Splinterlands - TANKs A Lot!

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Hello all! King-of-Rockets back with another blog post. Without further ado, let's get going!

SPS From the Sky

SPS is now being airdropped every single day. Claiming that daily SPS is such a great feeling! Really looking forward to staking the SPS and using them for all the fun things to unlock more things that get more things. I love things!

The End of Season is Nigh

"Nigh". Now that's a word I've never said IRL I don't think. I should change that. I'll give that word a try one of these days. The supermarket self-checkout robot will never know what hit him/her/it. Anyway...

The end of another Ranked Season is upon us. Which Season # is it? 67? I have no idea. I asked and nobody knew either. Maybe it should just say it there? Or maybe I'm blind. Or maybe no one else cares but me. But can we please have it clear to see so I can refer to it? File this under "Minor Suggestions".

Regardless, I'm really looking forward to opening my loot chests. I think my account is getting stronger and I'm also learning to play the game better because usually whenever I start the Season in Gold II, I don't make it to Diamond III until maybe the last 3-4 days of the Season. This Season, I qualified for Diamond III on the second day! I didn't advance because the competition is WAY too tough up there. Until today that is because I'm ready to push as high as I can and see if I can break my elusive Diamond I goal. When I deliver my end of Season update in a couple days, I'll let you know if I made it or not. Wish me luck!

Tanks A Lot

No, that wasn't a typo. I can spel, you know?

I wanted to post up a recent battle I had that showcases just what the Legendary Neutral monster Cornealus could do as a tank in the Close Range ruleset. My guildmate Zaph lovingly refers to him as the "Big Hairy Eyeball". It's a great nickname. Here he is at Level 3 which is the level I have him at.
(Not Zaph... Cornealus! Zaph is Splinterlands level 99, I think.)

For those not yet familiar, the Close Range ruleset grants the ability for monsters using Range attack to do so in the first position. Cornealus is a great monster to do this as he has a fairly decent attack number (3), fairly decent speed (3), tanky hp (12), and has the coveted tank abilities Heal, Thorns, and Return Fire.

Heal - Restores a portion of the monster's health each round
Thorns - Melee attackers get 2 health damage back to them
Return Fire - Ranged attackers get reduced damage back to them

Here is a screenshot of the battle:

Oh, did I forget to mention this was the summoner I used?

For some extra OOMPH, the Scarred Llama Mage summoner provides +2 health, Cleanse (debuff eraser for the first position monster), and a handy little ability called Last Stand. Aptly named, Last Stand gives the last monster standing (do hairy eyeballs stand? I dunno) a buff to all stats. Now Cornealus goes from OK tank to "WHAT THE HECK JUST RAN OVER US?".

The TL;DR of the battle is that Cornealus may have probably been inserted all by himself and taken out most if not all of the other team to begin with. The rest of my team pick did not fare well at all. But lucky for me, Cornealus + Scarred Llama Mage goes BEAST mode and solo wipes their squad. Whoa!

Here is the battle link:

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=f853988b7ed12c22a6097f6e231ba0767641e937&ref=king-of-rockets

Here are the play-by-play details:

I tried to go a little fancy and utilize Stampede with Rexxie. To back him up, I gave him Khmer Princess for some cheap heals. Since Cornealus is a survivor, I threw him in as anchor for the likely Last Stand. Rounding out the team is the newcomer Epona for some extra life and Furious Chicken as cannon fodder additional protection.

All goes to hell as almost their entire team goes nuts on Rexxie right off the bat. He barely blinks and is extinct once more.

Furious Chicken gets a heal and manages to put a beak on Spineback Turtle, taking out his shield. Hey, that's a contribution! But soon also joins Rexxie in that big coop in the sky.

Epona is up next in the first position and wonders why she even signed up for this monster gig. She's gone just like that also.

After Cornealus reflects some attacks both direct and indirect, chipping away at their life, Khmer Princess puts up a valiant fight after popping off a self-heal and hits S.Turtle with a magic attack. Every little thing helps and soon she's gone too.

Their whole line-up is still intact when Cornealus steps up and gets a power-up from Llama, telling him to go wild. What follows next is a masterful show of what this deservedly titled Legendary monster can do. He's returning, he's healing, he's attacking... he's unstoppable. To my total shock, he is decidedly victorious. The Big Hairy Eyeball gets the job done. Visine^TM for everyone!

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Well, I hope you enjoyed my latest post and my rather too dramatic retelling of a fun battle I had. Just a little something I like to do. If you appreciate it, leave me a comment down below telling me to keep it going.

QUESTION:

Do YOU have an unexpected tank you like to use, whether in front or as backup? Please feel free to leave a comment about that too.

Thanks!

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