GRIM REAPER: Market, Battle Strategy and Considerations

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Written by

libertycrypto27

I love the philosophy behind blockchains and I dream of a decentralized world.

3 years ago

Topics: NFT, Splinterlands, Games, Blockchain games, Hive games, ...

Character image and logo image owned by @splinterlands - Edit by @libertycrypto27- Font used is Open Source

Hello friends of Read.Cash and Splinterlands players,

Every week the Splinterlands game account on Hive organizes contests for its players.

Each participant is rewarded with a maximum of two upvotes per week and the value of the upvotes depends on the effort that each participant puts into writing posts to participate in the contests.

I really enjoy participating in Splinterlands contests and the Share your Battle contest, besides being fun, allows me to learn more about some cards.

The protagonist of this post is the Grim Reaper card which is also the protagonist of the Splinterlands contest entitled "Share Your Battle" this week.

The topics I'll be covering in this post are as follows.

Topics

- Card: Grim Reaper

- Description, Stats, and Abilities.

- Cost, Levels, and Ratings

- Levels considerations

- My battle with Grim Reaper

- My battle formation.

- Battle Considerations

- Final considerations on Grim Reaper

Description, Stats, and Abilities

Grim Reaper is a card that is part of the collection: Reward.

It's a Rare card and is a card of the element Death.

Grim Reaper of level 1 has the following statistics:

- It has a medium mana cost (6).

- It has 3 ranged attack points

- Has 3 life points and has no armor points.

- It has a speed of low value (2).

- Level 1 Grim Reaper has an ability: Affliction.

The Affliction ability allows Grim Reaper to have a chance to "poison" the opponent's card, which will have a life point reduction (-2) each round of the battle.

When it reaches level 5 it acquires the Oppress ability that allows it to inflict a double attack on cards that have no attack points such as the Lord Arianthus card or the Geatinous Cube card.

When it reaches level 8 (maximum level) it acquires its third and last ability: Piercing.

The Piercing ability allows Grim Reaper to simultaneously decrease the life points of the card that is being attacked if the armor points are less than the attack points.

Cost, Levels, and Considerations

In the Splinterlands game, each card has a Regular version, which is cheaper, and a Gold version that is more expensive because it is rarer.

The lowest cost of Grim Reaper (Level 1) - Gold Version on the market is $1.90 (Feb. 16, 2021)

In the following image you can see the complete statistics

The lowest cost of Grim Reaper (Level 1) - Regular Version on the market is $0.043 (February 16, 2021)

In the following image you can see the complete statistics

Considerations about levels

Level 3

Level 3 is the first interesting level to upgrade Grim Reaper to because it increases the attack points of a unit (3->4) compared to levels 1 and 2 and, compared to level 1, it increases the life points of a unit.

To reach level 3 you need:

- 14 cards to combine and the total cost is $0.602.

- 2 cards to combine for the gold version and the total cost is 3.80 $.

Level 5

Level 5 is the level that, in my opinion, has the best benefit/price ratio!

When Grim Reaper reaches level 5 it acquires the Oppress ability and, compared to level 3, increases speed points by one unit (2->3).

To reach level 5 you need:

- 7 cards to combine for the gold version and the best price on the market is $13.3.

- 40 cards to combine for the regular version and the best price on the market is 1.72 $.

Max level (Level 8)

To reach the maximum level (the 8th) you need:

- 115 cards to combine for the regular version and the total cost is 4.94 $.

- 22 cards to combine for the Gold edition and the best price on the market is 43.00 $.

The cost for level 8 of Grim Reaper in the regular version is not excessive, but the choice of upgrading a card over another must always be taken into consideration the abilities of your summoners and that's why I, for example, I chose to upgrade Grim Reaper only to level 3 for the moment.

Now let's see how Grim Reaper behaves on the Battlefield.

A battle of mine with Grim Reaper

If you want to see the battle you can do so from this link: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=e169be476d8963d8ad2d652502eafda24b43d9a8&ref=libertycrypto27

In the battle of this post I had the following conditions to respect:

- Equalizer: All cards deployed in battle acquire the life points of the card (friend or foe) that has the most life points.

- Mana Cap: 50.

- Useable Summoners: Only summoners of the elements can be used: Fire, Death, Life and Earth.

My Battle Formation

The maximum number of cards that can be deployed in battle is 7 ( 1 summoner + 6 monsters)

I chose to deploy 6 cards (in order of position):

Goblin Mech - Dark Enchantress - Screaming Banshee - Ancient Lich - Tortisian Chief - Grim Reaper

Jarlax The Undead (Summoner)

I chose this battle because the combat rule is "Equalizer" which is one of the combat rules favorable to using the Grim Reaper card.

In fact, the weakness of Grim Reaper is that it has low life points and the Equalizer rule removes this weakness.

First Position: I deployed Goblin Mech (level 6) in first position because it has a good attack, has 6 armor points and provides good protection to cards from second position onwards.

When the battle rule is Equalizer I try to field cards that have a good number of armor points because combined with the probable increase of life points due to the equalizer rule it will increase the defensive strength of my cards.

