Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive, or be he dead
I'll grind his bones to make my bread ⛰️🌳🗿

I'm sure many of us are familiar with what is probably the most famous Giant of all time, one of the main characters in the classic fairytale, Jack and the Beanstalk. Thankfully, it seems like Splinterlands Hill Giants seem to veer more towards Roald Dahl's Big Friendly Giant than Jack's rampaging Giant. 😜

The theme of this week's Share Your Battle Challenge - I give you the HILL GIANT! ⛰️🌳🗿

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Hill Giants live in the Talus Bluffs on the outskirts of the volcano known as the Mountain of Ash. They are nomadic people that travel from hilltop to hilltop following herds of deer and cattle. Though they are intimidating, Hill Giants are typically more far more inquisitive of other cultures and seek to learn from them rather than attack. However, if they need to defend themselves, they attack by ripping boulders from the ground and are able to hurl them up to a mile. The people of Praetoria are glad to have them on their side against the Chaos Legion.

⛰️🌳🗿From Splinterlands Lore on HILL GIANT⛰️🌳🗿

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The Hill Giant is a Common card released during the Chaos Legion expansion. It has definitely found it's place in many Earth decks given its availability and usefulness. At LEVEL 1, it has 1 ⚔️ATTACK⚔️ and 1 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 0 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 6 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has NO abilities. It's summoning cost is also on the lower range at just 3 🧪MANA🧪.

These stats alone make the Hill Giant a relatively tough unit which also deals decent damage to boot. Unfortunately, it is rather slow though, so misses are expected. But it's main purpose is really to get in a few hits and be able to take some hits too. If the rulesets or mana limitations call for it, it would make a fantastic Main Tank too!

The Hill Giant's true strength lies in it's overall cost effectiveness. Even though it has no abilities (at least until level 6), it is a really cheap casting cost card that has good tanking stats. What it loses in abilities, it has gained in cost efficiency. This could make all the difference if the battle comes down to the wire where the slightest advantage is the fine line between victory or defeat! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

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The release of Chaos Legion has given the Earth splinter a really unique card in the Hill Giant. This is a card that it lives and dies purely on its raw stats. The closest card similar in stats and cost would be the Earth Elemental. However, the Earth Elemental is an Alpha/Beta card and is a ranged unit too. This makes it completely unsuitable as a frontline tank and the Modern format of gameplay. This ensures that the Hill Giant will definitely have it's own place here in all Earth decks. This is definitely what I'd consider game changing! 😱😱😱

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📊Card Stats by Level📊

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As we can see here, the main purpose of the Hill Giant is to be what I would call a "Cheap Tank". Every level improves it's stats slightly all the way to level 10. At level 6, it even gains the very useful STUN ability!

Now, it may seem that these stats are nothing overpowered and that may be true. However, we must remember that because it only costs a mere 3 mana, it is a REALLY CHEAP card to field in your deck! In any lower mana limits scenario, it beats out just about every other card pound for pound. There will definitely be plenty of situations whereby you'll end up with just a few more mana lying around to fill up that one last slot, and that is where the Hill Giant will come in handy too.

It's casting cost combined with its stats really make this a most fearsome unit with a perfect mix of offense and defense. ⚔️🛡️

Personally, I bought the Gold Foil Version of the Hill Giant which costs about a $0.60. Since it's a common in the Chaos Legion which is still in print, it's really affordable compared to the Earth Elemental (which is an Alpha/Beta card that costs in the hundreds!!! 💸💸💸). That makes it level 3 instantly which gives it's attack a bump to 2 and a slight increase in hp to 7, making it really decent for a 3 mana unit, with good damage and tanking stats.

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📝Important Rulesets Rundown📝

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Here, I detail the list of combat rulesets that may affect the Hill Giant.

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	🤔💭✅❌🤔💭❓❓❓
	👍🏻 It's attack will never miss
	👍🏻 Gives itself more protection. Always good, especially for a unit whose purpose is to take hits.
	👍🏻 Loses all it's abilities. But that doesn't really affect it since it has none to beegin with.
	👍🏻 Ranged units can't be used.
	N.A. Ranged units can attack from the front.
	👎🏻 will be able to last longer than most cards with it's health/armor though.
	👎🏻 It has quite a decent HP pool, which means other units are more likely to benefit instead.
	👍🏻 Able to lend it's attack from any slot.
	👎🏻 Even summoning cost
	👎🏻 Unlikely to dodge any attack with it's low speed, thus the unit next to it will almost definitely take Blast damage.
	N.A
	N.A
	Situational. Could add more damage if the opponent's front unit is stunned
	👍🏻 Improve it's own survivability
	👎🏻 Melee units are affected.
	👍🏻 Only units which cost 4 or less mana can be used.
	👍🏻 Only common cards can be used.
	👍🏻 Magic units cannot be used
	👍🏻 Gives melee the positional attack advantage enjoyed by ranged/magic
	👎🏻 Will die to poison.
	👍🏻 Only odd summoning cost units can be used.
	👍🏻 It's slow speed makes it fast
	👍🏻 Only common/rare cards can be used.
	👍🏻 Doesn't really depend on Summoner abilities
	👍🏻 Enrage works out well for units who can take a few hits
	N.A
	👍🏻 All units abilities stay intact
	👍🏻 Allows melee to attack even if it's not in the first slot.
	👍🏻 It is NOT a Neutral unit.
	N.A. All ranged/magic units have the Snipe ability.
	👍🏻 Loses all it's armor. It has none to begin with.
	👍🏻 Only Melee units can be used
	N.A.

