This week's Splinterlands Challenge of the Week was to showcase the neutral Gem Meteor...
This is an interesting card at L1 - offering high speed at a low level and also relatively high health, and with scattershot, which can shake up a battle, but with only 1 ranged damaged, tricky to play with the commonly present shields.
The battle below features a Level 1 Gem Meteor chipping in to a victory....
The Rule Set and Line Up
- Mana cap 30
- Standard Rules apply (Bronze League!)
Summoner - General Sloan - for the plus one ranged...
- Lord Aranthus - still a decent 5 Mana tank!
- Scavo Hireling - repairo
- TruthSpeaker - for protect!
- Venari Crystalsmith - heal and 2 damage
- Pelacor Arbalest - my main 6 damage card with double strike!
- Gem Meteor - 2 scattershot damage - at the back as high speed means he might evade a sneak attack!
Did my strategy work?
Beautifully, to see it in action click here!
- Rounds 1 and 2 - we trade blows for no losses.
- Round 2 - I take out my opponent's tank mainly thanks to the Pelacor Arbalest!
- Round 3 - I get a lucky break with Gem Meteor landing a second blow on Spark Pixies and taking them out. I then lose my Hireling but Pelacor takes out the Radiated Scorcher - 6 damage to 6 health! Gem Meteor goes down but he's chipped in!
- Round 4 - I take out the Radiated Brute (I may have got Brute/ Scorcher mixed up!)
- Round 5 - It's all over, I polish off my opponent with four cards standing!
How important was The Gem Meteor?
If he hadn't have been buffed with General Sloan's plus one ranged attack he would have been useless, and even with that I had to rely on a bit of luck agains an opponent's field which had health high enough that most cards would require 2 or more blows to take them out.
As it stands I got lucky in rounds 2 and 3 with two attacks landing on the same low health card in a row, that card being Spark Pixies which was a nasty little blast card, so that served me well.
But I had I not got lucky the Gem Meteor would have been mostly useless other than protecting my main damage card the Pelacaor Arbalest which was mainly responsible for my victory.
Also important was my defensive strategy - the shields and repair worked very well given my opponent's dual sneak/ opportunity attacks, effectively neutralising one of these, and the heal on Lord A was useful to keep him alive too!
Final Thoughts: Gem Meteor - worth buying?
At level one it's quite expensive for what you get in mana terms, given the low damage which can make it essentially useless unless buffed with maybe Yodin, but by MAX level this has become a proper damage card with 4 damage and piercing...
So I'd say it's worth buying if yer planning on going up the leagues and levelling up but maybe not so much at Level one!
If you don't yet play Splinterlands, why not give it a go?
Anyone using my referral link will receive a free rare card!