Bloodshed and Screams: Dragons

Piercing eyes as old as time. A dragon uses intellect as much as its size, sped and strength to dominate the battlefield. Where there are dragons there are screams for where there are dragons is bloodshed.

Today's battle challenge focuses on Dragons in all their glory.
Battle Link: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_6f0839a5344ac57cb9c0858755fb227b&ref=holdeck

Ruleset:

Strategy:

Fire and Life tend to focus on Physical damage generally and Death is quite flexible. If the opponent goes to magic on Death, then they would be limited by a Void ability. I'd expect a physical damage type and I'd hazard a guess looking at Fire or Life.

All Monsters have the Blast ability.

The best strategy is to have fast monsters with Snipe, Sneak, Opportunity. For defense, Shield and Void will come in handy.

Drake of Arnak: Summoner

A very solid summoner in Bronze. Simple in that it adds just a single piece of armour but excellent in offering access to any deck as needed and the addition of Dragons. I am using Drake of Arnak to access the Dragons deck today. I selected this card over Quix The Devious as one armour is really useful if you are expecting a melee based attack. The Blast ruleset will mean that my lineup will need to absorb additional blows by the opponent. And as I expect physical damage, one way to mitigate this is physical armour.

Desert Dragon: Heavy Hitter / Tank

I love this card. Good damage and great overall stats. Speed is on the low side but the ability to Trample an opponent, makes this an exciting proposition. I hope to get a Trample going today against the opponent.

Tenyii Striker: Sneaky

A really solid Fire card. Good damage and great health. Speed is on the low side but for 5 mana this is great. A very common card in Bronze and worth its price as a rare. This is on my soon to be Gold Foil list as I use it so frequently across my accounts. The ability to Sneak is nice here as it will allow me to focus good damage against their backline. I am hoping to support this card with another Sneak monster as well.

Void Dragon: Dodgy McDodge

Another recent discovery for me. An excellent card in many ways as it offers high speed, flying and void. All of this for 5 mana and 7 health. Sure it's damage is low but I am hoping it will dodge anything coming its way. The Void is nice if there is any Magic damage that comes my way as within this ruleset, I'd expect minimal blast Magic damage impacting the health of the Void Dragon. I really need to buy one of these.

Uraeus: Sneak attack

For an epic it is not the best of the bunch. But it is cheap and with the included armour, it is generally well protected. Levelling this up is a must to get the additional damage but in Bronze, this card is still pretty useful to have. I am hoping to combine this with the Tenyi Striker and pepper their backline with Blast damage.

Opponent:

Tarsa

As I had expected, my opponent went with physical attacks. The increase in physical damage is something to be aware of as small mana cap monsters can end up doing some good damage in Blast rulesets. The additional 1 health is useful and will make some of their lower mana cap monsters survive for a little while longer.

Chaos Agent

As a little buffer the Chaos Agent is a good card. I'd always prefer a card with a chance at doing damage but at the higher levels it gains Dodge, Phase and Backfire. A good card and could be useful as a bit of fodder for an opportunity attack. I don't need to use this card and don't have the mana so I won't use it for now. I am not sure I would place this first but it will soak up an attack at worst for the opponent.

Radiated Scorcher

Levelled up to 3rd level, this is an excellent 2 mana card that many bots like to play. At 3rd level it gains Shatter which annihilates enemy armour. However this is only 1st level so in this case I do not see this card having much of an impact on the outcome.

Disintegrator

This is an excellent choice to play as it will reduce the incoming damage of my lineup. It would have been well used if they had paired it with an Antoid Platoon or Living Lava. As the Shield ability works incredibly well when it is blocking almost no physical damage. A good but relatively expensive choice.

Serpentine Spy

The Serpentine Spy is a very strong Opportunity card to play. It targets the weakest link and when combined with Tarsa in a Blast ruleset, that damage can be pretty dangerous. Alongside Tarsa the Serpentine Spy ends up with 3 damage which can be 2 additional Blast damage to adjacent targets. Certainly something to look out for! This is a weak link on their line up so I'd want to target this as soon as possible really. But with it being in the middle of the pack, I may have to wait a little bit.

Tenyii Striker

Looks like my opponent is going to pepper my back line as well with Sneak damage. One of the things I enjoy about Splinterlands is the differences one card can make to the order of a line up. By moving my Tenyii Striker further forward, I am not at risk of the opponent hurting it from Sneak Damage but one thing I need to be careful of is, have I placed my Sneak damage to close to my front line? Could this cost me?

Uraeus

This is the point where I will have to hope that my additional armour will give me the advantage against an identical line up. MY Uraeus will not survive against both attackers so I will need to rely on the Flying and Speed of the Void Dragon to combat their Sneak damage.

Pre Fight Thoughts

Quite interesting to see how this would play out considering the ideas put forward by my opponent. I think the Desert Dragon and the Void Dragon will be the key difference helping me to pierce their line up through the front pretty quickly. Well heres hoping...

The Battle:

Post Fight Thoughts:

The Trample was incredibly effective. In the early first round, having the Chaos Agent at the Front as well as the Radiated Scorcher really hurt my opponent as I was able to Trample both and do blast damage. The Void Dragon worked well as it did damage piercing past their armour and all the while it did make my opponent miss an attack which kept my Tenyii Striker alive.

Overall I am very happy with this battle. I think my opponent needs to ensure there is a stronger more sturdy tank near the front as having two weak front line opponents made it a bit too easy to penetrate and do serious damage to their lineup.

I am very happy with the outcome and apart from levelling up cards and moving this account out of Bronze, I am not sure I'd do much differently.

Why buy Dragons?

Dragons are one of the most versatile decks in Splinterlands. The summoners allow you to play one element of your choice and allow you to include dragons within the lineup. In my case I chose Drake of Arnak and selected Fire. This was a great choice for my battle.

Want Dragons but don't know where to start? Easy to play cheap Dragon cards

Drake of Arnak

Summoner at 4 mana this card is great and provides armour to the lineup. Great for unleashing a horde of Dragons while using another element to work with.

Cost: $3.09 or 5.1k DEC

Desert Dragon

Probably my favourite current at the moment. Trample is nasty when it works but what gets better is Retaliate later at higher levels. Worth levelling up. Excellent card with great stats.

More information about the Desert Dragon can be found in my recent article on the Retaliate ability: Strike back at your enemy with a RETALIATE

Cost: $1.78 or 2.95k DEC.

Void Dragon

A great card with good speed, Flying and Void. I love causing mischief with this card especially with it at the back to keep those little sneaks out of the backline. Worth the buy and good value.

Cost: $2.035 or 3.38k DEC

I'd love to hear your favourite Dragon strategies or Dragon cards so do let me know in the comments below.

Where there are dragons there are screams for where there are dragons is bloodshed.

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