Splinterlands: I've got a new favourite beast!

Hey everyone! Good morning, afternoon or evening depending where in the world you are, I hope this day has been good for you so far!
It's early Saturday morning for me, after a LONG workday yesterday, working 14,5 hours I'm a little in the chill mode today, so playing splinterlands and making splinterlands content is perfect! 🙂

I usually start my weekly blogs on Thursday but with blogging you can't force things when you're not in the mood for it, I didn't have any inspiration and I think it's the same as with writing a novel, but in a much smaller way, your mind has to be in the right mood for it, last Thursday was a busy day for me although I didn't have to work, when you're following me you probably know I like to scavenge for cans and bottles - earning something and be active with cycling and walking at the same time, with this extra income I buy Splinterlands Shards every month, some people laugh at me because it's only a tiny bit of value for every can, but last month I collected exactly €36, at today's price that's 4500 SPS, not a small amount for me!
This of course isn't today's topic, I'll make a separate post on that later so if you're interested hit the 'follow' button on my account please and I'll be sure to check your account as well!

In general I try to be more active on Hive to support the community there and have a bigger part in it, the interviews @azircon gave with @aftersound and @thepeoplesguild lighted a fire in me to not only be a splinterlands content creator (well, only in the way of blogging) but make more content so both communities can grow and strengthen each other.
Aftersound is very active on YouTube so check him out there, I listen to thepeoplesguild podcast on spotify when I'm driving, this saves some mobile data.
Be sure to check out the gentlemen I mentioned above and listen to the interviews when you have the time, and let's hope more splinterlands players will also be more active on Hive.

I try to listen to the tips I learned from Azircon, the only thing that bothers me is the 'one post a day advice' because some days I just don't have the time to make posts, and other days I have enough time to make two or three, and there's also the deadlines for the splinterlands posts, so yeah 😅
For other posts I try to use the 'schedule' function on peakd to post at a later time, but I found out that doesn't work all too well when I'm trying to post in a community, it just ignored that the last time I tried 😏
But... I'm starting to ramble and drift away so, on to today's main topic!

The post for today (well maybe I'll make another later) is for the Splinterlands Community Challenge, and this week it's the same as we had multiple times already:

🔥 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 the challenge yourself, check out the splinterlands post here.
When you're a splinterlands player and not doing so already, I really recommend doing so because it can help build your deck this way! 😊

So, for people following me, I'm buying new cards all the time with the money I earn in various ways, not in the whale style I see on X but in my own 'average Joe'way, with a budget ranging between $30 and 50 most months, one of my more expensive buys in the last weeks was Arkemis the Bear.

Two weeks ago, I bought him because I was running in to max level Arkemis a lot, max level play is still a bit new to me, since I've been a gold level player but at these prices it's cool to enjoy the extra's max level cards bring, they're really dominating gold level decks and I wanted to be at the stronger side of this.
When I search for Arkemis now, he's selling for only $19 by the way, that's about 20% cheaper than what I've paid... 😏

Last week, for the community engagement challenge is also made a post about Arkemis, what can I say more then, he's just awesome. 😁

Like many cards it takes some trial and error, for example I now know there's a bad synergy (is there a word for a negative combination??) between Arkemis and Deeplurker, the -1 melee damage often prevents enemy monsters from running in to his forcefield so I'm actually helping my opponent.

Let's look at his stats per level...

So, the 'breakpoints' as I like to call them - levels where a monster receives key abilities or gets extra attack power are from level 4 where he gets the halving ability.

Halving:
The first time this unit hits a target, the target's attack is cut in half (rounded down).
Halving remains even after the unit wielding it dies.
Halving has a 100% chance of activation (if the attack does not miss).
Halving impacts ranged, magic, and melee attacks.
Halving does not halve the strength of armored strike. The strength of that armor based attack will be reduced only when armor is reduced.
Halving does not stack - regardless of the amount of time the unit is hit with a Halving attack
Fun Fact: This ability is a tribute to bitcoin's halving.

I borrowed this text from the Splinterlands Support Page 🙂

Then, at level 7 he receives the Forcefield ability.

Forcefield:
This Unit takes only 1 damage from attacks with power 5 or higher
Giant Killer will ignore the Forcefield ability only if the base damage is less than 5.
Forcefield has no impact on attacks with a strength of 1,2,3 or 4.
Units with forcefield only take 1 damage from attacks that deal 5 damage or more before bonuses are applied. If Giant Killer, Knock Out, Recharge, Oppress, or a similar ability increases damage to 5 or more, Forcefield will not help.
Expose is an enemy to Forcefield. With an 80% activation rate, successful strikes have a chance to remove Forcefield.

The Expose ability is only for the top players I feel, I almost never see it in my battles in gold and diamond 3.

At the max level he receives the enrage ability, buffing his speed and damage, when he's enraged he dodges quite a lot of attacks so I like to pair him with other monsters that manage speed even more.

How to counter him?

The solution is simple, use monsters with 4 or less attack damage, a monster that's quite effective against him is the Swamp Spitter at level 6 or higher because of the Giant Killer ability, with the repair ability you can prevent the high damage killing your tank.
Other monsters wielding the Giant Killer ability can also be effective against him of course.

Sharing a battle

What is a splinterlands post without a battle, so here I have a cool battle to share!

The battle I want to share for this post is a 57 mana Modern League, Fab Four / Fire and Regret / Corrosive Fog battle, with only the Death splinter locked out, so plenty of options, styles and strategies to choose! With so much mana and only four monsters you can bet some heavy ones will face each other on the battlefield, In the previous battles from my opponent I saw he liked to play max Diemonshark, it's enrage gets his attack damage to 6, hitting the forcefield, so I picked my newly acquired monster again.

First look at the battlefield:

A Possibilus team, Arkemis is a perfect counter against three cards in the other team, it's a very nice team with almost fully maxed out cards.

My Line-Up:

• Summoner: Quix the Devious - reason: Access to the dragons.
• First position: Arkemis the Bear - reason: Well, did you read the post above? 😆
• Second position: Carnage Titan - reason: High damage double striker with shield.
• Third position: Djinn O'Shannus - reason: Good damage, fast, forcefield.
• Fourth position: Chaos Dragon - reason: Scattershot with magic damage and blast is great!

The Battle:

Round 1: My O'Shannus enraged the Diemon Shark before it could attack, and when it did it was enraged, hitting the forcefield doing only 1 damage, later in the round the Diemon Shark got killed, it retaliated two times against my Titan but it's shield and enough armor protected him.

Round 2: Coastal Sentry got halved before it could attack and missed the second attack. (speed and blind works great) Arkemis probably won't survive the next round.

Round 3: Arkemis ran into O'Shannus forcefield and was later killed, my Titan killed O'Shannus, leaving Nerissa vulnerable in the front position.

Round 4: My Chaos Dragon made the killing blow, winning the match.

The win streak and the use of a promo card (Arkemis!) boosted my earnings some more, just over 500 glint and 5 SPS, which is a lot for me! 😃

You can watch the battle unfold for yourself here.

Well, this has become quite a large post, I just like talking about this awesome game with all different aspects with it 😁

I now need to drain my energy a bit before it gets to 50, which would be a waste! When I did this, I can make another post for this weeks Community Engagement Challenge, is eat and breath Splinterlands nowadays, and sometimes I even DREAM about it 😅

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.

Have a great day!