Social Media Challenge - Overcoming A Legendary Gladius Unexpectedly

Prelude
Good day to all, hope that all of you are having a good week so far and having many memorable battles in Splinterlands. Compared to previous when we had the Gladius summoners, it is less often we see Gladius card in ranked battles for modern unless the ruleset that allows us to use pops up. And today, I will be doing a light sharing on an interesting match that happened today.

The New Modern
Compared to previous modern where we had the liberty to freely bring in Gladius cards into the lineup due to these fellas:

Now, we can only use Gladius in brawls or in matches with the "Are You Not Entertained" ruleset. I think it is a sigh of relief as you would not want to meet Quora or some of the legendary Gladius cards that often. Today I had a match which had that ruleset so I decided to just try it out with common Gladius but my opponent came with a legendary one.

There are so many Gladius card to choose from and everyone of them have their own strengths and the scary thing is that they will grow with each kill.

So let's see how the match turn out.

Battle Sharing

Reference Battle
Battle Link: https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_f93ac2ba1e93e2fc7e711dea9925c329?ref=vaynard86

Ruleset: Are You Not Entertained, Equalizer
Mana Limit: 26

Selection Analysis
We have only 3 splinters available for selection - Fire, Water and Life. The mana allowed for this match is not alot, only 26 mana for me to squeeze in a lineup and being also able to squeeze in a Gladius card. To also note, with the matchup having equalizer, having low health cards might not be a bad thing.

So here is my selection of the lineup. I've chosen to go with Fithe Bladestone from Dwarf Bloodline. It is great that the summoner give +2 armour for the lineup and void for dwarves and for this match I only had 1 of them that can get the void. Low mana match, definitely go with mana friendly tank Halfling Refugee, 1 mana with a great deal of stats even when it gets exhausted. Next card is Nimbledook Scout which has backfire, rarely would I be using this card due to it having no attack. So to make her useful, I used the next card Moxian Rebel to weapon train her and give her 1 magic attack. This leads me to the next card Moxian Rebel which had been a real good card that was carried over from Rebellion for weapon training which also benefit the next card Krash Wonderford. Krash is a gladius card that give speed boost only at level 1 but with more at higher levels and this card is really fast. Next will be Chaos Evoker with blast and finally Ashen Cindergrim, a dwarf and able to pick out weaker card with opportunity.

On my opponent end, my opponent used Prunda Undervesch which is able to call upon cards from both water and life splinter but unfortunately, I didn't see any from Life Splinter in the lineup. Similar to me, Halfling Refugee is picked to front the lineup with Comander Slade to follow suspected that opponent is preparing a 2nd tank and allow the backline to strike me hard. Slade is hard hitting and can reduce attacks of melee attacker upon landing its hits. Next in line is Thanalorian Scion which has void armour and corrosive void to reduce opponent armour. Finally is the legendary gladius, Flagulon Reine, the 2 magic attacker with blast. Seems like a super upgrade from my Chaos Evoker.

2 very different setup with a very strong lineup picked by my opponent. Let' see how the match went round by round.

Round by Round Synopsis

Round 1 - A very normal first round of exchange with both side pushing all kinds of damage toward both Halfling Refugees. I had the advantage 2 more armour so mine is less damaged.

Round 2 - Krash opened the round with a strike to kill opponent's Halfling Refugee and grew in stats through blood list. Thankfully mine wasn't killed by Flagulon but fell as well and now onto the 2nd card in the lineup. My Explorer vs the towering Slade.

Round 3 - Surprised that Explorer actually took out Slade as we continue to justle and hope my cards can hang on to the advantage built.

Round 4 and 5 - Opponent picked up pace as Flagulon took out explorer and grew to 3 magic attack. 2 more to go and hopefully I can sustain.

Round 6 and 7 - Finally all came down to Krash whom lead the whole team to victory and cleared off Flagulon. Victory secured!

Battle Summary
It's fun to play again with Gladius in ranked battle and see how the complement into today's modern gameplay. While legendaries are strong, careful use of cards to the ruleset will make the match outcome more certain.

Wrap Up
Thank you all for dropping by the post and walking through with me the various strategies and gameplay that I wanted to share with the community so that everyone improve their gameplay. If you have good strategies on how I can even better my selection, do share with me in the comments.

See you next time!

I am currently part of PIZZA, an active gaming and creative arts crypto community on the HIVE blockchain and part of PIZZA guild. Popular cryto games such as SPLINTERLANDS, RISING STAR and HASHKINGS are actively discussed in this community.

Many events are being organized from time to time. Join the PIZZA DISCORD. This is a place filled with 💰🍕🎁GIVEAWAYS & AIRDROPS💰🍕🎁 and most definitely consisting of a friendly community to be in.

Till my next battle sharing, take care, stay safe and happy battling!

If you are keen on playing Splinterlands, feel free to join me via this link: https://next.splinterlands.com/register?ref=vaynard86