Welcome back to another awesome Splinterlands post, and I hope you all are doing well in your lives and enjoying a warm and stunning day with your family and friends. For those of you who are actively and continuously playing this amazing web3 game in the Hive ecosystem and tirelessly working on building your Splinterlands card and asset collection, I believe all of you have already jumped into the grind again, well, because a brand new ranked season has just started. If we take a quick look at the current season timer, there are still a long 14 days and 1 hour of time left before this season meets its end. So this is the perfect time to set a goal and begin climbing steadily, improve your playing and grow that trophy count, secure better league tiers, and even aim for the top champion league leaderboard rewards if you are feeling competitive enough. Just remember to manage your battle energy meter wisely throughout the season so you do not miss them when needed the most and can maximise your gains.
Now, talking about my own progress in the frontier mode in this game, I am currently playing in the highest Gold I league tier with a trophy count of around 2,860. My first target for this season is to reach the 4,200 trophy mark, and after that, I will try to push even further toward the leaderboard. Since the season has only just begun, there is still plenty of time left for me to strategise and play steadily and let's see how it goes this time.
On the other hand, if we take a look at the exciting weekly Frontier raffle, I have currently collected a total of 21 entries. With around 4 days and 6 hours left before the raffle draw, I will try to increase this number to somewhere between 54 and 57 entries. Last time I didnt win anything, so let’s see if my luck changes this time. Apart from that, I also opened 3 Foundation packs today that I earned by completing all 3 missions in Frontier mode. Inside those packs, I pulled 6 rare cards, including 2 Archon cards, while the rest were common cards. Sadly, there was no gold foil today. Maybe they are becoming rarer, or maybe luck simply took the day off.
Now moving forward, let us come to the main topic of this post, as today I will be taking a closer look at one of the most interesting monsters from the newly released Escalation mini-set. As you have already seen in the title and thumbnail above, today I will be talking about the Thambo Diamalo. So if you are interested in learning more about this monster card, let us dive deeper without any further delay.
The Thambo Diamalo is a monster-type card that was introduced in the game with the newest Escalation edition mini cardset. This monster belongs to the Fire element and it comes from the Ulund bloodline. By rarity, this card is a Legendary monster, so you will only require a total of 11 CC cards in order to upgrade it to its maximum level. Now, the most surprising thing about this monster is that it costs absolutely 0 mana to use in battles, which instantly makes it a very valuable card both for gameplay and for collectors, and not to mention, you can use this card in literally any mana limit matches, and the ones with the little leagues ruleset. The attack type of this monster is Melee, and despite costing no mana at all, it still grows into a very strong unit at higher levels. At its maximum level, this monster gains a total of two abilities, which makes it even more interesting. Let us now take a closer look at its league-wise stats and abilities below to know more about this card.
At level 1, this monster starts with 1 melee attack power at 1 speed and 1 health. Even at its base level, it already gains an ability called Charge. This is a fantastic starting ability because it means the monster can attack from anywhere in your lineup.
CHARGE – Can use melee attacks from any position.
When you upgrade this monster further to level 2, its stats improve slightly and it now holds 1 melee attack power at 1 speed with 2 health. Even though it does not unlock any new ability at this level, the extra survivability is always useful.
As this monster gets upgraded further and reaches level 3, its stats improve again and it now carries 1 melee attack power at 4 speed with 3 health. The huge jump in speed makes it much more effective and harder to hit in battles.
Finally, when you upgrade this monster to its maximum level of 4, it becomes shockingly strong for a 0 mana card. It now holds 2 melee attack power at 5 speed with 4 health. At this level, it also gains another unique ability called Bloodline Pact.
BLOODLINE PACT – Allied units that share this unit's bloodline gain +1 power when any of them defeats an enemy and take 1 true damage when any of them is defeated. If this unit is defeated, allied units that share its bloodline take 2 damage and lose all power gained from this ability. This ability creates a high-risk, high-reward strategy for bloodline-based lineups.
Last but not least, I think this monster is one of the most interesting low-cost cards in the game. First of all, there are only a few monsters in Splinterlands that cost 0 mana, and that alone makes it important both as a battlefield option and as a collector’s item. Another huge advantage is how strong its stats become at max level. Getting 2 attack power at 5 speed with 4 health from a 0 mana monster feels almost overpowered. On top of that, the Charge ability allows it to keep attacking from any position as long as you protect it. The Bloodline Pact ability is also a brand new and impressive mechanic. However, to use it properly, you need to keep this monster alive and build your lineup around multiple monsters from the same bloodline that can score kills while avoiding defeat in early rounds. Overall, I think the Thambo Diamalo is a very unique and valuable card with huge strategic potential. What do you think?
