Dark is the future. It is only through death and decay that we may find eternal life. - The Lord of Darkness

Hello there Summoners from Splinterlands,

Welcome to another blog entry of mine for the Share Your Battle Weekly Challenge sponsored by @Splinterlands, the official Hive account of the game in the Hive Blockchain. This contest is a good strategy to popularize the game by having players talk about it. It is a kind of organic marketing where growth comes from word of mouth rather than a hype-driven growth which may not be sustainable in the long run.

The monster unit that I will be sharing with you today is one of my favorite tanks at the Bronze Level. The quote from the Lord of Darkness pretty much summarized what this monster is all about. It really represents death and eternal life. I use this often especially, when there is very few mana available. Let us start, shall we?

The Lore

This is what the Splinterlands Lore says about the Haunted Spirit:

Many Dark Eternals by their third or fourth form take on a more ethereal and energetic existence. Their souls are beginning to merge with the Dark Reality. These Haunted Spirits are able to attack the living with blunt force and heal themselves with ease.

The Haunted Spirit looks like a blob from a classic horror story movie like this one. A blog is a being without a form and it consumes anything or anyone it has contact with and adds that being to the ever-growing body of the blob. This ability makes the blob is very difficult to kill because as long as it is able to consume something, its life and health continue to be replenished.

Stats of the Haunted Spirit

At Level 1, it costs 5 mana but the Haunted Spirit gives the user a great tank at 7 HP, 2 melee damage, 2 speed and, the healing ability of 2 HP per turn.

Its full potential is unleashed when it reaches Level 8 when it gains a massive 10 HP, an additional speed, and twice the damage. The 3 abilities really make this a fearsome undead anti-magic creature: Healing, Magic Reflect, and Void (reduced damage from magic).

Description of the Card

The Haunted Spirit is a starter card, one that is available for free. However, as a free card, it is not counted as part of your card power.

This card is part of the Death Summoner Deck. The Death monster cards specialize in weakening the enemies' health and physical melee as well as range damage.

The Strategy that best fits the Haunted Spirit

I will only speak about my strategy at Bronze Leagues 1-3 because that is only my current level. The Haunted Spirit is best to use when the Mana is below 20, this is based on my own experience by the way. I do not have the statistics for it but I think I have a high win rate when I use Haunted Spirit at low mana fights.

The best summoner to pair with this monster card is Zintar Mortalis. This undead summoner reduces the melee damage of the enemy. This is particularly devastating against fire-based melee units. The ability of this summoner synergizes with the healing ability of the Haunted Spirit.

At low mana fights, there are very few options on what card to use. I combine the Haunted Spirit with Skeleton Assassin on the second line and on the third line, a Twisted Jester. Let me explain my choice of combination. With its sneak ability, the Skeleton Assassin can kill low HP units at the back rank. This is also the reason the Twisted Jester is good with the Haunted Spirit. It also attacks units that are not in the first position.

The Combat

In this battle, each player can only use 15 Mana. This is the best battle scenario for Haunted Spirit. My line-up is Zintar Mortalis as my summoner, Haunted Spirit as my tank, Skeleton Assassin as the Second Liner, and Twisted Jester as my Third Liner.

On the other hand, my opponent has the following line-up: Stonesplitter Orc, Goblin Sorcerer, Child of the Forest. His use of the Earth Summoner, Lyanna Natura, who gives extra hit points to each of the earth monsters is designed to maximize the damage that his tank can inflict. The longer the Stonesplitter Orc stays on the battlefield, the more opportunity the Orc can attack twice with its special ability of retaliate.

My opponent's strategy has some similarities with mine especially the positioning of his other cards. He wants to eliminate my units fast with the sneak and snipe abilities of the Goblin Sorcerer and Child of the Forest, respectively, while his tank absorbs damage but dishes out high physical damage output due to the retaliate ability of the Stonesplitter Orc.

Blow-by-blow account

In the first round, my opponent attacked first because of his higher speed. Our monsters exchanged blows but no card was destroyed. The only thing that was amiss on this round was his Stonesplitter Orc was not able to activate his retaliate ability while my Haunted Spirit healed the damage inflicted by the Orc.

It was on the second round that things began to be interesting. My Twisted Jester was able to destroy the Goblin Sorcerer and again the retaliate of the Stonesplitter Orc failed which neutralized all that physical damage it was inflicting to my Haunted Spirit.

In the third round, the Child of the Forest killed my Twisted Jester but the Skeleton Assassin took revenge and killed the Child of the Forest. With two units on the battlefield against one, my victory was almost assured. In this round, the retaliate ability of the Orc came through but it was too late. The Orc was already low in HP while my remaining monsters still have their hit points full.

For a full view of the battle, here is the link.

Insights about the battle

This was a good battle. Both players were just using starter cards. But my choice of unit is far superior that the line-up of the other player. His choice of tank was poor because the retaliate ability is not 100 percent guaranteed unlike the HP regeneration of the Haunted Spirit which is always activated.

If you want to try the game, this is my referral link.

References

https://www.splinterlore.com/encyclopedia

https://donnagore.com/2016/05/27/the-evolution-of-the-classic-movie-the-blob-to-todays-true-crime/

Disclaimer

This article was first posted in Read.cash/@cryptoph.