Another week has passed and it is another week to share my thoughts on one of Splinterlands' units with you!

It is about a neutral unit, this week: "Gem Meteor". I love to write on units I do not currently own and love to take this as an awesome occasion to rent them units for testing purposes! So I did!

I still focus on bcx1-units, unleveled monsters
BUT I feel like this is going to change. Why? -Probably initiated by a lot of current changes, how I once described Silver League "you encounter unleveled bcx1 monsters there, for the most part" holds no longer any truth. When I tested the Gem Meteor I barely encountered any bcx1-setups. Furthermore and due to rising competition this week I upgraded my first summoner! YAY! $1.50 * 5 = $7.50 and that was the cheap first upgrade... nooot so nice! :/

So what follows now is my look at Gem Meteor's stats:
-First thought (+): 5 health that is quite good for a ranged attack monster! With this stat it will be able to take some hits.
-Second thought (o): 4 intiative is decent.
-Third thought (-): Only 1 ranged attack...
-Fourth thought (o): Scattershot... there are different opinions on this ability.
-Fifth thought: (-): Epic rarity so availability is not a given thing...

This week's battle of mine is this one:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_9810182e990bcf04e273f57e054ba3f0&ref=jdike

Hard facts: 56 mana cap, Modern format, Rulesets: Back to Basics

Further disclaimer: Although I tried to make uses of Gem Meteor in about 2 dozens of matches I was unable to. That is why I took a different approach in this battle and chose all of my 5-point-ranged-attack-units for a comparison.

So after seeing the lineup... my opponent was obviously stronger.
But that is not what I was here for.

Round 2 started for me with the loss of my main tank, but still my 5-mana-ranged units were all rather healthy.

However they were able to take down Diemonshark at the end of Round 2 - unfortunately my Silvershield Sheriff was taken down in this round, as well. Thus my 5-mana-ranged-unit-comparison found an early end. Without any big effect... :(

I think you already got an idea that this battle ended with a loss of mine...

So... as I wrote: I rented a Gem Meteor to test this unit.
-I am glad I did. First why unit-testing is always really fun to me. Second is I will not buy this unit.
I learned that Scattershot is a nice ability to have, but honestly with 1 ranged attack it is not worth it for me.

And what about the point of mine in showing you this battle? In other words what about my unit comparison?
As a personal conclusion I would say that Goblin Chariot and Chain Spinner with their ranged attack of 2 got some leverage by using General Sloan. To me they might be worth using! As for Rune Slinger and Gem Meteor I do not know. If you asked me which one is better I would say it comes down which ability you prefer. I can also personally think of better use-cases for Gem Meteor as it is not faction bound.

All in all and only for me personally I did not find reasons to use Gem Meteor is Splinterlands.

However, I personally hope next week a nicer monster will be featured!

If you happen to not have signed up for Splinterlands, yet feel free to use my sign-up link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=jdike