Hello everyone and we are back with our weekly share of battle and analysis of awesome Splinterlands monsters. I really like the theme this week as Octopider is one of my first few card rewards I get when I first started this game back in October 2020 and you cannot duplicate the feeling of your first experience after that. It's unique on its own.
As always, I will be covering Octopider at the silver level and what I think of it.
As a rare card, the highest level you get to play him at the Silver level is 4. In my opinion, the key level is 3, as it is the level that gives you Demoralize, the only ability it can have at the Silver level. To me, Octopider is a very playable card and super useful in mid-high mana matches. To break them down in points,
- One of the few 7+ mana ranged monster: The only other ranged monsters you can play among Death, Dragon, and Neutral(the 3 legal splinters you can play alongside it) are 7 mana Lightning Dragon, 7 mana War Chaang, 9 mana The Vigilator, and 10 mana Cornealus. It is the only pure ranged besides Cornealus and if you want a team loaded with big ranged monsters, Octopider is excellent.
- Demoralize is very useful in bronze-silver matches: As I explained in my previous entry of the series, stats are important in low level matches and cutting the opponent's melee damage by 1 is super huge, especially when you have a Shield tank up front.
- Versatile Stats: Octopider has very solid stats across the board. 3 attack, 3 speed, and 8 HP ensure that it can do everything fairly well.
Combine everything together and you have a very consistent performer on the top end.
Now, what about the rulesets?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Of course, this monster is very good and can be played in most ruleset in my opinion.
Now, let's dive into a battle with Octopider!
My champion for the match is Selenia Sky. She gives me much more options with the Dragon card pool and I already plan on playing a high ranged matchup for this challenge and this is THE summoner to go with that plan.
On the frontline is Elven Defender. At level 5, he has Shield which will likely absorb more attacks except if the opponent runs an all-magic team. I considered other tanks but I decided to go with this one with Shield over a tank with Void. I hedged on the idea that it's more likely for other players to build a physical team than a magic team.
On the second slot is oldie but goodie Spineback Wolf. I like a melee monster with Reach on the second slot and Wolf is an excellent one in that category. I value its Thorn here as the 2 damage hitback is pretty great at this level. I don't expect it to take too many hits and I just want it to deal as many 2 damage from Thorn as possible.
On the third slot is one of my favorite Death cards, Phantom Soldier. He is packed with an awesome 3 magic attack and more important, he has Silence, which is the main reason I want him. After having a shield tank, I want to cover all bases and want to make sure I am not just straight up losing to a magic-oriented team. I am also being versatile with my damage type and I have him as my magic output.
My Octopider is only level 3 but it's good enough to pile up serious damage on my opponent from afar. The reason why I put him at 4th is that it has the HP to tank when necessary. The HP of a last surviving ranged monster is useless(aside from the ruleset where ranged can be used on front slot) so I want it to not be the last monster standing. I want it to eventually tank for the softer monsters. But before that, it is there to Demoralize the enemies and hunt them down.
I cover up my Vampire at the 5th slot as I want it to build up on HP. I ponder about whether to put him 4th or 5th, but I go with this arrangement as I think giving him extra turns to leech up some extra life will help. Besides that, Vampire is another ranged monster with 3 ranged attack and I love that in this lineup.
The stats somehow isn't there on the official picture of it so here it is: 4 ranged attack, 2 speed, 4 HP, Affliction. The reason why I have him last is because of his highest ranged attack on the squad. I don't really care that much about Affliction (even though it is an impactful ability in this matchup) and I really just have him for the damage more than everything. It's a softie so I have him last and have everyone protect him.
I think you all might ask "why you only use 3 ranged monsters with Selenia Sky and not 4-5"? It's true that you can go 4-5 with Selenia Sky, or even highly recommended, but I want to be flexible and cover all grounds. I think just buffing 3 ranged monsters with very high attack is more than enough to take out the opponents and I wawnt the 3 other slots to do more than just damage. I have a tank to absorb physical damage and then a magic monster with Silence to cover multiple angles. It's not as extreme as an all-in lineup with 5 ranged monsters, but I think it is versatile and can tackle a lot of teams without exposing any big weakness.
Well, my plan to protect the Grim Reaper doesn't work with my opponent having two Sneak monsters. The Reaper was out by end of Round 1. However, I think my game plan really worked well here. Demoralize from Octopider is huge in this matchup and the most impact it has was on Silvershield Assassin. He could have eat up my backline with ease if he has 2x2 attacks, but now he could only do 1x2.
The Life Leech from Vampire really helped here alongside Demoralize. Vampire has 3 HP after the leech and the 1 attack Assassin could only put him down to 1, this allowed him to take the hit (I paused just before it) from Sand Worm at 1 HP. Otherwise, Octopider would be the one taking damage and could go very low.
With overwhelming speed advantage at this point, and our damage reduction hurting their total attack count to take down my team, we had won the match by now and I closed the match up at the end of next round.
I have already expressed how I really like Octopider so I don't think I have to repeat it again. I think my plan worked well for the battle and I am definitely running Octopider in a lot of matchups.
And that's all from me today. I will see you in the next post...or on the battlefield!
If you are not yet a warrior of the Splinterlands, grab your ticket and join us!
Nice victory based on a decent team selection!
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 98/112) Liquid rewards.
Your current Rank (79) in the battle Arena of Holybread has granted you an Upvote of 51%
Your current Rank (76) in the battle Arena of Holybread has granted you an Upvote of 53%
Congratulations @goliathus! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Your next target is to reach 200 upvotes.
Your next target is to reach 600 upvotes.
Your next target is to reach 200 comments.
Your next target is to reach 100 replies.
Your next payout target is 50 HP.
The unit is Hive Power equivalent because your rewards can be split into HP and HBD
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
Support the HiveBuzz project. Vote for our proposal!