Every Season of Splinterlands Starts and Ends in a Mad Dash for Rating and Power

• As we near the end of this specific end of Splinterlands, my 5th season in the game, I have grown more comfortable with its bi-monthly cycle. To be honest, I am far from being an expert or veteran but I have noticed a few things and that is that every bi-monthly starts and ends in ...
  

• Not to say that this specific chaos is bad because honestly it's not. The wild craziness of quickly-increasing rental prices and onslaught of more and more difficult opponents provides two things: the chance to make a lot of DEC quick if you have the right cards, and the opportunity to test your new and old cards and strategies against the game's highly skilled players. This chaos provides an opening not for players to fall but all of us to rise. The treacherous Little Finger from HBO's Game of Thrones says it best:
  

• After every season ends and people have opened up their hopefully many, many loot chests -- all players Power will drop immediately or soon due to rentals running out, and all of our Ratings will decreased as well. I'm not sure what the exact rule is but personally I will probably be moved back to 700 if I end the season in Silver 2. If not, I will be sent back to a Rating of 500.
  
  
  
  (Hopefully, Silver 2 lol because that'd be an improvement from last season)

• And then since all of us will be sent back to lower Ratings, the stampede to battle and regain our previous Rating levels or higher will commence!
  
  

• In anticipation of this, I've rented probably my largest amount of cards to hopefully give me a bit of an edge when I get sent back to Bronze 1 (or Bronze 2).

• Here are the rentals I chose:
  
  (Elemental Phoenix, Yodin Zaku, Caladuum, Ruler of the Seas, Poseidon, Minotaur Warlord, Oaken Behemoth, Air Elemental, The Peakrider, High Priest Darius ...)
  
  ( ... Screaming Banshee, Soulstorm, Mimosa Nightshade, Daria Dragonscale, Gloridax Guardian, Magi Sphinx, and Halfling Alchemist!)

• Here's a closer look at them:
  
  Monster - Elemental Phoenix - Flying ability increases its chances to dodge enemy melee and range attacks. I chose this card because I like using magic monsters and phoenix has an impressive amount of both Speed and Health.
  
  Summoner - Yodin Zaku - Increases all friendly monsters ranged damage, health, and gives all friendly attackers the Blast ability. Why did I pick Yodin Zaku? Three words. Blast. For. Everyone.
  
  Monster - Caladuum - Void ability decreases enemy magic damage toward this monster. I chose Caladuum because I like magic and know his Armor, high Health, and low Speed will make him a menace in the Reverse Speed ruleset.
  
  Monster - Ruler of the Seas - Blast ability does reduced spillover damage to enemies next to the enemy it attacks. I chose this monster because this sends extra Magic damage straight past Armor to adjacent enemy Health. The only downside here is that Magic-Reflect can result in this Water Splinter powerhouse killing itself with its own attack. Don't believe me? Check out my Hive Blog episodes for Rotwell's Reflect where I show battles of my magic-reflect teams making enemy magic teams defeat themselves.
  
  Monster - Poseidon - Shield ability reduces enemy melee and ranged attacks toward this monster. I think he looks like a super cool card and that he's a slightly sturdier but slower version of Earth Splinter's Mitica Headhunter.
  
  Monster - Minotaur Warlord - Magic Reflect ability returns reduced magic damage back at magic enemies that attack this monster. Combining this card with Unicorn Mustang's Void ability, along with Mushroom Seer's Silence ability, creates quite the magic-destroying trio (Sporcerer does a good job getting rid of shields too).
  
  Monster - Oaken Behemoth - Reach & Void Armor ability which allows it to attack from second position and causes enemy magic damage to hit its Armor first. This card is incredible and only hampered by it average Speed and tremendously expensive Mana cost.
  
  Monster - Air Elemental - This monster has 6 Speed so I'd be surprised to see who can actually hit him in battles where Magic isn't allowed. Not the best Health but enemies can't damage what they can't hit.
  
  Summoner - The Peakrider - Decreases enemy ranged attacks and gives all friendly monsters 3 Armor points. I haven't used this card before but I imagine that he's a pretty good counter to spillover melee/range damaged from enemies using Yodin Zaku.
  
  Monster - High Priest Darius - Resurrect ability brings back one defeated friendly monster once. Coupled with a few healers, I plan to use this guy to trap my enemies into having to kill a tank not just once -- but twice.
  
  Monster - Screaming Banshee - While she doesn't have the best Speed or Health or useful starting ability, I hope to include this mana-cheap magic card in an Equalizer ruleset battle and increase her Magic damage, with Dragon Splinter's Delwyn Dragonscale, from 2 to 3!
  
  Monster - Soulstorm - Flying ability increases its chance to dodge melee and ranged attacks. This nightmarish-looking card has an impressive Speed of 5 and does 3 Ranged damage. Despite the low health, I suspect in battles without magic it'll be a pretty difficult monster to land a hit on.
  
  Summoner - Mimosa Nightshade - Decrease all enemy ranged attacks, gives all friendly monsters Void ability which reduces Magic damage, and gives them all the chance to inflict anti-healing Affliction on enemy monsters. Her and Owster Rotwell are my favorite Death Splinter summoners. They both handle enemy magic in different ways but I hope to use her to take down some pesky self-healers if they emerge in any of my upcoming battles in the next few days.
  
  Summoner - Daria Dragonscale - Increases all friendly melee monsters attack by 1. I'm always surprised that this is Delwyn Dragonscale's brother but sometimes siblings can be very different, almost opposites. I've seen this card used to combine heavy hitting melee monsters from Fire and Death with Dragon Splinter's Djinn Chwala, Gloridax Guardian, nd Robo Dragon Knight to devastating effect. I hope to recreate that in the coming days.
  
  Monster - Gloridax Guardian - Reach ability allow this monster to attack from 2nd position. Guardian has decent Melee damage, Armor, and Health for a 6 Mana card, and I plan to combine him with Daria and other Dragon Splinter characters.
  
  Monster - Magi Sphinx - I've been wanting to use this card for a long time. For a 5 Mana monster, she has a pretty good Magic damage, Speed, and Health which can be coupled with any Splinter's magic team -- plus she's pretty awesome-looking.
  
  Monster - Halfling Alchemist - Halving ability cuts an enemy monsters attack in half (5 or 4 to 2, 3 or 2 to 1). I imagine this card will make severely weaken any enemy in a Reverse Speed ruleset due to this valuable and unique ability. I don't think anyone else has Halving.

• As you can see, I've rented for myself quite the army of cards and plan to use them to greatest effect against my opponents in this new upcoming season. I will include in an later post which cards seemed the most useful but I'm pretty confident all of these are super good cards which wil just require strategic placement to dominate enemy monsters.
  

• All right, well, until next time ... good night, fellow Splinterlands fans!
  

• Also if you're new to blockchain gaming but would like to start your journey with the amazing experience of Splinterlands, here's my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=thedarking51
  

Image Sources: Splinterlands webiste, GIPHY website, and thanks to @saviib for the awesome @shortshots sign-off logo below

(@shortsegments, @saviib, and myself started a Splinterlands guild --- The Black Bulls! Check us out! We are open for new members! Let's battle and grow together!)