This post was made as entry for Splinterlands Community Engagement Challenge
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Foundation cards are very different than other elements in the past and have a different playstyle if you play it in Frontier Mode. For now, let's understand each element then review how I fight.
Death is the element of control. It has the strongest defense among the Foundation cards because of Nim Guard Captain, the only unit that has Void ability. The Death element also has Sorrow Harvester, a 2 magic unit with Weaken ability. It is currently the most balanced element to go against any team.
Life is the element of sustain. It has an archon that gives armor to all friendly units. It's a good team when the rule sets does not allow you to use magic attacks or discourages from doing so. They have good damage and decent health units filled with armor which is good against melee and range attackers. Keep that in mind when situation arises.
Earth is the element of vigor. While it is not the usual magic spam, the units of the Earth element usually has good health and is good for long matches. If you're in battles where survival is key, Earth element can give you the way.
Water is the element of magic. While limited in numbers, their magic attacks surpass anyone. Make sure to be prepared with your defenses and health when going up against this element. Deal with them with speed or abilities like Void.
Fire is the element of speed. Their archon gives you speed for quick kills. Fire element also have the strongest melee units and along with good speed, their attacks rarely miss.
Dragon is the element of change. Dragons can be flexible and can be combined with other elements to form a better team. There's no dragon archon in the foundation cards so they cannot be used but if there will be released in the future, it will surely be strong.
Neutral is the element of focus. Only neutral element has the Taunt ability that can boost your team's defenses. New Beluroc Aegis can buy time and take the heat off your team until they are ready. A true powerhouse for any element.
"It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it become rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements and the other nations, will help you become whole." - Uncle Iroh, the Dragon of the West.
https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_7e288930b8b8bca4d62853008b4b86f7?ref=mavis-muggletum
Rule Sets: Healed Out, Equalizer
Strategy:
There's Healed Out rule set which prevents healing and Equalizer increasing unit's health. High damage units are preferred here. I was expecting the enemy to use Water Element and focus on magic attacks so I did a counter with Death Element and Nim Guard Captain. Fortunately, even though the enemy player used Death, they still focused on some magic attacks so my Nim Guard Captain wasn't completely useless. In fact, I think he's the reason why I won this battle.
Summary:
Initially, my enemy has the advantage but Nim Guard Captain and Sorrow Harvester gave me the advantage. Nim Guard Captain's Void decreased the magic attacks and since Enemy's Little Sister Unit was not able to deal any damage to Nim Guard Captain's health, the life steal also did not activate and she was not able to gain health unlike mine. These small advantages are the reason I got the win.
https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_c469be95168ff861ec8a0245792f210b?ref=mavis-muggletum
Rule Sets: Weak Magic, Fog of War
Strategy:
When there's Weak Magic rule set, I always use Incessant Sage archon. This gives my units an extra defense against magic attacks with his extra armor to my team. While my enemy did not use any magic attacks here, this strategy proved to be strong and consistent for me.
Summary:
Especially for new players, avoid using range units especially if there's not a lot of units to form a wall in front of it. In my enemy's lineup, if Dread Tafarian falls, I will ahve quick access to their back line and they cannot stop me anymore since range units cannot attack while in the front.
https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_178e9d195951d3f744fb877146a07901?ref=mavis-muggletum
Rule Sets: Fire & Regret, Briar Patch
Strategy:
With Fire & Regret and Briar Patch rule sets, that means using melee and range units will be a huge disadvantage. My enemy's idea is correct as well. The two elements you should use here is either Water or Death. Water Element has Marlai Singariel that gives extra magic attacks but they lack a good frontline. Death Element, for me, is more stable. They have good magic attack because of Sorrow Harvester and decent tanks as well like Arcane Curator making Death a better choice for me most of the time.
Summary:
I won this battle because of a difference in tanks. Their tank died after a hit while mine did after two hits putting me on a one hit advantage. That extra hit proved to be the difference between winning and losing as I win this battle even if my enemy has the power advantage.
https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_8d951fec57e42db16cd64256690a935d?ref=mavis-muggletum
Rule Sets: Maneuvers, Counterspell
Strategy:
With Counterspell rule set, that means magic attacks are out of the table. While my enemy has a good idea using units with Heal, by using units with armor, I get advantage against melee and ranged units. Spellmonger's Thorns are also useful here. Since there's Maneuvers which is for melee units, adding these types of units can create and an advantage for you just like what happened in this match.
Summary:
Because of my set ups, by mid round 2, I already have the advantage this battle. Dread Tafarian can only heal for 2 health per round while my team can deal 4 damage per round. Dread Tafarian can also only deal 1 damage which takes too long to bypass my defenses. Earth Element is good in long games but they lack damage to be a good choice most of the time.
https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_809d3f672081f70ccd95d6eac59bc21f?ref=mavis-muggletum
Rule Sets: Equal Opportunity, Knock Out
Strategy:
I believe that there's no Stun units in the current lineup of Foundation cards, or at least in lower levels of Foundation units. This means Heavy Hitters rule set will have no effect. So, we'll just have to focus in Equal Opportunity rule set. In this rule set, I like to take advantage of Great Bear Druid. The mix attack is very deadly and hard to counter. With Opportunity, he can also attack from any position.
To maximize this unit, work from its health downwards. Great Bear Druid has 6 health so any unit with less than 6 health will be prioritized to be attacked first making Great Bear Druid the last unit to be the target for attacks. Death is bad with Equal Opportunity rule set because Sorrow Harvester, their strongest attacker, has low health, making it an easy target. Just remember this in your future battles and you will be fine.
Summary:
Just as expected, they weren't able to target my Great Bear Druid this battle maximizing its two attacks. At the start of battle, my team quickly focused on their Sorrow Harvester. After that, my team quickly make way to their back line as we exchange kills one for one but since I did the first kill on Sorrow Harvester, I got the advantage towards the end.
Disclaimer
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
About the Author
Hey! I’m Mavis the Muggle, your friendly Splinterlands addict with a slight obsession for all things Harry Potter. 🧙
When I’m not immersed in gaming or wizardry, I’m busy learning new things. Recently, I’ve been having putting a lot of effort and having a blast creating content on Hive so relax!
You can support me by upvoting this post, reblogging, leaving a comment below or by using my Splinterlands referral link.
║ 
║ 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Congratulations @mavis-muggletum! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next target is to reach 12000 upvotes.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPThanks for sharing! - @underlock
