Hey everyone, it's that time of the week again to make my first post to take part in the Splinterlands challenges, every week when we participate we might get upvoted and earn some extra cash so we can put this in to our accounts, I'm getting close to the amount I need to buy Mantaroth - I feel I'm losing some battles simply because I don't have this beast, soon this will be history!

This weeks Social Media Challenge is the same as last weeks:

🔥 Share Your Most Remarkable Splinterlands Moments: Do you possess a battle of epic proportions that deserves to be seen by all? Have you crafted something extraordinary within the Splinterlands realm? Maybe you've got profound thoughts, insights, or strategies related to stats, cards, abilities, or gameplay that are waiting to be shared? We want it all, and we want it to be nothing short of AMAZING!

To find out how you can participate in this challenge yourself, check out the official Splinterlands post here.

Enough cool things to talk about

In the world of Praetoria there is so much going on and I'm really exited to be a part of this, we survived the coldest winter ever with a group of dedicated players who could see the potential this game could have, and now like Dave said 'hope turned in to confidence'.

• In the last month, on average 126 new players signed up to the game and 113 of them bought the spellbook, unlocking the full game and upgrade from the web2 to the web3, being able to earn SPS and sell earned assets.

• PlayToEarn ranks Splinterlands the best Collectible Card game, we all knew this of course but this is really cool, we are so back!

• Play 2 Earn, how Splinterlands was when I joined in 2021 is finally back! I pulled a Gold Foil rare card, in the new reward set Gold Foils are not soul bound and can be sold right away, I sold it for $3.49 and bought 420 SPS with it 😍

Fighting my guild mate

So, I'm playing Splinterlands with multiple accounts and I'm active in both of our Guilds, NFG Club - Legion I and Legion II, they're completely separate groups of friends I made along the way in my journey playing the game, together we fight, we win and we earn.

The main topic of this post is about a battle I had two days ago against my guild mate @estebam, he's a very busy man now he is a father but I'm glad he's still here and almost every day I meet him in my modern battles, the fight I'm sharing later in this post I won but it's fair to say he kicks my ass many times as well and sometimes I steal a thing or two from him to use in my battles. 😉

I just checked, he joined the guild in December 2022 - not every member is as talkative in the guild's Discord but Estebam is, crazy it's already closing up on three years of team building.

Sharing the battle

The fight I saved to share in this post is a interesting one with multiple options... we both went for a different strategy and it's funny when you know your opponent, you also know what cards they have. With so many Splinters open to be chosen from there were three options he could go for: Elias, Cryptic or Lorkus... Since I don't own Lorkus I didn't have that choice, but I know he despises another Archon I have, it's Sheng Xiao and it can really ruin perfectly good strategies with it's Poison Bursts. This time, because all monsters have the shield ability I choose Cryptic so I can remove the Shield ability with Expose, the massive damage from Slade / Elias is also very tempting because it does so much damage it just blast through the shields...

First look at the battlefield:

O damn, this is going to be interesting and I honestly can't say who wins just by looking at this, I have many small cards all doing good damage but Slade backup up by a unit with Repair is also really nice... let's see how this goes!

My Line-Up:

• Archon: Cryptic - reason: Access to Water and Death.
• First position: Halfling Refugee - reason: 1 mana filler with Heal.
• Second position: Taye Loreswift - reason: Inspire, so +1 melee damage to my entire team.
• Third position: Tidal Tsunamist - reason: Good damage sneaker with Repair.
• Fourth position: Venka the Vile - reason: High damage with Piercing and Charge.
• Fifth position: Filthy Scavenger - reason: Good damage with Opportunity.
• Sixth position: Grifzi - reason: 1 mana sneaker.

The Battle:

Tactics Stage

Obviously, Estebam gave the Armored Strike and Piercing to Commander Slade, I choose to give Poison and Expose to Tidal Tsunamist and Venka, one strikes the front and the other the back, dropping soison and removing shields.

Round 1: The Halfling Refugee is instantly killed by Slade, but my team made the first kill as well, when we now look at pure damage, it's 18 damage / round for Estebam's team and 17 damage / round for my team BUT I can remove shields and hopefully will drop some poison, also the Blind from Cryptic increases the chance in dodging attacks by 15%.

Round 2: Slade is poisoned and his Shield is removed, that's nice!

Round 3: Ooh shit this is WAY too close for comfort!! I don't mind losing but there's a little rivalry between us of course... 😂

OK... watch what happens now... it's defining for the battle!

Slade missed!!!

Round 4: Because Venka still has it's Shield, it isn't killed by Slade... just yet!

Round 5: O SHIT!!! Will the poison drop before Slade attacks, yes!? PLEASE!?

Round 6: It does!!! This was a crazy battle!! Well played @Estabam!! ✌️

You can watch the battle unfold for yourself here.

That's it for today everyone, real life calls! I have to drop my kid of to Judo class, and them submit my brawls when I return 😃

Thank you for reading!!!

If you haven't made an account already, please consider using my referral link to sign up, I'll happily send the amount I get for your signup back to you in DEC or SPS to help you start.

Also, when you require any help to get you started,let me know, I'm here to advice and guide new players and maybe I can help you with card delegations too!

Have a great day!