How Did 2024 Turn Out?

It's a new edition of Splinterlands Community Engagement Challenge and the theme this week is A Year in Review and a Glimpse Into the Future.

So let's go!

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What was your most memorable battle from the last year? Was it a close call or a dominating victory?

As a casual player, one of my my favourite battles would be this one.

The lineup consists of:

• Helios Matriarch (summoner)
• Djinn Oshannus
• Chaos Dragon
• Redwyrm Dragon
• Larissa Kerato
• Flagulon Reine
• Venari Wavesmith

It's always a joy to be able to use all the powerful cards in my card collection, and because we have different rulesets in play, it's not always possible to field all of them and see them all in action together. So this battle was probably the closest!

Djinn Oshannus at one point was one of the strongest cards in Water lineups and was very feared by opponent.

Chaos Dragon being 14 mana made it extremely difficult to be selected because that meant a huge sacrifice to the mana available to the remaining lineup. However, being a Legendary card, its abilities and damage are second to none.

Redwyrm Dragon is one of the newer cards and I managed to score this card in one of the giveaways. Its best ability is Immunity, but aside from that, its stats are incredibly massive and it's a joy to play this card.

Larissa Kerato and Flagulon Reine are both Legendary Gladius cards - I don't have that many Legendary Gladius cards so it was extremely interesting to see how pairing both these Magic cards would turn out.

Finally, while Venari Wavesmith was the best card to fill to remaining mana, OGs will probably remember the hype over this card in the past. I remembered Venari Wavesmith trading at more than 3 USD last time.

As for the outcome, even though my opponent had many tricky newer cards, they were just no match for my team with more than half of the cards being Legendary. Other than just winning, it was so fun watching the full Magic lineup going all out to deal the damage.

And for that, this is the most memorable battle for 2024 for me.

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What strategies or card combinations worked well for you?

I have done some sharing in some of my earlier posts as well.

One combination would Astral Entity/Venari Marksrat/Pelacor Deceiver lineup, which is just 14 mana. Astral Entity is my favourite summoner and its Resurrect ability allows Martyr from Venari Marksrat to be triggered twice (thrice if the battle ruleset has Rebirth) and it will be sufficient for Pelacor Deceiver to turn into a monster.

Another combination would be pairing Iziar with one or even two healers, such as Sola Ranjell and Venari Crystalsmith. Iziar with Taunt would absorb all the incoming damage and having two healers will allow a recovery of 8 HP per turn. For low to medium battles, it's very difficult for a team to deal 8 damage per turn, especially when Iziar has Void too.

For Melee fights, I personally would be inclined to field Fire lineups because they somehow have very strong Melee cards. Gorth and Chimney Wallstop can easily make a team. If there is Poison, Forgotten One is the card you want in your team. Living Lava used to be one of the cards that people really dislike facing as well. And of course, they have Tarsa which provides another boost to Melee damage.

Final shoutout goes to Water lineups, which I find very versatile in almost any type of scenarios. Djinn Oshannus and Nerissa Tridawn would do well for Magic battles, Kulu Mastermind and Deeplurker are the scary ones with Opportunity hits, and Axemaster is another hard hitter would Double Strike. Even for Little League, cards like Cruel Sethropod and Tide Biter are very strong too.

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What are your goals for the new year? Are you looking to improve your gameplay, expand your card collection, or connect with other players?

Based on this list, it would be to connect with other players for sure! While I don't grind the battles these days, I do enjoy doing the brawls and do keep a look out on what cards suit my gameplay, and I would definitely add them if the opportunity arises.

Astral Entity was one of the more memorable additions, costing 21 USD at that point, but it has brought me many wins since. Well, I could have rented it permanently, but I think the feeling of owning the cards is very different and there is this attachment to the card that cannot be explained in words. Haha.

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How do you plan to achieve your goals? Will you be focusing on specific card combinations, practicing new strategies, or participating in tournaments?

Brawls, brawls and more brawls! Shoutout to the PIZZA 2 guild members - you know who you are (and some of you are reading this post as well!). It's so fun to battle with friends week in week out. And being a casual player, the frequency of brawl is quite optimal because one doesn't need to commit that much time to do the fights once every 5 days.

One small wish I have, is to get a copy of Quora Towershead. After doing 177 brawls and opening 68 Gladius cases, I still haven't managed to get even a single copy. How unbelievable is that? Quora Towershead is a really important especially in brawls, where there's no way to beat her with other combinations.

Other than that, the game is always evolving, so I guess we players will always need to adapt to the changes, be it new rulesets, new cards, new reward systems, etc. It's not easy and can be frustrating at times as well, but ever since I stopped grinding and play it casually, it's quite manageable actually.

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So that's all I have for this week's community engagement challenge, and happy hunting to all Splinterlands players in the coming year!

As always, thanks for reading and have a pleasant day ahead!

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If you are interested to sign up to play Splinterlands, my referral link is here.