Second position: in second position I have deployed Dark Enchantress (level 4): a card that I like a lot for the good magic attack (3) and for the Stun ability that allows you to have a chance to inhibit for a turn the attack of the card hit by one of its attacks.

Third Position: For the third position, I chose the card Screaming Banshee (level 4).

Screaming Banshee has a good magic attack (2) and has a very good ability (Blast) but it has low life points and in this battle it is not a problem because it gains 12 life points.

Fourth position: In fourth position I deployed the legendary card Ancient Lich which has a very good magic attack and has a very useful ability (Life Leech) which increases Ancient Lich's life points for each attack completed.

Fifth Position: In the fifth position I deployed Tortisian Chief (Level 4).

This is a very useful card that I recently bought and upgraded.

It is the only neutral card that has the Tank Heal ability.

Thanks to Tortisian Chief's Tank Heal ability, my Goblin Mech is more probable to resist attacks from opposing cards.

Sixth position: In the last position I deployed Grim Reaper (level 3) that being the only ranged card in my battle formation it is almost always a must to deploy it in the last position because if it comes in the first position it will lose the ability to attack.

As summoner I chose Jarlax The Undead (level 4) because it is the summoner of the element of death that allows me to deploy cards of higher level.

Battle Considerations

Usually for the Share Your Battle contest I choose balanced battles, but in this case I chose a battle where I start at a disadvantage to show how beautiful is a game like Splinterlands in which the player who starts with an advantage is not always able to win.

In fact I have a double initial disadvantage:

- I have a total of life + armor points lower than my opponent (78 vs 86)

- I have a lower total attack points than my opponent (14 vs 21).

I accumulate this double disadvantage because the Demoralize ability of the opponent's PitOgre card reduces the attack of my Goblin Mech and in particular the opponent's Lord of Fire card with its two abilities decreases the magic attack of my cards by one unit and at the same time increases the life points of my opponent's cards by one point.

From a strategic point of view, my opponent has a balanced formation: 2 magic attack cards, 2 ranged attack cards and 2 melee attack cards.

I decide to bet on cards with magic attack: 4 cards with magic attack, 1 card with ranged attack and 1 card with melee attack.

During Round 1 no card is eliminated even if at the beginning of Round 2 my Goblin Mech has only 4 life points.

During Round 2 my Goblin Mech is eliminated and Dark Enchantress comes in first place.

At the start of Round 3 I have one less card than my opponent but I have reduced my disadvantage relative to total life points plus armor points (-3).

When the combat rule is Equalizer, battles can last many rounds....

At the beginning of Round 6 my opponent is always ahead in life points and attack points, but Tortisian Chief's Tank Heal ability allows me to withstand my opponent's increased attack power.

At the start of Round 8 the total cards in play are 6 (3 mine and 3 my opponent's).

My opponent has 8 total attack points versus my 7 points.

My opponent has 36 life points + 1 armor point while I have 26 total life points.

My opponent still seems to have the advantage but that's not the case....

The abilities of Ancient Lich and Tortisian Chief shift the advantage to my side.

In fact, my Ancient Lich card has the ability to recover one life point per round (Life Leech ability) and it also recovers +6 life points thanks to Tortisian Chief's Tank Heal ability.

In addition, my opponent has 2 ranged attack cards in second and third position that when they get to first position will lose the ability to attack.

In fact during Round 10 Ettin Spearman arrives in first position and he cannot attack from first position and at this point the outcome of the battle is decided in my favour.

The battle ends in the third turn of Round 14 with my victory.

The Grim Reaper card was very useful in the battle, but the cards that determined the victory were mainly the Ancient Lich and Tortisian Chief cards.

Ancient Lich starts the battle with 12 points and ends the battle with 25 points.

The Tank Heal and Life Leech abilities are abilities that become much more useful when fielded in the same battle.

Final Considerations on Grim Reaper

Grim Reaper is a useful card that has good abilities and is mostly a relatively cheap card,.

I currently have Grim Reaper level 3 in my deck but plan to upgrade it to level 5 which I think is the level that has the best benefit/price ratio.

In advanced leagues (Diamond and Champion) it is easy to find yourself in battle against very strong, unattached cards like Lord Arianthus and it is in these battles that the Oppress ability of Grim Reaper level 5 can be important and useful to win a battle.

In my point of view, the battle utility of the Grim Reaper card increases when the battle rules are:

- Equalizer

- Close Range

- Armored Up

- Aim true

- Rise of the commons

- Keep Your Distance

- Lost Magic

With this post I participate in the weekly Splinterlands contest entitled "Share Your Battle".

Haven't you registered on Splinterlands yet?

You are missing out on a more unique than rare opportunity to enjoy yourself and at the same time to earn tokens and cards.

Splinterlands is a beautiful game but it is above all an excellent investment (my personal opinion) especially if you regularly participate in the weekly contests organized by the @splinterlands account.

If you are not yet registered on Splinterlands and have decided to register, you can do it from this link:

https://splinterlands.com?ref=libertycrypto27

obviously if you like to use my refferal link ...

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