Welcome back to another juicy and fresh Splinterlands post, and I hope all of you are doing pretty well in your lives and enjoying a blessed and peaceful day with your loved ones. Now, if you are actively playing this cool strategy game and tirelessly growing your splinterlands asset collection, I know you are currently invested deeply into the ongoing ranked season grind and trying to improve your trophy count before the season meets its reset point. If we take a quick look at the current season timer, there are still around 5 days and 7 hours left before the ranked season ends. So there is still enough time to climb higher in the trophy ladder, secure better league tier reward chests, and if you are feeling confident enough, maybe even make one more push toward the leaderboard. I hope you reach your goal sooner this time. Just keep in mind to manage your battle energies wisely and keep pushing and shoving until you reach your destination.
Now, talking about my own progress in Frontier mode of the game, I am currently playing in the highest Gold I league as usual, with a trophy count of around 3,740. My target for this season is to reach the 4,200 trophy points first and then try pushing further for the leaderboard if I have enough time and energy left. There is still some time left, so let’s see how far I can go this time.
On the other hand, if we take a look at the weekly Frontier raffle, I have currently collected a total of 36 entries. With around 2 days and 6 hours left before the raffle draw, I will try my level best to increase this number to somewhere between 54 and 57 entries. Apart from that, I also opened 4 Foundation packs today that I earned from the last two days of daily missions. Inside those packs, I pulled 1 epic, 5 rare cards including 1 Archon, and the rest were common cards. Not a bad haul at all.
Now moving forward, let us come to the main topic of this post, as today I will be taking a closer look at another interesting monster from the newest Escalation edition. As you have already seen in the title and thumbnail above, today I will be talking about the Drifting Manatee. So if you are interested in learning more about this monster card, let us dive deeper without any further delay.
The Drifting Manatee is a monster type card that was introduced in the game with the newest Escalation mini cardset edition. This monster belongs to the Water element and comes from the Mundane Beast bloodline. By rarity, this card is a Rare monster, so you will require a total of 115 CC cards in order to upgrade it to its maximum level. Now, if you want to use this monster in battles, you only need to spend 3 mana, which makes it a very flexible option for low to medium mana limit matches. Interestingly, this tank monster has no direct attack of its own, but it makes up for that with a strong defensive body and several useful abilities. At its maximum level, this monster gains a total of four abilities, turning it into a strategic support tank. Let us now take a closer look at its league-wise stats and abilities below to find out more.
At level 2, this monster starts with solid defensive stats that consist of 1 speed with 3 armor and 6 health. Even without attack power, it already gains an ability called Dodge. This makes it harder for enemy melee and ranged units to land their hits.
DODGE – +25% chance to evade physical attacks.
When you upgrade this monster further to level 4, its stats improve and it now holds 1 speed with 4 armor and 6 health. At this level, it also gains another useful ability called Cleanse Rearguard. This gives your backline units extra protection against harmful effects.
CLEANSE REARGUARD – Cleanses the last allied backline unit with a magic debuff.
As this monster gets upgraded further and reaches level 6, its stats improve again and it now carries 1 speed with 4 armor and 7 health. At this level, it also unlocks another strong support ability called Amplify. This can be extremely valuable when paired with return-damage strategies.
AMPLIFY – Increases damage of Retaliate, Corrosive Ward, Return Fire, Thorns, and Magic Reflect for all friendly units by 1. Does not stack.
Finally, when you upgrade this monster to its maximum level of 8, its stats improve further and it now holds 1 speed with 5 armor and 7 health. At this level, it also gains a surprising ability called Stun. Since this monster has no natural attack, this ability becomes useful when supported by Weapons Training from an ally.
STUN – 50% chance to apply stunned for 1 round after a successful attack. Stunned units skip their turn and cannot retaliate.
Last but not least, I think this monster is an excellent low-cost tank and support card. First of all, for only 3 mana, you get a monster with strong armor and high health that can absorb multiple heavy attacks before going down. Another big advantage is the Dodge ability, which makes it a frustrating target for enemy physical attackers. More misses from the enemy mean more time for your own team to work. The Amplify ability can also shine if you build around return-damage effects like Thorns, Magic Reflect, or Return Fire. On top of that, Cleanse Rearguard helps protect your backline monsters from magic debuffs, while the Stun ability can become dangerous if you place a Weapons Training monster next to it and give it some borrowed firepower. Overall, I think the Drifting Manatee is a clever and highly useful utility card that offers far more than its 3 mana cost suggests. What do you think?
