For Guild & Glory: Brawl Report #111 & #110

Overview

Welcome back Splinterlands battlemages to another edition of "For Guild & Glory," my brawl report article series covering Tiers 3 and 2. Due to the absolute epicness of #Splinterfest2022, I'mbacked up with another double feature with coverage of brawls #111 and 110. Check out my last report for #109 and #108 here.

Guilds continue to pile into Tier 3, so @shield-of-glory got to play in another pair of stacked brawls with my main account @ducecrypto defending Fray 16 - Modern Silver Gold Foil. Turning to my alt accounts that play in Tier 2, @treycrypto continued his defense of Fray 14 - Modern Bronze Gold Foil for @the420syndicate, and @shaelien typically defends Fray 15 - Wild Silver Gold Foil for @zensports. Let's get to the action!

DuceCrypto & Shield of Glory

Brawl #110

One detail I don't think I've discussed in this series is how my guild SHIELD OF GLORY handles its fray assignments each brawl cycle. With only 18 frays available in Tier 3 and 30 members in the guild, there is typically more demand to brawl than we have slots - so we employ a benching system. The players with the three worst records are benched, meaning they cannot sign up for a fray in the next brawl unless there are still unclaimed frays with less than 10 hours until the combat stage.

Conversely, the players with the five best records are allowed to remain in their same fray for the next brawl. The remaining 11 frays are fair game for anyone not on the bench to choose, but most players usually battle in the same couple frays, so there isn't a ton of shuffling around. My guildmate @star-shroud does a great job collected and sharing the data to inform our fray selections.

All this being said, my 2-5 record in Brawl #109 playing Fray 16 - Modern Silver Gold Foil landed me on the bench for Brawl #110. But my guildmates continued to secure our 3rd place spot in Tier 3 brawls, finishing only 1 win behind Knights United for 2nd and 10 wins behind The Guild of Neoxian for top spot. We are getting closer! Stalwarts @xsuilx and @steemitromney both battled to one-loss records, while @jayemm3, @misterrogers and @tarazkp each finished 5-2. The guild earned 85 crowns and each brawler received 4,722 merits.

Brawl #111

DuceCrypto was back in action defending Fray 16 - Modern Silver Gold Foil for Brawl #111, and SHIELD OF GLORY once again placed in 3rd, this time well behind Immortal Gods in 2nd and The Guild of Neoxian in 1st. Amazingly, we earned 85 crowns and 4,722 merits each - the same bounty as Brawl #110. No benching for me, as I placed on the leaderboard with a 6-2 record along with @xsuilx and @gregory-f. We were lead by a 6-1 performance from @tarazkp. Due to some reorganizing of our frays, I actually battled without any legendary summoner delegations and held my own without the likes of Kitty, Yodin, or Llama. Here are my battle links and opening lineups.

Battle #1 vs. @leqclibre

Battle #2 vs. @blastedzeus

Battle #3 vs. @happychillmore

Battle #4 vs. @godziel

Battle #5 vs. @zawarrior

Battle #6 vs. @gioviker

Battle #7 vs. @prince.kai

Battle #8 vs. @mattclarke

In Battle #1, I easily won the Kelya mirror, since I was able to play a Level 4 at Silver league while my opponent was stuck with their Level 2 at Brozne league. Continuing to be a thorn in my side, @blastedzeus beat me again, utilizing the advantageous Brighton Bloom with the earthquake ruleset, and I was just edged out by their sneak attack. Battle #3 saw my Quix Earth lineup overpower my opponent's Obsidian lineup with some high-mana heavy hitters like Chaos Dragon, Diamond Dragon, Dragon Jumper and The Vigilator. Battle #4 was all about the little mushroom that could - Mycelic Morphoid. As a rear tank in this low-mana reverse speed encounter, it managed to take out two huge threats, Gladiator Katrelba Gobson and Parasitic Growth, in the first round of battle. My lineup cruised to an easy win in the Obsidian mirror.

I was most proud of my performance in Battle #5, beating one of @xawi's accounts - ZaWarrior. Although it ultimately came down to some RNG between our two Forgotton Ones in this noxious fumes battle, it is the first time I have been able to beat The Guild of Neoxian in brawl and I did it with my Tarsa against their Yodin. LFG! My Mylor team toppled my opponent's Tarsa team in the low-mana melee mayhem match as thorns proved to be too powerful. Unfortunately I am still winless against Immortal God's PrinceKai, dropping this tight Kelya mirror match. We both started Diemonshark, Deeplurker and Isgald Vorst, but my mistake of placing my gladiator in front of Deeplurker instead of behind it cost me the win. I finished up with a win in Battle #8 as my Silver-league Obsidian lineup dominated the Bronze-league Sloan lineup.

