Introduction
This lineup focuses on keeping magic damage up while keeping sure that the lineup is hard to break with multiple tanks. With good stats on all of them, this team can handle many threats and has no problem even if there's no abilities allowed.
Commander Slade’s 5 melee damage is very strong especially for a tank that also have high speed, high health and good armor. This allows him to become a threat while still being hard to kill. His damage also scales well with modifiers like Explosive Weaponry, making every blast hit more dangerous.
Enfeeble is Commander Slade’s strongest ability because it directly lowers the enemy’s melee damage every time he attacks. This makes him much harder to take down over time. While the decrease is one damage each round, it's still a strong ability especially when the fight drags on.
Enfeeble: [Stat Modifier] [Negative Status] For each attack that hits, opponent's monster's Melee Damage will be reduced by 1, with a minimum of 1.
Dodge: [Defense] Monsters that attack this card has their maximum hit chance reduced by 25% during that attack.
Deflect: [Support] 0 damage from Corrosive Ward, Magic Reflect, Thorns, Return Fire, and Blast splash damage.
Backfire: [Defense] [Damage] Any monster that attacked this monster and missed gets 2 damage.
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 Briar Patch |
All monsters on the board gains the Thorns ability that inflicts 2 melee damage to monster with melee damage attacking this monster: Commander Slade is not affected by Thorns because of Deflect which lets him attack safely despite the modifier being against melee monsters. This allows him to keep dealing damage without taking extra damage back. |
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 Explosive Weaponry |
All monsters on the board gains the Blast ability that inflicts half the damage to the monsters beside the target: Deflect blocks Blast damage from the opponent's attacks keeping Commander Slade safe from indirect hits. His high melee damage also turns into strong Blast damage against opponent's teams. |
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 Fog of War |
Removes the Snipe, Sneak and Opportuniy abilities for this battle.: When used as a tank enemies are forced to attack Commander Slade directly because Snipe, Sneak and Opportunity abilities will not work in this modifier. This gives Dodge and Backfire more chances to trigger and punish missed attacks. |
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Flank: [Attack Modifier] Melee monsters next to this card gains Reach ability. This monster must be on 1st position to activate this effect. Tips: Flank adds another unit in front of Commander Slade giving him more time to work and deal damage. This makes him harder to remove from play and helps him survive longer. |
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Blind: [Stat Modifier] [Negative Status] As long as this monster is alive, all opponent monsters get Blinded status. Blinded monsters have reduced max hit chance of 15%. Tips: Blind lowers enemy accuracy, which works perfectly with Dodge. More missed attacks also mean Backfire triggers more often. |
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Resurrect: [Stat Modifier] The first time that another friendly monster dies from an attack, immediately restore its health by 1 with max armor. Tips: Resurrect brings Commander Slade back with 1 health but full armor even if he dies. This gives him another chance to tank and deal damage again. |
My usual main strategy for Back to Basics modifier is just use monsters with better stats. It's like fighting in Standard modifier but without abilities. Just make sure that the usual mechanics is always in check like melee monsters cannot attack while not in 1st position, range monsters cannot attack while in 1st position and monsters with magic damage can do whatever they wanted to do.
Lineup
Marlai Singariel
Marlai Singariel boosts magic damage which fits the team well. She helps the backline deal stronger damage while the modifier makes sure they die last.
Commander Slade
Commander Slade works as the main tank with strong armor, health and speed. He also deals high damage while absorbing huge damage even at lower levels.
Ulundin Overseer
Ulundin Overseer acts as a backup tank if Commander Slade falls. His high health and good armor makes him reliable even without abilities.
Abyssal Elemental
Abyssal Elemental provides solid magic damage with good survivability. The extra armor helps him stay alive longer if he needs to act as a backup tank for me.
Great Bear Druid
Great Bear Druid adds more magic damage to the team. I actually have no better monster that can fill the 9 mana gap so I added him here. He still functions good with Marlai Singariel's extra damage boost.
Saltwater Mage
Saltwater Mage deals 2 magic damage that benefits from Marlai’s boost making it 3 magic damage in toral. Sneak is disabled for this battle but her raw damage still helps and makes her a good monster to add.
Shock Trooper
Shock Trooper brings very high 4 base damage to the lineup, 5 if you add Marlai Singariel's extra magic damage boost. The Electrified debilitation is disabled so I can use his high damage without any repercussions.
The opponent and I had a relatively similar amount of damage. I think they would've won if they had Marlai Singariel as their archon but fortunately they didn't. The battle went quite close though but I think they are playing on auto pilot and forgot about the modifier because they put their Shock Trooper in the middle when the safeest placement is on the last since there would be no Sneak or any shenanigans in this battle due to the Back to Basics modifier. Even so I chose this battle as an example to show that almost all players use Commander Slade as one of their tanks just because of how strong and useful he has as long as you can accomodate his relatively high mana cost.
Commander Slade works best as a front fighter tanking the enemy attacks. His abilities reward long fights and punish missed attacks but even without it, he's stats are strong enough to carry. This makes him very reliable in many modifiers.
The rest of the team supports him with magic damage as multiple walls are laid behind him. Together, they all create a balanced and steady lineup. Without any tricks, I would say that this team is very hard to break and lose.
- This post is an entry for Splinterlands Social Media Contest.
- Animated Banners and Dividers are edited in Canva Pro.
- Other sources that I do not own are cited under their respective photos.
- Some of the fonts used are from instafonts.io
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