Welcome to my 36th #BrawlReport as part of the 
I am again battling in Fray #1 for this brawl.
Congrats to 
We earned 12 crowns and 646 merits for finishing in 5th place in this brawl. Unfortunately, this stopped our 1st place streak. What was interesting about this brawl is how closely packed the top 5 teams were in terms of wins. Lately, the 1st place finishers have blown out everyone else and hold a large lead. That wasn't the case this time, with all five of us within just a few wins of each other. Things were certainly hard fought with a close finish this time.
As I said, the challengers in this brawl were tougher than normal. I faced 7 opponents and most of them had some very impressive cards, either owned or rented. One of my three wins is the result of an opponent not putting up any cards. This was a demoralizing brawl with only actually winning 2 of the battles.
Featured Battles
Battle #4 - Loss
I felt pretty good when I was selecting my lineup for this brawl, but when I saw the high magic attack of each card used by my opponent, I got worried. Unfortunately, their magic blitz attack was enough to overcome the two bloodlust monsters and blast ability of my Yodin summoner.
The River Hellondale is a card I have not seen in battle before, but it is a real pain in the ass as an opponent since it can bring a killed monster back to life. This may have changed the direction of the battle if that didn't happen.
Battle #5 - Win
This is one of the two wins I achieved in this brawl. This one had some significant restrictions including no melee attack and the Earthquake debuff. Both of us used a summoner to give all our monsters the flight ability so the Earthquake was neutralized. That means it turned into a straight range or magic battle.
I focused my strategy on a double-regenerating Kron by putting a Goblin Pyschic behind him. The risk here is if my opponent had a sneak attack monster, it could take out the Goblin... however, a sneak attack buff is rare with range and magic so I am betting that he is safe back there. This is also the first time I've used the Jini Guise gladiator card to provide some shields, but mostly for bloodlust.
This battle went all the way to the end with the double-regeneration strategy being the key to victory. The Kron served as a great tank as it kept healing each turn.
This was a really tough brawl for me and I know a couple of other PIZZA brawlers had a similar experience. I'd like to think we just drew an incredibly tough set of opponents, but there's also been a trend of seeing opponents in the lowest frays having much stronger decks. Combined with non-existent rewards for anything below Diamond level, it's making it tough to compete at all without sinking more money into rentals and card purchases than what can be earned back.
I have about $9 worth of credits left for my brawl rentals, so I'll just have to see how long that will last!
@hive.pizza #BrawlReport?kennysgaminglife spearheaded the #BrawlReport project as a way to get PIZZA guild members more engaged in the @Splinterlands community. Here's what he had to say:
*Starting with the brawl that just ended, I've invited/asked members of the #HivePizza guild to publish a #BrawlReport, breaking down their highs & lows, where they need help, questions they have, strategies they love, and so on. The idea is to help us all reflect a bit, learn a bit, share a bit, earn a bit, and connect a bit :-)
Check out the latest update on the Hive Pizza token project. We also have an announcement in there about the newest PIZZA guild! We are up to four Splinterlands guilds now and are consistently well-ranking.
Check out the other recent #BrawlReport posts from the #HIVEPIZZA family:
