Hey everyone and welcome back to another Share Your Battle Challenge! For this week's challenge, we have been tasked to fight a match with Sandworm. Sandworm is a neutral monster that can fight alongside any Splinter. It has a strong attack and the "Sneak" ability, but it also has a VERY high mana cost and relatively slow speed. Will Sandworm be able to lead us to victory in this match? Find out below!
The Lineup
This match was played with 22 Mana, and under normal circumstances, I wouldn't play Sandworm in this situation as he would take almost half of my Mana. However, this was a challenge, and so I still did my best to field the best possible team even with not a lot of Mana remaining.
In first position, I put Living Lava. I chose Living Lava for a few reasons. First, he has a strong attack, good health, and armor. On top of that, he has the "Shield" ability which reduces the damage that he takes from melee attacks. My intention was that putting a strong, tough monster in the first position would allow him to soak up damage while Sandworm could be launching sneak attacks from the rear of the formation.
In second position, I put Sandworm. I generally like to play a "Reach" capable monster like Fineas Rage or Magma Troll in second position, but I simply didn't have the Mana in this match, so I ended up putting Sandworm in second spot.
In third position, I placed Serpentine Spy. Serpentine Spy has a good attack that is combined with good speed, but it does have quite low health. I hoped that placing him in the last position would allow him to use his "Opportunity" ability to attack from the rear of the formation where he would be safe from the opponent.
The Match
Unfortunately, as soon as the match started, I knew we would be in for a rough fight. My opponent was able to get in FOUR first round strikes with Serpentine Spy, Spark Pixies, Fire Elemental, and Even Living Lava attacking my team before I was even able to strike a single blow. By time the opponent had launched their first round attack, I was already down to only two monsters while my opponent had five monsters remaining. If that wasn't bad enough, Sandworm's "Sneak" ability meant that it wasted its attack by targeting the last monster on the opponent's team (Furious Chicken). Even before the first round was over, I was sure that defeat would be inevitable.
Analysis of Sandworm
Since I lost this match, that must mean that Sandworm is a terrible monster, right? Absolutely NOT! I do think that Sandworm can be a great monster but only if it is used in the right situations. I knew even before this match that it was an unwise tactical decision to use him in such a low Mana cap match. This match only had 22 Mana which meant that after choosing my summoner, I spent almost half my Mana just to play Sandworm. This meant that I didn't have much Mana left to choose a strong team to support him.
In my opinion, Sandworm is best suited to very high Mana cap matches where his cost is less of an issue. In a 99 Mana match, it's impossible (with the current cardset) to use all the Mana, so my strategy is usually to play the strongest, highest Mana cap monsters that I can find. In that situation, Sandworm usually does really well if he is kept at the back of my formation and can deal damage without having to move into first position and fight directly.
Conclusion
Although I had to concede the victory to my opponent in this match, I did learn a bit more about Sandworm as a card. I had always thought that playing him in a low Mana cap match wasn't a good use of his strengths, but at least now I was able to try it out and prove it to myself. Despite our defeat, it is always fun to take part in the Splinterlands challenges and try out new tactics and strategies. Sometimes the work, and sometimes, they don't but that's jut part of the fun!
As always, thanks for reading. If you're interested in getting started with Splinterlands, feel free to join up, or check out my battle replay here.