Splinterlands - Skills VS Money [ Weekly Challenge Entry ]

last week i made a post about SKILLS vs MONEY invested in Splinterlands as my entry in the weekly Social Media challenge
this week i will submit one more battle of mine where it is more than obvious that some times SKILLS do prevail over MONEY

a few weeks ago we had this huge change in Splinterlands Battling Rewards System in which the player will get rewards according to its monters' lvl depending on the league he/she is fighting
a difficult proposal from the administration, we had many complaints and i was one of those who were supporting the fact that a player with a weaker deck must be awarded when he wins a player with a stronger deck and not get actually punished by diminishing his rewards
not that the rewards are my point of playing -no not at all - but when the conversation comes to that point i feel like i have to defend and support - SKILLS -

in the battle i'm going to display below you will see and i will explain the strategy behind the battle
the strategy that makes money look weak
but please do not misunderstand my words, i will never say that an upgraded deck is useless
it is true that even when you don't have skills, an upgraded deck will help you climb the ladder of success cause simply the monsters become stronger as you 'feed' them and they grow big
what i really want to show everybody is just that even if you are not willing to invest much money in the game it DOES NOT mean that you cannot fight and win against stronger opponents

but lets try to get to the battle

you can click this link to watch the fight

do you see the little guy down in the right corner??
yes this is me guys..i was fighting this battle with a lvl 4 Delwyn which price at the market today is $42.76
on the other side my opponent with a lvl 5 most probably beta edition Arlic Stormbringer was ready to crush me..this summoner costs at least $200
not even in my best dreams i could afford a summoner like this but anyway you cannot change the facts
i was pretty sure that my opponent would go with Arlic as at his latest battles he was choosing this one
i also checked on him and i saw that his deck is extremely strong so i had to organize a strategy against this opponent
when i get his kind of challenges i like it very much, when i try to 'read' my opponent and get to his team i believe is one of the best points of the game
anyway as i told you i was trying to figure out how i could survive this battle against such a strong opponent
i was a bit lucky cause the MANA cap was 60 points so i was free to get my legendary monsters
the first thing in my mind was to slow my opponent but i didn't want to use CREEPING OOZE and just throw away a spot on my battle field...i wanted something more powerful..DIAMOND DRAGON was the monster i wanted
i also got the CHAOS DRAGON as a tank and my GOLD FOIL OSHANNUS just after him in the second place to absorb the magic attack from the rival's monsters

there was a catch in this battle though and it was one of the rules, EXPLOSIVE WEAPONRY, giving the blast ability to every single monster
to be honest this rule gave me the victory and this rule was the tricky one, which most probably my opponent underestimate

i also recruit the Rift Watcher WATER CALLER and the MEDUSA cause believe me guys.. their STUN ability is pure gold!
the other monster NERISSA was the best i could think in order to get the best team ready

before we go further lets see the total price of my deck

• lvl 2 Chaos Dragon - $19.14
• lvl 2 Gold Foil Djinn Oshannus - $23.95
• lvl 2 Gold Foil Nerissa Tridawn - $11.37
• lvl 3 Gold Foil Medusa - $47.50
• lvl 3 Gold Foil Water Caller - $8.28
• lvl 1 Diamond Dragon - $13.50

if you do the math , the total price of this deck is about $123.74

on the other hand if we try to estimate the price of the other player's deck we will a totally different number

• lvl 3 Lord Arianthus - $200
• lvl 5 Medusa - $28
• lvl 6 Gold Foil BETA Crustacean King - $101
• lvl 3 Ruler of the Seas - $164
• lvl 6 Gold Foil Sea Genie - $34
• lvl 3 The Kraken - $148

we are talking about $675 a number which is great higher than the $123.74 that i paid for my deck

how a a more expensive ,more powerful deck lost against my weaker one is not a mystery
he didn't even lose , he got destroyed...i lost only one monster against his entire team
the main problem on his structure i believe came from his decision to position The Kraken at the end of the queue..
in this way Arianthus in the first place with the Magic Reflect ability became useless while the Kraken was getting all my attack with its Taunt ability...by doing this a lot of damaged caused to his back line monsters as the game granted us with Explosive Weaponry rule
another thing didn't go well with his team was that his Medusa was preventing with the Stun ability my first in line monster to hit Arianthus, but this worked in my favor

anyway i don't have much more to say, the battle speaks of itself
this is a clear example of how things can go bad when you think just by having upgraded your deck you can win the game
SKILLS are of a great importance and i really want some day the administration team to come up with some plan about rewarding some way SKILLS on the game, i cannot think how this can be done but i'm sure the creative development team can find a way!

till that day comes never forget
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