Hello Splinterlands summoners and welcome back to my blog! One of the new Escalation cards I've been using often is the Living Berm. It's a ten mana, common Earth card with the Decoy ability. I upgraded my Living Berm to level four and planning to upgrade it to five to get another powerful ability.

---

Lore

Living Berms are defensive structures made from Earth elementals. They self destruct when get defeated and do damage to the enemies.

Living berms are earth elementals that surge from the ground as walls of packed soil and stone. They stand four or five meters tall and flow like collapsing embankments, reforming as they move.

When enemies close in, the berm erupts. Chunks of earth tear free and rocks break loose to hurtle at close range. The berm is the choke point. To get past, you have to get close.

---

Stats and Abilities

Living Berm does five range damage at maxed level. It also has five speed, six armor and seven health. It has three abilities that complement each other well. Decoy is like Taunt but works only on units with Sneak, Opportunity and Apex Strike abilities. It also has Thorns that returns melee damage to the enemy. Finally, it has Poison Burst that damages the enemy once it gets defeated.

My Living Berm is at level four that has great stats for a common card. I plan to level it up to five to get the Thorns ability that will effectively counter any enemy melee unit that it draws to attack.

---

Rulesets and Combos

Because of its abilities, the Living Berm is a great unit in Equal Opportunity or Super Sneak rulesets. Its abilities complement each other to effectively counter enemy melee units with Sneak and Opportunity abilities. With its high stats, its a great unit in Going the Distance rulesets where only ranged units are allowed.

The Living Berm is a good back line damage dealer and can combo with any strong tank and damage dealers. Its stats and abilities have good synergy to take its role as a Taunt unit, drawing attacks from the enemy while keeping the tank and other damage dealers from alive in battle.

---

Featured Battle

The featured battle had the Equal Opportunity ruleset. I saw that my enemy frequently used the Water magic team so I planned to counter it with the Earth team that decreases magic attacks. It's also a good chance to use the Living Berm. My team had Kaylia Silverleaf archon. I recently upgraded her to level four, unlocking the power of my units. The team was composed of the following.

I had a dual tank combo of Doomshield Warden and Warborn Chieftain in the tank position. Next is Thanalorian Blade, her Lookout ability means that adjacent units takes one less damage from units with Sneak, Snipe and Opportunity abilities. It's a crucial ability in this ruleset. Next is my magic nuker, Forlorn Geomant with five magic damage. In fifth position is the Living Berm. Lastly, I had a Taunt unit Silverleaf Mage. Taunt takes precedence over Decoy when drawing enemy attacks.

The enemy used a magic team as I anticipated. They hit the Silverleaf Mage first then the Living Berm. Meanwhile my tanks and other damage dealers did their job decimating the enemy. Soon it was just a single enemy against four of mine and victory followed.

Link

---

Come Play Splinterlands!

Start your Splinterlands adventure today with my referral. You can play the game for free in the Frontier Mode or take your game to the next level by purchasing a spellbook. Buying a spellbook allows you to earn SPS tokens and use the market to sell in game assets. Also, we will both get 500 Credits which can be used top purchase cards once you buy a spellbook.