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Hello to any of my readers and "Dear (weekly) Diary" 😜

It's that day of the week in which I find the most interesting Splinterlands experience I've had over the past week to share! That fits in perfectly with the theme of the weekly Splinterlands Social Media Challenge too!

But first, a quick look at what happened this week in the world of crypto.

So much for "UP-tober"! Over the past week, markets sold off hard! Bitcoin plunged and slipped towards the $104 – 105K levels that we haven’t seen in months. Ethereum wasn’t spared. It's down nearly 8%, dipping below $3,800. XRP, Solana, and most of the top alts also took serious hits in a wave of fear. The broader crypto market cap dipped under $3.8 trillion as support levels cracked. 😱📉💸

Key drivers? Macro stress, US – China trade tension reigniting, liquidity tightening, and massive derivative liquidations (over $1.2 billion wiped out in 24 hours), led by BTC and ETH positions. 😱

Some funny fat fingering news (depending on how if affected you): PayPal’s partner accidentally minted $300 trillion worth of its stablecoin (PYUSD) in a tech error before burning it. Just a casual day producing some magic internet money worth the entire world's GDP more than twice over. No problem right? 🤣

And what about HIVE? Over the past week, HIVE has cratered just like all the altcoins. 😭 We've seem lows that I've never thought possible. It just 1 week, HIVE has gone from 0.19 to 0.13. That's almost 30% wiped out. Is it a prime opportunity now, or a falling knife? Is this the last chance to buy BTC (and HIVE 🤑) on the cheap? Who knows?

Of course, I could be completely wrong too, so, please do not heed my advice for your own investment purposes! 😜📈🚀

A brief introduction before I start though...

Good Day to all Splinterlands players! (and people of HIVE! 😜) I've made it a point to blog about my weekly progress and experiences in Splinterlands/HIVE in my "weekly diary". Splinterlands & HIVE are what I'd consider to be my entry point into the World of Crypto, and I intend to use this as a means to look back on the path I've taken in the years ahead.⏳⏳⏳

This is now the 204th consecutive week writing in my Diary (of sorts) detailing my Splinterlands Journey ever since I started this game. I talk about what has gone on my personal Splinterlands playing experience, my weekly Guild Brawl Reports, and also any Splinterlands in-game news. 🎉🥳🎊

No week goes by in Splinterlands without some news event happening though. And here's my pick of some of the most interesting ones in my opinion. 📰📰📰

🗺️🧳✈️Updates on my Splinterlands Journey🗺️🧳✈️

This week's Social Media Challenge is all about sharing our remarkable Splinterlands moments. I'd have shared my daily and weekly activities in the past, BUT, usually, nothing really special really happens in my daily Splinterlands daily grind, so let's hope this is more interesting for reading?... let's get down to it! 🤣

The arcane tides are surging through Splinterlands as the Chaos Legion cards bow out and Conclave Arcana steps into the spotlight. My Arcana collection is still just a handful of teasers — no show‑stoppers yet unfortunately 🤣. So rather than dwell on what I don’t have, let’s dive straight into the heart of the action: the new mechanics, art, and strategies that’ll redefine our battles!

My quest for more Gold Foil Legendary cards from ~~my rewards chests~~ "The New Glint Shop" continues on ("Greed is Good!" 😈). It's STILL a ~~0.008% chance, at base level,~~ ridiculously low chance to pull a legendary gold foil, in case you were wondering 😉. Here's to more jackpot strikes in the future (i hope) 🤞🏻🍀🤞🏻🍀🤞🏻🍀.

⚔️🛡️My Battle Showcase🛡️⚔️

The removal of League Level limits in battles allowed some really interesting matchups. No longer are "low level" players protected by their league limits. This often leads to some very lopsided battles. However, there is also the opportunity here to punch above your weight and secure a David VS Goliath win. As always, let me once again showcase some really great underdog victories I have achieved this past week!

Let me present a battle (or some battles) I fought recently in which I managed, against all odds, to win these players who out levelled me on an order of magnitude that I couldn't imagine. Victory or defeat would lie in the small details. 😱

LINK TO MY FIGHT

I would say this was a fight of epic lop-sidedness! 😱

If it wasn't bad enough that I was facing someone QUADRUPLE my level (Level 4 RARE Summoner opponent VS myself at just a "puny" level 1 RARE Summoner), I was also using mostly level 1 "free" Foundation units together with "downgraded" level 1 Reward units. That meant that not only was I fighting an uphill battle with my lower Summoner level, even the quality and level of my units were equally as affected. Simply put, it was more akin to a level 1 VS max level! 😱

The opponent was using a higher level deck with his HIGHER QUALITY LEVEL 4 COMMON summoner PRUNDA UNDERVESCH from the REBELLION edition while I was ONLY using a Level 1 RARE INCESSANT SAGE from the "free" FOUNDATION edition. And if that wasn't enough, his units were definitely much stronger with far superior levels to mine! This MIRROR matchup battle of "LIFE VS LIFE/WATER" had me at the clear disadvantage as I was going to lose out to the opponent purely to sheer power and level.

At the end of the day, there were a few factors which resulted in my unexpected win.

