In this week's Splinterlands Share Your Battle Challenge, we have been tasked to fight a match using Octopider. Octopider is a very strong Death Spliner monster that has a powerful ranged attack and high health, but costs quite a bit of Mana to play. Will Octopider's strong attack justify the high Mana cost and help us with the match? Find out below!!
The Lineup
Splinterlands matches are played with varying Mana caps and different rulesets. This means that a monster that performs well in one ruleset may perform poorly in another and vice versa. As soon as I saw that this was a relatively low Mana match, I knew that playing Octopider in this match would only leave me with 7 Mana for the rest of my team. That's quite a limitation, but I still wanted to field the best possible team.
In first position, I decided to play Haunted Spirit. Because Haunted Spirit has the "Heal" ability, it can restore a portion of it's health each round. I was hoping that this ability would allow Haunted Spirit to stay in first position for as long as possible and absorb damage while Octopider dealt damage from the rear of the formation.
After playing Haunted Spirit and Octopider, I only had two mana left, so my choices were a bit limited. I knew that my primary objective was keeping Octopider from reaching the front lines, so I decided to play Cocatrice. I was hoping that its "Flying" ability would allow it to dodge some enemy attacks and stay in the fight longer.
In third spot, we have one of the most useful cards in the game, Furious Chicken. Although Furious Chicken has no attack, it also costs zero mana to play which makes it a great buffer monster from keeping ranged monsters from reaching the front position where they are unable to attack.
In last spot, we have the star of the battle, Octopider. As it is a ranged monster, placing Octopider in last position was the logical choice as it allows him to attack from the rear of the formation as long as possible. Once he moves into first position, he can no longer attack, so my whole strategy for the match was focused on keeping him out of first position for as long as possible.
The Match
Even before I saw the opponent's team, I knew this would be a rough match for me. In such a low Mana match, it is generally a good strategy NOT to spend so much Mana on a single monster, but I wanted to play this challenge with the hand I was dealt. Haunted Spirit was quickly overwhelmed by the combination of Living Lava and Zalran Efreet. Although Haunted Spirit tried to use its "Heal" ability, it simply couldn't repair damage as fast as it was taking it, and got knocked out of the fight. With Haunted Spirit out of the match, the rest of my team quickly fell and I had to concede the victory to my opponent.
Evaluation of Octopider
Although I lost this match, I don't think that should reflect negatively on Octopider in any way. Octopider is a high Mana monster, and playing him in such a low Mana cap match is a poor strategy that means he doesn't have a strong supporting team. In my opinion, Octopider would be much better suited to a higher Mana Cap Match with a stronger supporting team. Ideally, I would put Octopider as the last postiion monster in a 99 Mana match so that his high health would help him resist attacks in case the enemy played a "Sneak" or "Snipe" capable monster.
Even a match with a Mana cap around 30 would be good for Octopider as I could play a really strong first position monster like Goblin Mech or Undead Rexx and then support them with a more complete lineup including a variety of Melee and Magic monsters. IMO Octopider is a great card, but playing it in such a low Mana cap match is simply asking it to perform outside of its optimal environment.
Summary
Although my opponent won this match, I still enjoyed taking part in the challenge and adding a new card to my inventory. It's always fun to try out new monsters and new strategies as part of the challenges. If you haven't played Splinterlands, its free to get started, and if you like the game you can "level up" your account and gain the ability to earn crypto from battles, daily quests, and tournaments as well as earning playable NFT cards as periodic rewards.
All images belong to Splinterlands