Why This Underrated Trio 🐉 Is Dominating My Splinterlands Matches

Welcome to another art post here in the community.

As you may have seen in my previous post about Splinterlands: I Finally Tried Splinterlands 🐉 And Here’s What Surprised Me. I'm practically a beginner in the game, although I’ve been digging deep into the community and posts for information. To be able to consistently participate in this week's challenge Splinterlands Community Engagement Challenge: Powerful Combos!, I tried forming a combo using the summoner I was using a lot, but I ended up diving into a different context, to be more specific.

I'm talking about a trio that complements each other really well for me: Portly Cannoneer, Gobalano Soldier, and Night Stalker.

This combo is simple but brutal.
And the best part? It works great for those who are still starting out or climbing the leagues on a tighter budget.

For me, Portly Cannoneer is an underrated card because it’s a ranged attacker with low damage and low speed. It costs 4 mana, has Ranged attack and decent health, and more importantly: the Inspire ability. This means all your melee attack monsters get +1 damage. When this comes into play, your team's Sneaks get an instant upgrade. And in Modern format, we have excellent Sneak options that scale really well with this bonus.

So I move on to the backline damage dealers of my opponent that is, creatures with the Sneak ability are always welcome.

They are:

The first one is my current favorite, Gobalano Soldier. He’s from the Goblin lineage I’m not exactly sure how that works, maybe it has to do with the summoner. He only costs 4 mana, has high speed, Sneak, and thanks to the previous boost, gets +1 melee attack. What helps even more is his Ambush ability, which allows him to attack first every battle.

Then comes Night Stalker, already with the advantage of being dual-element (Death and Fire), costing only 4 mana and having the highest attack on the team. 3 attack points, same speed, and 2 health. And of course, the Sneak ability is present on this creature too.

This duo, with the boost from the Cannoneer, simply melts any healer, summoner, or mage hiding in the back.

This combo stands out because of its low to mid mana cost. Of course, we can’t outpower creatures that cost over 9 mana, even if our combo looks advantageous or interesting. One example is in the screenshots above the enemy has strong backline damage dealers, so we focus on neutralizing those threats in the early turns. Except when there’s a creature with Taunt, it almost ruins our main advantage, which gets a bit frustrating at times.

I believe that in the worst-case scenario, my opponent might use a creature that reduces melee attack specifically in the backline. That, combined with any summoner that reduces melee attack by -1, would probably mean an instant defeat for me.

Well, that hasn’t happened yet.

If you’re playing in Modern format and want a consistent and easy-to-use strategy, I highly recommend testing out this composition with Portly Cannoneer in the center and Sneaks in the backline. It’s a tactic that doesn’t require expensive cards, but can turn the tide if used wisely. Just a reminder, I’m not a pro or high-level player in Splinterlands this is purely my personal game opinion.

But personally, I like this combo because there’s no better feeling than seeing the entire enemy backline dismantled within the first two turns, while your tank hasn’t even taken damage yet. If anyone else is using this combo or has suggestions for similar cards that could fit this style, drop them in the comments.

I’m always tweaking and learning from every match.