Firstly, the rulesets "STANDARD" meant that my opponent would be, in all likelihood, be restricted to or inclined towards magic, ranged and melee dps, with units that would likely be life based or neutral based or a mix of the both elements units in his team. 😱 This would also infer the probability that his unit choices would be restricted to said units and that I should focus on fielding the most advantageous strategies as possible in order to take advantage of such a ruleset.
This inadvertently also benefitted my lineup as I could then just focus on just choosing the most suitable units I owned for my team, instead of trying to fight on multiple fronts, seeing as I would have suffered an overwhelming disadvantage just based off the difference in our levels.
In fact, to throw the opponent off guard, I would completely defy his expectations by focusing on an army of "A MIX OF UNITS, BUT WITH A BIGGER FOCUS ON MELEE UNITS, who could TARGET THE WEAKEST UNITS VIA OPPORUNITY units, AND 1 EFFECTIVE MAIN TANK UNIT IN THE FRONT, ALONG WITH A BACKUP TANK" lineup, in a pure DPS glass cannon build (so to speak). This lineup, combined with a tank unit capable of surviving as many hits as possible, would throw him off guard and allow my plan to take effect.
My strategy would be to depend purely on lasting as long as possible using the TANKING abilities of my frontline units. The SKYSPIRE LEOPARD & GREAT BEAR DRUID were lined up as my main tank units with their great abilities (good hp, low mana cost, and the ARMOUR STATS and DOUBLE ATTACK TYPE abilities), to absorb the brunt of the initial damage. To further improve my offensive ability, I also utilised A RARE JANNI REBEL REWARDS card, which had A HEFTY 2 MAGIC DPS and the INSPIRE abilities. To further enhance my strategy, I would depend on the +1 ARMOUR ability thanks to my Summoner, INCESSANT SAGE, to give me the ability to BUFF the ARMOUR of my OWN units. This would be a risky move as a similar move by a higher level opponent with superior unit stats would have derailed my strategy completely.
Next thing of note was the MANA COST RESTRICTION of 51 mana. This meant that my opponent would very likely be unable to unleash his full arsenal of heavy hitters with a vast array of abilities against me. I would thus be able to take advantage of this by fielding a leaner and more focused specialised lineup.
Of course, this was not going to be a walk in the park as the opponent still had the obvious advantage of much superior levels.
Fortunately, and surprisingly, the opponent played right into my hands by arrogantly deciding to field almost the entirety of his army with magic and melee dps units, with just 2 beefy tanky frontline tanks. The lack of foresight in not accounting for his tanks being bypassed, instead of anticipating that I would play to my strengths by featuring assassin type units with abilities like opportunity, thus avoid his tanks (and thus take advantage of the "zero restrictions" ability granted from the ruleset). This meant that his hard hitting dps with low health units were especially vulnerable to being killed, even if his tanks did not go down under focus fire. And to make it worse, my defence was enhanced with my summoner's +1 armour ability, which allowed me to make my lower level units punch far above their weight than one would expect. Once his tank fell, his remainder units were open to hard hitting attacks from my hard hitting dps-ers, thus putting him at a severe disadvantage. He was likely thinking that he would be able to blitz me through sheer force of his superior DPS, thereby ignoring the effects and implications of the ruleset.
Making the most of such restrictions would turn out to be advantageous to me.
This turned out to be my saving grace in the end as my hyper focused gambit succeeded in gaining an advantage against the opponent's superior levels, eventually wearing him down. Even though my units were seriously lacking in levels and stats compared to my opponent's, my unit choices managed to absorb the brunt of the damage as I had hoped for. This allowed my DUAL MAKESHIFT TANKS THAT WERE DEFENSIVELY BUFFED, WITH OPPORTUINTY BASED ASSASSIN TYPE units to destroy the entire army 1 unit at a time with their DPS capabilities, thus growing stronger with every kill, and then simply destroying him by letting the prevailing conditions and ruleset do the dirty work for me! I guess this was akin to a desperate roll of the dice hoping for that 1 in a million jackpot win! 🤣

In the end, all I can say is that luck was on my side. 😜

Who would have guessed that my lowly teams would have been able to pull off such David VS Goliath upset wins? I guess nothing is impossible and sometimes, all you need is some luck and great strategy!

💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

I definitely can appreciate how utilising the most of your deck's strengths can lead to unexpected outcomes. This is one of those situations in which Davids can beat Goliaths if surrounded with the proper team. The role every single carefully selected unit brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

For any players who feel daunted with the new battle level changes, I hope this article has given you some insight into the potential of every single card regardless of it's level. 😉

🤑💰🍕Added Bonus of PIZZA Token🤑💰🍕

_{I will use my staked 🍕PIZZA🍕 to share a slice of 🍕PIZZA🍕 with anyone in the comments who also FOLLOWS & REBLOGS my post in the interests of spreading the Word of Pizza 🤣🤣🤣

Just let me know if you've done that so I can easily keep track. 👍

Any fellow 🍕PIZZA🍕 connoisseurs who !PIZZA me will also receive 🍕PIZZA🍕 back from me. 😊}

📣🍕SHOUTOUT to HivePizza📣🍕

_{The guys over at PIZZA DISCORD have been very helpful throughout my Splinterlands journey. I strongly recommend that you guys check it out if you haven't already done so.

PIZZA is an active gaming and creative arts crypto community on the HIVE blockchain. Popular games on HIVE like SPLINTERLANDS, RISING STAR, EXODE, HASHKINGS, WOO, TERRACORE have their own PIZZA communities here.}

_{Don't miss out more events that are always being organised. Join the PIZZA DISCORD. Even if you aren't interested in the 💰🍕🎁GIVEAWAYS & AIRDROPS💰🍕🎁, there is a vibrant and friendly community there awaiting you.}