Weekly Splinterlands Challenge - Carrion Shade - Giveaway Winner

Hello to all my fellow splinterpeeps and a big thank you for stopping by! Today it's time again for the weekly splinterlands challenge, hosted by the awesome team behind @splinterlands. No matter if you are an artist, social media influencer or just enjoy playing the game, they host all kinds of challenges here on hive, which give you a chance to get a nice curation from the community. Make sure to check them out and start earning on the hive blockchain!
If you haven't checked out splinterlands yet, feel free to use my affiliate link down below, so I can hook you up with some starting funds.
I will also start some hive-games related giveaways at least once per season so long as I can fill up that wheel with interesting stuff, so stay around!

In this weekly challenge we're taking a look at the cheapest of all chaos legion cards, the little bone-haired elephant crow. For every splinter there is a 1 mana card in the new booster series just like there has been with the older sets, but I can't help my lack of excitement as the new cards are a lot less interesting. Sure the Cursed Slimeball has nothing on Carrion Shade, and yes, Flame Monkey is hardly any better, but all remaining 1 mana cards either have a usefull ability from lvl 1 on, or they can attack from the backline. Albatross with the annoying flying ability, Silvershield Bard with the cleanse, Brownie with the speed buff, hell even Shadowy Presence is a rather beefy tank! The new 1 mana cards on the other hand are all melee and too slow to attack in a frontline position before they get taken out, which makes them nothing more than a meatshield in most cases.

Stats

Here's the stat-sheet on the little birdy. Most level-ups are not really helpfull, as they don't increase the stats in any way.
At level 3 it actually becomes a real bird and learns to fly, something a Flying Squid will never achieve, but this will also be the only ability for the little fella. This makes it kinda usefull for earthquake matches and also increases the dodge chance, which is really annoying on a meatshield. But that also means this ability will not be available to a lot of the lower league players that can't afford a level 2 summoner.

Ruleset

As I don't play this card a lot, I only found two matches with this particular monster and one of them was a loss for me. As a death VS death match I figured it would be the most interesting, though.

The equal opportunity infuses some purpose into an otherwise rather dull and uninspiring meatshield. Unfortunately same applies to the enemy and at 2 HP its rank in the food chain is rather low.

Lineup

With thorns and the magic debuff from Thaddius, this tank is a no-brainer most of the time, especially in low mana matches.

In many games you end up with 1 mana missing towards the mana cap, especially when beeing limited to even or odd cards. Back in the days there were little to no starter cards with 1 mana, but now you get one for each splinter - Carrion Shade beeing the death one. As they come free with the starter deck, they are all common and not particularly spectacular.
In this case it made sense to put in the 1 damage melee card, as it gets blessed with the opportunity ability.

One of the old 1 mana cards with no combat stats but a nice speed debuff on the enemy team. Increases your first strike chance and the dodge chance, unless you are in a reverse speed match.
Was used left and right until the game was flooded with chaos legion bots...

Battle recap

The first battle is a sad loss for me. As it is played on my smurf account, I don't have the most epic cards. I start by taking out 3 of his cards, but at some point the game turns around and my tank goes down, while his survives the whole match. Most likely because his Windeku was already enraged at its first attack, due to the lower speed and later was granted the first strike in round 2. Like mentioned before the Carrion Shade is a good choice in this kind of ruleset, because it makes use of the attack, even though it's not in first position.
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_0484a025f3098d0f9451318e37d50e41&ref=definitelynotbot

To restore my honor I also have a game where I beat the Carrion Shade with an earth team:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_8d8b48839afb2a32228af5f844b0e1f3&ref=definitelynotbot

Winner of 1000 Starbits

Congrats to mxm0unite for winning the giveaway! The starbits have been sent to their hive-engine wallet already. The next giveaway will be anounced in the upcoming EOS reward video, which will most likely become the main giveaway occasion.

If you have not yet entered the world of splinterlands and want to check it out while simultaneously supporting me, feel free to use my affiliate link:

Don't forget to let me know if you do so, so I can try and hook you up with a little delegation to get you going!

For those who are playing already, don't miss out on all the juicy giveaways and challenges here on hive! Also make sure to have a look at all the other awesome NFT games here on the blockchain like the @risingstargame. Start as a busker and work your way up to become a superstar. Featuring all kinds of collectible cards and tokens to earn!

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