Hello Splinterlands summoners and welcome to my blog! Yaba's Pickle started as an inside joke in the Splinterlands community. Pretty soon, it became larger and morphed into a Splinterlands card. It's more than a meme card though, it has an in game utility and if comboed with the right cards, it can even become a valuable member in battles.
"Yabanius, you're playing with your pickle!" - Riklauniman Adrin’eth.
Yaba's Pickle was a long running joke around the game's co-founder 
Rik’s jaw dropped. “What… what is that?”
“It’s a…” Yabanius hesitated. “An experimental construct.”
“An experimental construct.”
“Yes. Yes! For espionage. A stealth… uh… reconnaissance device. To infiltrate the Conclave Arcana’s ranks.”
Rik glanced at the runi, which normally held a large, brined pickle. But its gauntlets were empty. The runi lifted its shoulders in a shrug.
Yabanius leaned forward and carefully set the pickle on the workbench, balancing it upright. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the pickle did an awkward little hop and pirouetted on its end.
Rik stared. “You’re playing with your pickle.”
Yaba's Pickle has no attack of its own. At lower level it can serve as a tank especially in low mana battles. At much higher levels, it will have further utility, debuffing the enemy's speed while it can also gain the ability to heal itself. At maxed level it has decent defense of four armor and seven health. It has abilities against physical attacks such as Dodge and Shield. It has Slow to decrease the enemy's speed and Heal that further increases its survivability.
Yaba's Pickle's primary role is to serve as tank in low mana battles. It can play in the front line or in the back to defend against Sneak attackers. It has abilities like Dodge, Shield and Heal to make it more beefy and increase its survivability. Also, it can slow down the enemy units. Since it has no attack of its own, it can be paired with units that has the Weapons Training ability. Let's check out some battles to see the combo at work.
This is a high level battle between Kalkulus the Proven who has Yaba's Pickle in his team and player MOT4RIO. All the cards used were at their maximum levels. It's a fun battle to watch and we can observe how the cards perform at highest levels. Kalkulus team was headed by tactics archon Cryptic which is a dual splinter archon. He decreases the enemy speed by one and casts Blind on them. He also granted Poison and Expose abilities to two of his units including Yaba's Pickle. His team is composed of the following:
One of the best offensive tanks in the game even though he is only a rare card. He combines high melee damage with excellent defense. His only weakness is his lack of defense against magic attacks.
Jicarilla the Rime is legendary card and perfect to combo with Commander Slade. Among her abilities are Tank Heal which is self explanatory. She also has Phase Ward that grants Commander Slade the ability to dodge magic attacks, removing his weakness against magic.
Night Stalker deals four melee damage and has Burst and Execute abilities. It's another very offense driven card.
The card has no attack but with Weapons Training she now has three magic damage. She can also decrease the enemy's speed.
Daarg Deadblast deals three magic damage. It has Weapons Training that combos well with no attack cards. It also has Swiftness ability that increases the team's speed.
Finally we have Yaba's Pickle in last position. Along with its abilities discussed earlier, It also has Poison to add to its damage.
Kalkulus the Proven's team has great synergy and built for speed. It decreases the enemy's speed with several Slow abilities while increasing its own with Swiftness.
The enemy team is no slouch. It's led by legendary tactics archon Lorkus and also made up of max level units including legendary Oridum Graybrow and Venka the Vile.
Speed wins as Motario's tank was eliminated in the first round even before it had a chance to attack. That set the tone for this battle and eventually won by Kalkulus.
Watch the battle here and see max level cards compete against each other. It's quite fun.
Start your Splinterlands adventure today with my referral. We will both get 500 Credits once you buy a spellbook. If you don't want to spend, you may also play the game for free in the Frontier Mode.
