack also deals 1 True damage to the adjacent allied units.
At Level 3, Sten Slatehelm reaches 2 Ranged attack, 3 Speed, 4 Armor, and 5 Health. It does not gain a completely new ability at this level, but it becomes more durable thanks to the additional Armor.
Armored strike - if armored, gains a melee attack that deals damage equal to remaining armor.
At Level 4, Sten Slatehelm reaches its maximum form with 2 Ranged attack, 3 Speed, 5 Armor, and 6 Health. At maximum level, it unlocks its final ability called Resurgence.
RESURGENCE – Self-resurrects once per battle with 100% Health and Armor. All magic debuffs are removed and all magic buffs are reapplied. It skips its turn and deals 1 Physical damage to all units.
Last but not least, I think Sten Slatehelm is a surprisingly powerful monster when you consider its incredibly low 2-mana cost. The first thing that catches my attention is its defensive profile. Even though this is technically a Ranged attacker, it possesses 5 Armor and 6 Health at maximum level, which is an impressive amount of durability for something that costs only 2 mana. This makes it especially interesting in low-mana-limit battles where every single point of mana matters.
The Close Range ability is another major advantage. Normally, placing a Ranged monster in the first position would prevent it from attacking, but this monster completely avoids that problem. Thanks to Close Range, you can place this monster at the front and it can continue using its Ranged attack normally. However, Reckless is the ability that requires the most careful planning. Every successful attack from it also deals 1 True damage to adjacent allied monsters. However, if you place fragile monsters directly beside it, the self-inflicted damage can become a serious problem over several rounds. The Armored Strike ability is where this monster's defensive statistics become even more interesting. Once it has Armor, it can effectively turn that remaining Armor into additional melee damage. At maximum level, with up to 5 Armor, it can potentially produce up to 5 extra melee damage through this ability while still retaining its Ranged attack. Finally, we have Resurgence, which may be the biggest surprise of the entire card. Once this card is defeated, it can resurrect itself with 100% Health and Armor. Its magic debuffs are removed and its magic buffs are reapplied, allowing it to return to battle in a very strong condition. Overall, I believe Sten Slatehelm is one of those cards that can become much more useful than its tiny mana cost suggests. It combines solid defensive statistics, Ranged attacks, Close Range, Reckless, Armored Strike, and Resurgence into one very compact package. It may require some careful positioning because of the Reckless ability, but if you build your lineup around its strengths, this little monster can provide an impressive amount of value for just 2 mana. In low-mana battles especially, this little beast card could become a very interesting choice for players who want a durable attacker without spending much of their precious mana.
