This week's Splinterlands Share Your Battle Challenge is focusing on the Spineback Turtle. The Spineback Turtle is a card that I do like to play especially after leveling it up to level 4 which gives it the Thorns ability.
Theme of the Week: Spineback Turtle
The rules and my setup
Armored Up | Equalizer
15 Mana Cap
Summoner: Alric Stormbringer - To increase the magic damage by 1
Position 1: Spineback Turtle - Low mana and thorns damage
Position 2: Coral Wraith - 3 magic damage and sneak ability
Position 3: Medusa - Stun ability and decent magic damage
Did my strategy work?
Yes, it worked quite well. My strategy was to use the Spineback Turtle out in front to absorb melee attacks and retaliate using thorns. With both of my opponent's cards being melee attack ones, it ended up doing 5 damage per round. You can see a replay of the battle here
Round 1: Thorns takes out my opponent's shield. Medusa stuns the Sacred Unicorn
Round 2: Opponent's Flying Manticore is taken out thanks to thorns and his Sacred Unicorn only has one health
Round 3: Sacred Unicorn is killed pretty quickly thanks to thorns and then a three damage hit by the Coral Wraith
Would I do anything differently?
I got lucky with the battle working out rather well because my opponent went with 2 melee attack cards. The Spineback Turtle's thorns was very effective in this case. Also, being a low mana battle, to get 7 health and 5 shield with only 4 mana makes the Spineback Turtle a very good choice.
My thoughts on the Spineback Turtle
Overall, the Spineback Turtle is one of my favorite cards to use once it has the Thorns ability. Before that, it is pretty limited with only 1 attack and being pretty slow. But once you have thorns, it can be quite a powerful tank to absorb melee damage while your magic monsters do their damage from the back.