Hello everyone! Pozdrav svima!
This week we had another amazing Brawl with of our Tier 4 clan Peakmonsters Pirates, where we placed in 2nd place, and it was super close three-way battle at the top.
Our clan had 98 wins and 45 losses which resulted in 294 points. We were only 1 win away from the 1st place and just 1 win above 3rd place. That's what I call a close battle!
For this awesome result the guild has won spoils of 161 Crowns and each fully participating member was rewarded with 9,200 Merits and 154.257 staked SPS. 😍
Brawl SPS pool for this month is 2,260,955 SPS and it will decrease by 1% after 14/11/2023 to 2,215,962 SPS, as we are currently in 11th distribution month. We can see in the image below how much SPS is distributed per brawl cycle in each Tier.
Total amount of Staked SPS Rewards that has been earned in all Brawls thus far is 15,996,073 SPS.
We started with SPS rewards 11 months ago with 2,500,000 SPS in the pool, which decreased by 1% each month and will continue to do so for 65 months. What will happen after that, we don't know for sure, but probably the SPS DAO will pick up on reward distribution.
This brawl I played in Frey 5 which is limited to Gold level cards with all cards available to play (Wild format). Wild is not my stronger side, but we need to rotate the freys so everyone get to play their desired freys from time to time. This was not my best Brawl and I can't shake the feeling I could've secured my Guild the first place in this Brawl if I only won some of the close-call battles I had. 😩
I finished with the score of 4 wins and 4 losses.
This placed me in all the way down at the 14th position among my clanmates. While my performance was mediocre some of my teammates performed flawlessly - 
Out of those 4 losses I should've won at least one - my first match was a case of RNG totally working against me. Other 3 matches weren't that close, but more of me totally missing the line-up.
My plan for this post is to go through my battles and try to explain my thought process of picking each team, what I got right or where I went wrong.
In the first battle we had high mana pool (50 mana), Aim True (all attacks hit their target), Close Range (Ranged monsters can attack from 1st position) and Reverse Speed (Monsters with the lowest Speed attack first) rulesets, with Water, Life, Death and Dragon splinters available.
| Result | Lineups | Battle |
|---|---|---|
| ❌LOSS❌ | ⚔️Link⚔️ |
My opponent chose Water splinter with Possibilus the Wise summoner and I chose Dragon and Life splinter with Lily Shieldpaw summoner.
This was a battle I should have won. If I went with Grandmaster Rathe summoner, his Amplify would make a HUGE difference and my opponent's monsters would die from the reflected damage alone. This was it came down to very last attack, and it wasn't on my side.
In the second battle we had low mana pool (23 mana), Little League (Only Monsters and Summoners that cost 4 Mana or less available), Noxius Fumes (all Monsters start the battle poisoned) and Briar Patch (all Monsters have Thorns) rulesets, with Water, Life and Death splinters available.
| Result | Lineups | Battle |
|---|---|---|
| ❌LOSS❌ | ⚔️Link⚔️ |
My opponent went with Life splinter and Ilthain summoner but I totally missed the line-up with Water splinter and Alric Stormbringer summoner.
My opponent had a counter for all attack types with Pelacor Conjurer in first position reflecting Magic attacks with his Magic Reflect, Ranged attacks with Return Fire from his summoner and Thorns from ruleset. On top of that had Dax Paragon amplifying all that reflected damage.
I'm kicking myself how I didn't think of that, as that is a line-up I use very often. I don't know what I was thinking...
In the third battle we had very low mana pool (13 mana), Are You Not Entertained (one additional Gladiator card can be used), Unprotected (no armor) and Taking Sides (Neutral monsters not available) rulesets, with Earth, Life, Death and Dragon splinters available.
| Result | Lineups | Battle |
|---|---|---|
| ✅WIN✅ | ⚔️Link⚔️ |
My opponent chose Dragon and Death splinter with Quix the Devious summoner and I chose Earth splinter with Myclor Crowling summoner.
My choice of Earth summoner was irrelevant, this was all about Quora Towershead. I could've maybe gone better if I chose Obsidian summoner, but it doesn't matter.
Since I had advantage of Home Arena, and we had Quora banished from Visitor's roster my opponent stood no chance.
In the fourth battle we had very high mana pool (59 mana), Silenced Summoners (summoners have no abilities), Earthquake (non-flying Monsters receive 2 damage each round) and Back To Basics (Monsters have no abilities) rulesets, with Fire and Death splinters available.
| Result | Lineups | Battle |
|---|---|---|
| ✅WIN✅ | ⚔️Link⚔️ |
Many people dread of Silenced Summoners and Back To Basics rulesets, especially when combined together, but I enjoy it, because then it's about optimizing your speed, health and damage. You don't have to worry about any abilities and that makes it much simpler, at least for me.
