Someone Call an Exterminator - "Using" Crypt Beetle in Battle!

This week's Share Your Battle challenge features Crypt Beetle! This is one of the free to use cards in the starter set, which is great, because Crypt Beetle is not a card that I use very often and not one that I particularly feel like spending some of my hard earned crypto to rent. In fact, saying that I'm not a fan of Crypt Beetle would be an understatement. I dislike Crypt Beetle, and I don't particularly like the Death splinter either.

Therefore, for my Share your Battle challenge this week I am departing a little from my usual plan of sharing a battle where the challenge card plays a prominent role that displays its best side. Instead, I am going to show a battle where I didn't even pick a Death summoner, that darn Crypt Beetle gets immediately killed with poison, and I manage to pull off the win anyway. Take that, Crypt Beetle!

If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!

First up: the ruleset. This was an excellent ruleset for me to use Crypt Beetle. Poison is a great way to deal with insects, and Crypt Beetle is, well.... your typical insect. There was also a relatively high mana cap, which gave me plenty of space to build a lineup to try and win the battle once Crypt Beetle bit the dust.

As previously mentioned in the introduction, I'm not the biggest fan of the Death splinter, though I do use it from time to time. For this week's challenge I felt like using a Dragon summoner, so I went with Drake of Arnak to change things up a bit. I am planning on going with a Thorns strategy, and the extra armor will be helpful in making my monsters a little tankier in order to dish out more counterhit damage.

I started my team with my tank and the sacrificial insect of the week. Cursed Windeku's job was to sit at the front and soak up damage, while dealing back some counter Thorns damage and hopefully getting to hit back a bit. Crypt Beetle's job was to get poisoned and die. Ideally, rather quickly - I don't want it being able to take any credit whatsoever on the off-chance that I manage to win this battle.

The middle of my lineup had a couple of the more important supporting monsters of my lineup. Disintegrator was guaranteed to have a big impact, because of the Up Close & Personal ruleset - melee monsters only! This was especially important because since my opponent's monsters hit for less damage, that means that they'll take even more Thorns damage before being able to knock out any of my monsters. Silent Sha-Vi is able to hit while sitting in the middle of my lineup, and will hopefully do some work on my opponent's back line.

The back end of my team has another important monster in Djinn Chwala. This gave me thorns on the front AND on the back end of my team, and increased my chances of being able to dish out heavy Thorns damage. I had an extra mana left afterwards so I threw Carrion Shade in there for filler, and for a potential 10% bonus DEC in the case of a victory.

With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am hopeful - as was required by the ruleset, my opponent has gone with a melee lineup. My Djinn Chwala is well positioned to block their Sneaky Tenyii Striker, and my filler monsters are well positioned to soak up Opportunity damage. The Living Lava at the front may turn out to be an issue though - combined with the enemy Disintegrator, it is going to be a tough nut to crack.

round 1.png

Just two rounds in and the field clears out very quickly, as is to be expected in the Poison ruleset. My poison-the-beetle strategy works out perfectly and Crypt Beetle quickly dies at the end of the first round, along with my Carrion Shade and the enemy Serpentine Spy. As you can see in this picture, Sha-Vi and Tenyii Striker are not far behind and are about to die to poison as well.

round 3.png

It took two more rounds, and my team's Thorns damage ended up to be just enough (combined with the poison) to take out my opponent's lineup. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.

round 5.png

My plan for this battle played out to perfection. I poisoned Crypt Beetle like the insect it is, and it died without getting off a single hit. With the bug out of the way, my team's Thorns damage was able to pull off the victory with a single hit point to spare - the perfect photo finish. It wasn't a pretty battle, but it WAS rather exciting!

As mentioned at the start, I do not (DO NOT!) like Crypt Beetle. It was, however, fun finding a battle where I could kill it off and have it do absolutely nothing useful. While my Death splinter deck could admittedly use a little bit of investment in the near future, I think it is safe to say that Crypt Beetle will not be one of the cards I will (willingly) be adding to my collection.

Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:

Splinterlands Economics: Loss Aversion - An introduction to loss aversion, and how being aware of it can help us in Splinterlands.
Let's Do the Time Warp Again - Using Time Mage in Battle! - Last week's battle challenge, featuring Time Mage!
Splinterlands Economics: Asymmetric Information - An introduction to asymmetric information, and how being aware of it can help us in Splinterlands.

Thinking about giving Splinterlands a try but haven't signed up yet? Feel free to use my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=bteim, and be sure to reach out to me if you have any questions!

All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.