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⚔️🛡My Battle Showcase🛡⚔️

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Let me present a battle I fought recently in which I used the Hill Giant. My opponent used the EARTH splinter while I too went for the EARTH splinter. 🌱🌱

At first glance, this would seem like a really even match. In fact, it is so even that BOTH of us used the Hill Giant as our Main Tank! Testament as to how useful this card is. 🤣

• We both used the same summoner at the same level! 🤯😱😵

• It was a mirror image matchup with the same levels for our Hill Giants and Regal Perytons in slots 1 and 2 respectively.

• This battle will serve to highlight how useful the Hill Giant is rather than any differing strategies.

Clearly, in terms of card rarity and card strength, this would be a VERY CLOSE FIGHT 😜🤣. Would I be able to turn the tide of battle against such an opponent then? Victory or defeat would lie in the small details.

I would say that the Hill Giant was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. It did what it was supposed to do by tanking and holding it's ground right at the forefront of the battlefield! All the while chipping off at the opponent bit by bit. This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆

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LINK TO FIGHT WITH MY HILL GIANT

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👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

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1st CARD SLOT

The Hill Giant takes the role of the Main Tank in the first slot here. It will be the most important role since the backline will fall if the Main Tank goes.

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2nd CARD SLOT

The Regal Peryton fills this slot. It's role is to deal damage from this position with it's fast hitting Magic Attacks. Should the main tank fall, it will pick up the task of tanking.

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3rd CARD SLOT

The Mycelic Slipspawn takes this slot, which also happens to be the last slot in this battle. It's role is to draw attacks to it whilst dealing Magic damage of its own.

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⚔️🛡Battle Action Report🛡⚔️

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As you can see, both of us fielded very similar decks with nearly identical lineups and splinters.

🌱 EARTH 🌱 VS 🌱 EARTH 🌱

My opponent used Hill Giant (ALSO) as his main tank in the 1st slot which is an AMAZING choice, given how suitable he is as a tank. His Regal Peryton was placed in the 2nd slot, just like mine. The differences after that was in his choice of a Goblin Tower and Mycelic Morphoid instead of a Mycelic Slipspawn.

My choice of the Main Tank was the Hill Giant in the first slot, followed by the Regal Peryton in the second. The Regal Peryton would be my backup tank and DPS. As I mentioned, a near identical lineup with the opponent so far 🤣. The 3rd and final slot was occupied by my Mycelic Slipspawn.

The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was a pretty low mana ruleset with just 21 mana as the limit. My mana usage was slightly better as I filled out the full 21 mana completely, whilst the opponent only used 20/21 of his allocation.

• The first wave surprisingly ended up with none of my units dying, but the opponent's Hill Giant fell instead.

• This is where my team started to get a huge advantage as the opponent started losing out to me in the battle of attrition.

• The second round ended up with the opponent's Regal Peryton slowly taking more damage and being the next unit to fall.

• By the end of the third round, the opponent's remaining Goblin Tower and Mycelic Morphoid died too.

• It was all over as my team survived completely unscathed.

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the Hill Giant to absorb a few hits before dying. Yet it did more than that and lasted through the entire battle by absorbing every single attack. It even dealt out a decent amount of damage on it's own AND LANDED THE FINISHING BLOW on 3 out of 4 units, including the FINAL BLOW of the battle!!! 💪🏻

The battle ended up being a perfect battle with NONE of my units even suffering the slightest scratch! Surely that made it the Man of the Match for this battle, punching way above it's weight! 💯

Well as you can see here in this GIF of my battle, the results were pretty good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

This was truly an eye opener! 😁🏆

Slowly, but surely, I wore down the opponent's team and the match was won handily with ALL of my units still left standing. It was a PERFECT VICTORY! My team selection proved to be the edge I needed to eventually overpower my opponent. 💪🏻

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🔮🔮🔮Hindsight is 20/20🔮🔮🔮

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Would I have done anything differently? 🤔 This might have seemed like a match that would prove to be a challenge at the start because of the similarity between our decks and lineups. However, with my PERFECT VICTORY with ZERO casualties, IF I had to use the same cards again, there would be no better lineup than what I had already used for the match. Any other combination MIGHT have resulted in a loss for me. I'm really satisfied with the results against such a worthy opponent. 🏆🥇

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💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

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I definitely can appreciate the Hill Giant and it's strengths. This is one of those cards which are very strong if surrounded with the proper team. The role it brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

For any players looking to try out the Hill Giant, I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

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