I've recently come back to Splinterlands after a long hiatus, and was happy to see this week's battle monster in death, my favorite splinter. This week it was Life Sapper, a small monster that happens to have life leech - becoming a bigger tank as the battle goes on.
I'm currently working my way up the ranks, and just made it back into Silver today. So I'm fighting in relatively low ranks with low leveled cards.
Turn 0
The ruleset for this fight was Lost Legendaries and Close Range. I chose death with Cursed Windeku as my front line, with some damage behind that. I put life sapper immediately behind my windeku in case it died, so that the lifesapper would have some health to chew through.
My opponent had very similar thoughts. The only difference between teams is my sniping death elemental to his soul strangler. In terms of positioning, his strangler in the back is weak and unprotected, and my sha-vi will eat it turn 1.
Turn 1
Turn 1 was decisive. My snipe + the health decrease from Thaddeus killed the enemy lifesapper right away and sha-vi indeed killed the strangler right away.
Turn 2
Turn 2 ended it. My fast cards took care of his before he could really react, and I won without losing a card. So having a slight order and team difference led to a HUGE difference in the final result.
What I'd change
If I did this fight again, I'd probably shift the positions of lifesapper and death elemental. Lifesapper next to sha-vi would let him eat a hit or two before the death elemental (a stronger offensive monster) started getting hit. If windeku dies, it's pretty much over, so having the lifesapper behind it would just prolong my suffering if the windeku died.
Other than that, I love mirror matches as you can see really well how much small changes to a starting lineup can make huge differences by the end (especially when RNG isn't a huge factor in that).
See my battle here
Link to battle: https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_1d8c910aa256b94bb07bbf0474653f14
Thanks for sharing! - @alokkumar121