We both chose Death splinter but my opponent went with Thaddius Brood summoner (costs 4 mana) and I went with Jarlax the Undead summoner (only 2 mana). This already put me at advantage in two ways. I had 2 more mana to choose my monsters from and since Jarlax is an epic summoner, my Rare monsters can be level 7 (as you can see my Queen of Crows is).
In this battle that second advantage didn't mean much since monsters had no abilities, but 2 extra mana helped a lot.
I chose the monsters with more health in total and that decided the battle, since damage output of both teams was similar.
In the fifth battle we had low mana pool (26 mana), Are You Not Entertained (one additional Gladiator card can be used), Silenced Summoners (summoners have no abilities) and Up To Eleven (all monsters have Amplify ability) rulesets, with Water, Earth, Life and Dragon splinters available.
| Result | Lineups | Battle |
|---|---|---|
| ❌LOSS❌ | ⚔️Link⚔️ |
We both went with Dragon splinter but my opponent chose Water with it and I chose Earth and Kretch Tallevor summoner (costs 1 less mana then Quix of my opponent, and it's an Epic summoner which means I can use level 7 rare cards).
Since it was again Home arena for me, I was hoping that I could take advantage of Quora power, but my opponent outsmarted me going heavy Sneak attack, and I made a mistake of putting Thorns monsters in the front instead in the back.
In sixth battle we had mid mana pool (39 mana), Rise Of The Commons (only Common and Rare Monsters available), Armored Up (all Monsters get additional 2 armor at the start) and What Doesn't Kill You (all Monsters have the Enrage ability) rulesets, with Water and Dragon splinters available.
| Result | Lineups | Battle |
|---|---|---|
| ❌LOSS❌ | ⚔️Link⚔️ |
I played this battle against 
We both chose the same splinter and summoner - Water splinter and Valnamor summoner because we went high Magic attack, trying to avoid all the armor.
Difference is that my opponent had a Monster in the front with Void ability (Xenith Monk), while I had the one with Magic Reflect (Frozen Soldier). If I used the Monk too, I would've win easily because I used Silence Monster (Elven Mystic) that reduced Magic attack of opponent's team by 1.
This way I was smoothly overran because I couldn't get through the first two monsters.
In seventh battle we had mid mana pool (40 mana), Melee Mayhem (Melee Monsters can attack from any position), Reverse Speed (Monsters with the lowest Speed attack first) and Ferocity (all monsters have Fury ability) rulesets, with Earth, Death and Dragon splinters available.
| Result | Lineups | Battle |
|---|---|---|
| ✅WIN✅ | ⚔️Link⚔️ |
My opponent chose Earth splinter with Lobb Lowland summoner to be able to use Gladiator cards, but we had Quora banished so I don't know what he wanted to accomplish with that. I chose Dragon and Death splinters with Camila Sungazer summoner, to reduce melee attack by 1.
It was an easy victory because I have reduces his melee attack by 2 with summoner and Harklaw (with Demoralize ability) in the back, who also successfully protected the backline with his Shield. Other were here to deal damage and they did very well.
In seventh battle we had highest mana pool (99 mana), Equalizer (health of all Monsters is equal to that of the Monster on either team with the highest base Health), Broken Arrows (no Ranged attack Monsters available) and Stampede (Tample ability can trigger multiple times per attack if the trampled Monster is killed) rulesets with Fire, Water, Earth, Death and Dragon splinters available.
| Result | Lineups | Battle |
|---|---|---|
| ✅WIN✅ | ⚔️Link⚔️ |
My opponent went with Death splinter and Zintar Mortalis summoner and I went with Dragon and Water splinters and Delwyn Dragonscale summoner.
My opponent expected that I would go heavy melee but I used all my strongest Magic attack monsters (buffed by the summoner), three of them with Blast and annihilated his team.
Brawl rewards for this cycle were distributed as shown in the image below. Pretty decent rewards, as it would be expected for a Tier 4 Brawl.
Thank you all for reading this long post. I hope you enjoyed it. See you next time.
If you still haven't tried Splinterlands try it out 👉 HERE 👈
Thank you for your time, and please vote if you like this post. 👍
Special thanks to:
@carrieallen for ultimate markdown tutorial.
@freeztag for text dividers used in this post.
@splinterlands for images used in this post and for making this great game.
splintercards.com for ability and ruleset descriptions, as well as card price history.