Overall, this was likely my most successful brawl in Tier 3, not only knocking off my opponent from the 1st place The Guild of Neoxian, but I did it all without leaning on Kitty, Yodin, or Llama. I also want to take the opportunity to shout out one of our guild OGs @azircon - it was a pleasure to finally meet him in Las Vegas for #Splinterfest2022 and thanks again for the dinner treat at the end of my trip!

TreyCrypto & The 420 Syndicate

Brawl #110

It sure looks like THE 420 SYNDICATE has turned the corner in Tier 2, stringing together some encouraging top-half finishes including this podium performance in 3rd place with a 56-52 record. We earned 39 crowns and 1,706 merits, fninsing behind The Nomad House in 2nd and The MobyDicks in 1st. We were led by two near-flawless performances by @jymydan at 8-1 and @gord0 at 6-1. I held my own with only one loss as well, finishing 5-1 in Fray 14 - Modern Bronze Gold Foil. My only loss came to @leqclibre from The MobyDicks, who you may remember because it was I who beat them with DuceCrypto when their guild moved to Tier 3 for Brawl #111.

Brawl #111

Sadly, I failed to clip the pictures of our placement and top finishers for this brawl, so you'll have to take my word for it that we came in 4th place out of 10 guilds, earning 37 crowns and 1,619 merits. I'm not sure who to give props to for their important performances, but TreyCrypto once again brawled hard with a 5-2 record. My only losses were to @trebuh's Brood lineup and @famoushade1's Kelya lineup.

Shaelien & ZenSports

Brawl #110

I'll be the first to admit I'm still struggling to find my footing in Tier 2 on my Shaelien account with ZENSPORTS. We slumped to a 53-76 record, good for 8th place and a booty of 28 crowns and 1,050 merits. I slipped back to Fray 13 - Wild Bronze Gold Foil for Brawl #110 and enjoyed some mild success with a 5-3 record that was good for the leaderboard. We were led by a strong 7-2 performance from @scion02b and a 6-3 record from @sentaku03.

Brawl #111

In this cycle, ZENSPORTS finished the best of the rest for 5th place at 56-65, but well off the pace of the Top 4 which all had winning records. Nonetheless, Tier 2 allowed us to earn 32 crowns and 1,200 merits for our trouble. It wouldn't have been possible without the notable 6-1 record from @anya0927, as well as a 6-3 mark from @dml28 and five wins from @zapphiraa, @scion02b and @sentaku03. Alas, this was my weakest finish of the two sets, with a single win from seven battles. My lone triumph was using Alric just to play my sneaky Chaos Legion reward cards Uraeus, Pelacor Bandit and Venari Wavesmith. I keep slacking on the account upkeep, but it remains painfully obvious that the random, wild GF collection delegated to this account is lacking enough cohesion and direction to grind out brawl victories. A GF Gladiator or two would make a huge difference!

The Gladius Cases

Unfortunately, no Gold cards hiding for me in those Gladius cases, but it is still nice to be opening some spoils after every few cycles. Three for Duce, and one each for Shaelien and Trey, but the RNG was not with me for these pulls.

DuceCrypto Gladiators

TreyCrypto Gladiators

Shaelien Gladiators

New Brawl Preview

Brawl #112 brings a very real opportunity for SHIELD OF GLORY to take down its first Tier 3 brawl, as most of our fiercest competition has been drawn to different pod. In Tier 2, THE 420 SYNDICATE is also looking at another strong chance to finish on the podium, as Immortal Gods 4 is the only guild ranked in the Top100 in the nine-guild pod. On the other hand, things aren't looking too bright for ZENSPORTS; it is the 9th-ranked guild in the full pod, with a respectable 164th-overall ranking. There are some absolute Tier 2 powerhouses in this brawl though, so it will be a challenge just to make it onto the first page of the standings.

Thanks as always to those following along with my brawl shenanigans and the fate of my guilds. Whether we got to catch up at #Splinterfest2022 or we happened to link up on socials like Twitter, Discord or Hive, I appreciate y'all sharing my story.

See you in the Splinterlands!