Weekly Battle Challenge: Spineback Turtle

Edition: Beta
Rarity: Common
Element: Water
Attack: Melee
Abilities: Thorns at Level 4

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The Spineback Turtle is a late but long desired addition to my water deck that is strengthened strongly by the Chaos Legion cards in the water deck. It is a low cost tank that definitely covers more than it is worth in mana cost.

The Card

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The Play

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_f47a56c9b18c21b15c016a6d1c7d7d39&ref=allani545

The Strategy

It was a Silver League, 28 Mana battle with Melee Mayhem. Melee Mayhem always pushes players towards using mana so the increased speed and armour from Kelya Frendul would prove invaluable.

Position	Card	Level	Reason
Summoner	Kelya Frendul	2	Extra speed and extra armour against the Melee Mayhem.
Position 1	Spineback Turtle	1	Our star of the week with high health and armour for a relatively low mana cost to soak up the hits.
Position 2	Flying Squid	2	Decent damage and speed with high hitpoints and reach makes for a strong second tank.
Position 3	Deeplurker	2	A very strong card with high damage and decent speed and opportunity to quickly dispose of weaker monsters.
Position 4	Venari Wavesmith	1	A good magic damage dealer with the protect giving the whole team plus 2 armour. Great support.
Position 5	Ice Pixie	1	A cheap magic damage dealer with flying to hold off some attacks from the backline.
Position 6	Furious Chicken	1	A good 0 mana cost backline damage absorber.

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The Result

The team picked away at the enemy tank, Cursed Windeku, whilst Spineback Turtle absorbed 4 attacks and survived the first round whilst Deeplurker took out the enemy Cursed Slimeball.

Round 2 saw both the Spineback Turtle and opposing Cursed Windeku succumb to damage. Flying Squid now took up the mantle as the tank. Whilst in Round 3 the opposing Soul Strangler was disposed of by Deeplurker and Flying Squid held the line against many attacks.

Round 4 had the enemy's second tank, Riftwing, taken care of by Deeplurker. Whilst our Flying Squid fell to Lifesapper. Round 5 and 6 saw the final two opposing monsters taken out by our team and victory declared.

Spineback Turtle was instrumental in holding the line and allowing more mana to be spent on higher damage monsters. It is a must in lower mana battles where you can't afford to spend a lot of mana on expensive tank cards.