Splinterlands - Weekly Challenge - Child of the Forest

Hello Battlers,

Happy to join one more weekly challenge from @splinterlands.

This time, we have a ranged attack monster from Earth Splinter and it's Child of the Forest and the details of this week's challenge are available in below link:

https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/share-your-battle-weekly-challenge-child-of-the-forest

Child of the Forest is an Untamed edition ranged attack common monster introduced some time back and is one of the lesser used monsters. So, this weekly challenge is an opportunity for most of us to try this out and check what it offers to our decks.

The details of ranged attack, speed and health for Child of the Forest are available in above attached screenshot and we can see that, it's one of the best in terms of speed with constant speed of 5 in all the 10 levels it has.

The attack and health starts on lower side, but as we level this up, it offers greater attack and health and can be used regularly.

It has couple of abilities in snipe and snare.

snipe allows it to attack second line ranged and magic monsters and snare makes it to remove the flying ability of the monster it attacks.

Lineup:

https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=96099fe8039f9c3459fe53467468e9257e7cbc4d

The battle I had for this challenge was with 34 mana restriction which was enough for the limited monsters I have.

It was with battle scenarios of Unprotected(no armors and no armor ability from other monsters) and Taking Sides(no neutral monsters to be used) and both were goo enough for me for this battle as the monsters from Earth are mostly unarmed.

With the mana cap and battle scenarios in mind, I started with below lineup for this battle.

Flesh Golem:

I am sure this is one of the most commonly used Earth monsters because of it's self healing ability and it also has good health to last longer in the battle.

It's 2 melee attack and 3 speed are not bad too and that was enough for me to keep this alive throughout the battle.

Goblin Thief:

I don't have a good melee monster with reach ability to use in second position and hence, I used this here to double it up as backup front monster.

Wood Nymph:

Needed a healer for the 2 front monsters and Wood Nymph was there for me and it's 1 magic attack is also a bonus.

Although it has just 4 health, this is also useful in case the first 2 monsters removed early as this can self heal and stay at front for some time.

Child of the Forest:

The theme monster for this week isn't of much promise at lower levels and all I have is a level 1 monster with 1 ranged attack and 2 health.

So, this is prone to be removed early from a sniper monster and it's 1 attack isn't much.

Javelin Thrower:

Another best monster in this lineup as this provided 2 ranged attack and can also pirce thru the armors.

Best thing about this is it's speed of 4 makes it attack early.

Mitica Headhunter:

This is by far used by most of us and I use it whenever I can accommodate this 8 mana cost monster in my battles.

It's 4 attack is very good and it is even better in terms of speed as it has a speed of 5 and also provided snare ability to remove the flying ability of the monster it attacks.

I faced set of death splinter monsters for this battle with lineup of Bone Golem, Dark Summoner, Boogeyman, Phantom Soldier, Maggots and Fallen Specter.

Battle:

The total attack range for my side was 10 against the 11 opponent had, and the battle was an interesting one as I provide the details below:

Round 1:

Bone Golem got removed very early in round 1 itself as it's 6 health wasn't enough to last the round with the monster I used having better speed.

Flesh Golem on the other hand, with it's self healing ability, stayed stronger to survive.

Child of the Forest was attacked by opportunity monster Maggots and reduced to 1 health.

Round 2:

Total of 3 monsters couldn't make it to next round with opponent's Dark Summoner and Boogeyman getting removed and the Child of the Forest I had used also got removed as Maggots attacked it.

Round 3:

There were no further loss of monster from my side, but for opponent, he lost Phantom Soldier and Fallen Specter because of the better monsters I had used and only Maggots was left for opponent.

Round 4:

One iteration it all took to remove Maggots and that means I won the battle.

Although, I lost the Child of the Forest early, the other monsters were enough to fight it out and win the battle.

As I intend to complete the blog, here are the mandatory questions I have tried to answer as part of this challenge.

Did your strategy work? What will you try differently next time?

Yes, even though the Child of the Forest couldn't last longer, it made an impact by hitting couple of times in the span of 2 rounds it survived and the other monsters I used had a balanced one for me to win the battle.

If I have to change the lineup, then unfortunately, I have to leave out Child of the Forest to replace it with Screeching Vulture or some other neutral monster of my limited monster collection.

Do you use the CHILD OF THE FOREST often? Why or why not?

No, I haven't used it before as I have just level 1 monster and it doesn't provide much attack to the deck I use. I can use better options instead of this.

Wow, Weekly Challenges are getting more and more appreciated as we see many people actively participating in these and I am sure @splinterlands curators have a task to go thru all of these blogs and check different strategies.

Thanks again for reading this and I hope you too had a nice battle for this challenge.