}
To give you a broader idea, [Share Your Battle] is a Weekly Challenge held by the Splinterlands team, in which players are challenged to use a specific monster (Splinter) in their battles, understand the strategy behind their teams, and share tips, tricks, and their ideas in a post just like this one, that is what I hope to do in this post.
NOTE: Regardless of specific monsters stated in this weekly challenge, players are also free to choose a different monster to talk about. For instance, in this Week's Share your Battle (SYB) Challenge, the theme monster is the Ant Miners, it is allowed to choose a different monster-like, say, Living Lava if the Ant Miners isn't among your card collections. Being that this is my first ever [Share Your Battle Challenge] and how excited I am for it, I gave myself the honor to rather "Rent" an Ant Miner card from the Marketplace for this special week. Moving On....
Talking Points of Consideration -
- Special Monster of the Week - Ant Miners (Get to Know Them)
- Using Ant Miners in Battle (Don't Lose sight of your Mana!) Important
- AGAIN__ Using Ant Miners in Battle (Placement and Golden STRATEGY✨)
- Core Explanations of all Techniques Implored my Battle (Linked Below)
- Conclusion ( Any Feedback is Appreciated)
Special Monster of the Week - The Ant Miners
Ant Miners are a set of Monster Cards belonging to the Fire Element. Until yesterday, I haven't used the ant miner in any of my battles, I only just rented them for this special challenge. On renting, my first reaction was like - What the Heck Yo!. Can you guess why?
...
Well, it turns out that they've (Ant Miners) got just ONE health. For Better Comprehension, All Monsters and Summoners in Splinterlands has the following attributes which Players can use to gauge their supposed success in battle -
- Speed - How fast the monster is. The fastest monster in battle always attacks first with some exceptions
- Life - How many hits the monster can take before "death"
- Attack (All Monsters are Divided into 4 Attack types ) The Ranged Attackers, The Melee Attackers, The Magic Attackers, The Neutral Attackers. All these have a level of Attack Strength. A monster with 2 Melee would hit harder than a Monster with 1 Ranged.
- Mana Cost - The cost of mana it takes to assign a monster in matchmaking.
Back to my gist, it can be seen that I was shocked at the low health of Ant Miners. Now, the surprise - Ant Miners possess a special ability called "Scavenger" This allows them to gain + 1 health for every monster that dies in battle.
Hmm, I thought - More like standing on the shoulders of Giants, it's a go!
Coupled with its low mana cost (2) and additional melee attack (+1) when using summoner Malric Inferno, Ant miners were suddenly very fit to hold a space in my glorious team. They keep giving me Assassin vibes!
Using Ant Miners in Battle (Don't Lose sight of your Mana)
In a typical Splinterlands battle, there's always a defined amount of Mana count available to both parties (This count is randomized as you may know). As it is, the Mana count available to be in a given battle is extremely important in the Elemental team I choose. This is because, whether we like it or not, some Elemental teams can survive with a low mana count, while for others, it feels incomplete when a particular squad member is not included during matchmaking. Example - I find it pretty easy to win when using Death Element with a low mana count (13) aginst when using, say, Life Element. With this in mind, I think it is a good strategy to plan your team-mana tradeoff well during battles.
Along those lines, it is a good strategy to consider your mana count when deciding whether to use the Ant Miners in Battle.
NOTE: My point is NOT whether you should use the Fire Element (with Ant Miner included) in battle or not, my point is - Should you included Ant Miners in your Fire Team Matchmaking process?. Here Why....
A typical Fire Team that can be considered complete say on the basis of the following points;
- Speed (So you can attack first)
- First Monster that can take many hits (Health)
- A Monster that can Heal themselves or others
- Say, Monster that targets the last Enemy Monster
- With these points in mind, a good Fire team can be(In Order); Living Lava (Mana = 7), Cerberus (Mana = 4), Spark Pixies (Mana = 4), Fire Elemental (Mana = 5), Kobolt Miner (Mana = 2). Now, on average you wouldn't get enough mana in every battle to include them all; 7 + 4 + 4 + 5 + 2 = 22 Mana Points Total.
- For Example, if you get a total Mana Count of (14), Does this seem like a good time to include the Ant Miners? ---- I don't think so!. Why?, Because you probably would have just a total monster count of (3) including the monster, and the Ant Miners "thrive best when there are more teammates that can die for it to revamp its health." Considering that your plan fails and your tank monster upfront dies early, the Ant Miner now has 2 Health and stands no chance of being a tank.
- In my Battle shared below, I had a Mana count of 19 and the Ant Miner showed its hidden talent perfectly in this match. It ended up with total health of (6) after both teams have lost a few Monsters. ANT MINERS BATTLE
Ant Miners in Battle 2 (Placement and Golden Strategy)
The most important aspect of playing splinterlands is your strategy. Strategy defines who comes out victorious in Battle. Strategy Guarantees you DEC(The rewards you get for winning battles). I could go on about strategy, but, let's stop there for now.
How do you use Ant Miners in battle? Are there any Strategies? What are helpful points to know? I try answering these questions ⬇
- Your Strategy remains flexible, you need to understand splinterlands at their core to come up with good placements overall.
- But, it goes without saying that ANt Miners should be placed at the center(preferably) of your team.
- This ensures that; (a)It can accumulate enough health points before getting into tank position (first slot) as monsters meet their demise, (b) it still has some monsters behind it that can support the second wave of attack.
- In my Battle (hope you watch it, as I analyze it here), my fire team; Living Lava, Serpentine Spy, Cocatrice, Ant Miners, Kobold Miner, and Kobold Bruiser. If you can observe; "Serpentine Spy" dies early in match owing to its (1) health, from the adjacent blast of "Fire Elemental". If Ant Miners had been anywhere that spot, I probably would have lost the match. Ant Miner - "was really my savior".
- The best summoner to use with the Ant Miners is Malric Inferno, this helps to give it a +1 melee attack which comes in handy if it ever finds itself in tank position.
Conclusion
This brings us to the end of this post about "Ant Miners - The Scavenger" in Splinterlands Share. Your. Battle. Weekly Challenge. I think this event has helped change my perceptions about the monsters I use during battle(and what's available to me). It was my first time ever using Ant Miners, and my impression of them went from "disgust" to "admiration" in less than 2 Battles. Thanks to the splinterlands team