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Ahoy fellow Splinterlands players and welcome to my latest Battle Mage Secrets post.
This week the featured ruleset is Going the Distance. When this ruleset is active only Monsters with Ranged attack can be used in battle. A battle like this could be great for Monsters that have both Ranged and Melee attack as they can still fight in the front position. Ranged Monsters with the Close Range ability are also great plays.
You can recognise that ruleset with this icon.
When this ruleset is active Monsters that have Ranged AND Melee attacks can be great to still attack from the first position with their Melee attacks. Some Ranged Monsters have an ability called Close Range which allows them to attack from the 1st position so those are great picks as well. There is a Riftwatcher Summoner called Fernheart who gives thise Close Range ability to all Monsters on his team.
Speaking of those optimal plays with Melee attacks or with the Close Range ability, in the battle I'm about to share with you I actually used NONE of those that would make great plays here. I rather want to share another strategy that I like to use, made possible thanks to the rulesets in this battle.
The battle I'm sharing with you in this post is from the Gauntlet Wild Bronze Invitational that took place a few days ago. In this battle I played against enzo87.
Here is a picture of our initial lineup.
Battle Rules
This was a battle with a Mana Cap of 23. The Fire, Earth, Life and Death Elements were available. It was a Bronze battle but in a Tournament which means it's highly likely to have 3 Rulesets which it did. They were the following:
- Fire & Regret: All Monsters have the Return Fire ability.
- Going the Distance: Only Monsters with Ranged attack may be used in battles.
- Explosive Weaponry: All Monsters have the Blast ability.
Here is a link to the battle if you want to check it out: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sm_ZxUSaKlqT2Uy3aiJc14M&ref=athunderstruck
Battle Lineup
Alright so as I mentioned before it's great to play Monsters with Ranged & Melee attack or Monsters with the Close Range ability in this Going the Distance ruleset. However I decided to play neither of those. Especially because of the other ruleset combinations.
I decided I want to go with a sustain frontline and basically let my opponents basically take themselves out.
First of all for that plan I'm using Contessa L'ament as my Summoner who gives a debuff to my enemy team where she reduces all their Ranged attacks by 1. That will help with them dealing less damage to me.
Then my frontline tank of choice is Cornealus, a high health Ranged attack Monster with the Heal ability. It won't be able to attack from this position as it's a Ranged attacker and the rulesets don't allow it. But it's there to tank and sustain itself with that Heal to let the Return Fire from Fire & Regret do its thing.
Up next I have the Venari Marksrat with the Martyr ability. The Explosive Weaponry ruleset will cause it to die after some hits due to taking Blast damage. I placed it here to buff Cornealus just in case my opponent brings a way to reduce my Health by 1. Cornealus heals for 4 at 12 Health but if it drops to 11 max Health it'll only heal for 3. So that's why the Venari Marksrat is here.
Then I brought Ravenhood Warden to provide Armor to my team. This allows my Cornealus to take one or more hits before they'll even damage its health. Also important to keep up my backline longer.
As my last Monster I brought Undead Archer. This Monster has the Affliction ability and I chose to bring it in case my opponent also decided to play Cornealus. Then my Undead Archer could hopefully land Affliction to stop their Cornealus from healing.
Battle Anaylsis
So my opponent went with Fernheart who I mentioned earlier that can be a great Summoner as he provides the Close Range ability to all Monsters. With a health increase too. They're using a frontline Martyr to buff their Javelin Thrower with another Martyr behind it that has to die to Blast/Return Fire to buff their Javelin Thrower too.
Well they didn't go with a Cornealus though and no other Heals on their team which does render my Undead Archer kinda useless except for that it can deal damage of course!
My opponent starts the fight as their Javelin Thrower has the highest speed. It attacks my Cornealus Armor and with Blast damages my Venari Marksrat Armor. Due to Return Fire it takes 2 damage from these hits. We keep damaging each other back and forth. The opponents Javelin Thrower has only 3 Health left so once my Venari Marksrat attacks their Fungus Flinger the Blast then kills the Javelin Thrower. Meanwhile my team is still alive, but they do have their Armor destroyed because of taking 2 damage from Return Fire.
Then my opponent's attacks kill my Venari Marksrat which gives me a Martyr buff giving Armor back to my Cornealus and Ravenhood Warden. But my opponent didn't finish their turn yet and their final hits take away that Armor again. Their Fungus Flinger dies and gives a Martyr buff to their Venari Marksrat which would go to 2 Ranged attack. Because of my Contessa Summoner it remains at 1 since I have that -1 Ranged but it just couldn't reduce their 1 Range to less so it gets applied now that it gains the Martyr buff.
At the start of Round 2 the battle looks like this.
My Cornealus lost a health still before round 1 ended. Now that round 2 is starting my Cornealus does heal itself and is back at full health. My Ravenhood Warden and Undead Archer go first dealing damage to my opponents team while both taking 2 damage from Return Fire.
Then my opponent's Venari Marksrat misses my Cornealus. Their Venari Seedsmith hits me now and dies to Return Fire. My opponent's Earth Elemental then kills my Ravenhood Warden with the Blast damage.
The start of Round 3 looks like this.
Now it doesn't really matter if my Undead Archer goes first of their Venari Marksrat with Close Range goes first. Either way they'll kill the other one with Blast and then die due to Return Fire. So no matter which one goes first they're both dead. Which buffs the opponents Earth Elemental so it gains +1 Speed and +1 Health.
At the start of Round 4 we both have 1 Monster left alive and our battle looks like this.
If this battle didn't have Return Fire then I would've kept taking 1 damage per round which my Cornealus would heal up all the time and then I'd win after the 2nd round of Fatigue damage. But we do have Return Fire so yeah with their Earth Elemental having 3 Health left it's just 3 more rounds until victory. As it'll attack me thanks to the Close Range ability and take 1 Return Fire damage each turn.
So yeah this is a victory for me!
Was My Strategy Successful?
Yeah it was a great strategy! Just having that Cornealus tank through everything and basically letting my opponent's Monsters take themselves out with the Return Fire. It was a great choice to use Contessa L'ament as my Summoner. The -1 Range caused two of their Monsters to be reduced to 1 Ranged attack. It also kept the Monsters that had 1 Range attack to begin with at 1 Range after they got the Martyr buff.
My Undead Archer unfortunately didn't have a target to make unhealable with Affliction but oh well it was also there for some extra damage.
Ravenhood Warden was also a great pick for the Armor because that helped my units survive a bit longer to the Blast and Return Fire which in turn helped me take out my opponents faster.
Conclusion
It was a great strategy for a sweet victory where the opponents took themselves out. I kinda did want to see a Cornealus on their team and see if my Undead Archer could land its Affliction on it. Oh well that didn't happen which isn't bad because then it would come down to RNG to land that Affliction. Now I didn't need that RNG so perhaps it was even better. Still it would've been nice to see but only if that Affliction did land.
That's it for my Battle Mage Secrets challenge this week. Thank you for reading!
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Thanks for sharing! - @alokkumar121
