How does Crypt Beetle Performs in my battle?

Picture from Splinterlands

Crypt Beetle is a 3 mana Undeath common monster. It has 1 melee attack, 1 speed, 2 health and 2 shield at initial level.
When it's upgraded to level 5,10, it gains 1 more melee attack.
When it's upgraded to level 2, it gains 1 more speed to be 2.
When it's upgraded to level 4, 7, 8, it gains 1 more health to be 5.

Here's the one I have looks like. Level 1 Crypt Beetle

In fact, this monster is not in my strategy spot and always got overlooked for current game version.
The main reason is that both speed and health are too low and its 3 mana cost makes it too difficult to be fitted into most of the strategies or rulesets.

The only selling point is its shield ability which could give him -1 damage from melee and range attack.

1. Overall, this monster is used in the low mana cost battles or as a filler position in high mana cost battles
2. In current version, the main stream ways of lining up the team
   • Either maximize the QTY of magic monsters to tear down the frontline
   • Or maximize the QTY of sneak or opportunity skilled monsters to tear down from the opponent's backline or weakest link.

by knowing this trend in current game version, then we can see:

1. Use it as the frontline
   • It can do the work only if the opponents monsters are all low attack Melee which is least likely
   • Its health makes him too thin to stand even 1 round.
   • Its attack is too low to consume the opponents monsters.
2. Use it as the backline to protest critical monsters
   • with the 3 mana cost, I would rather pick the functional monsters rather than Crypt Beetle. eg. tank heal skilled, Armor repair, slow, thorns...etc

With above two reasons, I did not really put any effort on this card.

However, since this week's battle share is about Crypt Beetle. I was still trying my best to put it in the team with most suitable way (as what I understood.)

[Battle] (https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_c60dcc0b7e64ef7458b069cc78feb184&ref=splinterbin)

This is a 27 mana with Super Sneak and Earthquake rulesets.
In this battle , the overall strategy is to use dual tank frontline, and keeping the main killing monsters in the middle of the line. and backline uses Crypt Beetle and Corpse Fiend to slow down opponents progress on my backline with Crypt Beetle's Shield ability. and overall, more or less, I ignored he Earthquake rule here and expect Riftwing and Windeku to overcome this and stand to the End.

When I lined them up

• Picked PELACOR DECEIVER and RIFTWING to be the frontline tank. expecting to use their high speed and backfire to cause some damage to Opponent's frontline
• The 2 key killer monsters used are SILENT SHA-VI and CURSED WINDEKU . Here I specifically put the Windeku at the back of Sha-Vi just in case the opponents can cut in from backline and Windeku can stop further progress.
• The 2 backline positions, uses Crypt Beetle with its shield ability to be the last position and the Fiend to be the 2nd last one hope can earn some time for Windeku and Sha-Vi to cut into opponents line.

Ok. let's see how this battle was setup.

After the round 1 when reach the round 2, my Crypt Beetle and the fiend were killed. but on the other side, I only killed opponent's CARRION SHADE at the last position.

As the battle progressed to round 3, the opponent could not cut further into my team from the back besides killed my front tank. and on my side, I killed 3 of his monsters from the back to its middle of the team resulted only MAGI NECROSI and WINDEKU left on his hand.
in fact, this is a pretty good progress.

When it's progressed to round 3, it also the end of the battle. My sha-vi was dead because of hitting the his Windeku and killed by its Thorns ability.

However it's worth of lost of Sha-Vi, I won the the battle finally.

To wrap up this battle, in my opinion, I used Crypt Beetle in way that I thought it's the most suitable for such median range of mana cost.

As the conclusion:
Crypt Beetle is a monster which most likely suitable in the very low mana battles. its performance probably will thrive. However, such advantage will goes away and the main function of him is to slow down opponent's monster to tear down your line.
For my personal, probably I will keep him in the level 1 for a long period until seeing some other functions will be developed by the masters players here. I'm also looking for the way to improve the strategy on this little monster.

Thank you for your reading. and hope you enjoy this battle.