Thumbnail for the weekly challenge provided by @splinterlands
Ahoy fellow Splinterlands players. Welcome to my next weekly Battle Mage Secrets post.
This week's challenge has the Holy Protection ruleset as the featured ruleset. When that ruleset is active ALL the Monsters will gain the Divine Shield ability. Which prevents all the damage from the first attack they take.
You can recognise this ruleset with the following icon.
When this ruleset is active it's usually the best to focus your attacks so that they can take down the Divine Shield and start attacking the health. But you could also still focus on for example a strong frontline and also a strong Opportunity or Sneak backline as they'll usually keep attacking the same target too.
Monsters with the Resurrect ability can be great plays here too, because when a Monster dies and it gets Resurrected it will also get that Divine Shield ability again.
The battle that I want to share with you for this post is from the Darastrix Modern Bronze GF Beginner Training Tournament a few days ago. In this Tournament I had 3 battles in the first round where the Holy Protection ruleset was active! It really loved showing up there it seems. Those 3 battles were all wins which makes it harder to choose which one to share xP Well in one battle I'm not sure if my opponent accidentally misplaced their Exploding Rats so I guess I can already leave that battle out.
I'll share the battle against the player golden828.
Here is a picture of our initial lineup.
Battle Rules
This was a battle with a 48 Mana Cap. Only the Fire and Life Elements were available. The battle had 3 rulesets:
- Close Range: Ranged attacks may be used in the first position in battles.
- Holy Protection: All Monsters have the Divine Shield ability.
- What Doesn’t Kill You: All Monsters have the Enrage ability.
Here is a link to the battle if you want to check it out: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sm_O3WWtIZggRDS2W6lCLQB&ref=athunderstruck
Battle Lineup
Not a lot of available Elements with only Fire and Life available. The Enrage ruleset does make it a solid idea to have some Melee attackers in the team as they will gain increased Melee attack when they're Enraged. This tournament probably took place when I also had a bunch of cards rented for a Brawl, but I never really rent any Gold Foil summoners for Fire. If I play Fire it's usually in combination with Dragon. Though I do have Gold Foil Eternan Brune since a little while now from earning the Reward Cards.
I decided to go with Eternan Brune then and build a Fire team. That way I could use my Chimney Wallstop, a Fire team Gladiator and also the only Fire Element Gladiator that I currently have Gold Foil. Life could be a nice pick with Uriel as he has Flying so when Enrage makes him faster then the Flying will also help make it harder to hit. But in this Tournament there were no Legendaries allowed.
So with that knowledge I go with Eternan Brune since at this time it was my only option for Fire Summoner and it's be tricky to quickly go rent a Gold Foil Summoner within the time limit. Also that way I could use Chimney Wallstop so even if I had for example Tarsa too I might go with Eternan Brune anyway.
In the frontline I place Arkemis the Bear with high health and providing Armor to the whole team. Up next is Chimney Wallstop, also high health and some high Melee attack too but with low Speed. He has the Reach ability so he can attack from the second position.
Then I bring Xenith Monk, should my frontline fall I want it to be able to tank a little bit with its Heal too. Also if my opponent brings Opportunity then they will be attacking him.
Up next is Lava Launcher, this card already has Close Range so the ruleset doesn't matter for it. It has a solid attack so I'm bringing it to help with that Divine Shield and taking out the frontline.
Last but not least is War Chaang. It can also help with attacking the frontline and if my opponent brings Sneak attackers then it has a 50% chance to Retaliate. Which would of course start to make them both Enraged but that might be good as long as it keeps the Sneak attackers busy.
Battle Analysis
My opponent decided to use Tarsa. Also a great choice here, that extra Melee attack and Health could help a lot, even more so because of the Enrage ruleset. They're using Antoid Platoon up front and also a Monster with Reach being the Radiated Brute.
Their 3rd Monster pick is really great being Disintegrator to reduce my Melee attack.
They also decided to go with Lava Launcher. Then a Tenyii Striker for the Sneak attack and last but not least they brought Molten Ash Golem. High health but low Ranged attacker. They placed this one last and that's really a great pick as well to counter potential Sneak attackers on my team as they'll have to hit it a lot to take it down.
Antoid Platoon normally starts off with 2 Armor, but my Eternan Brune Summoner debuff takes that away.
The battle starts with War Chaang taking away the Divine Shield on Antoid Platoon, then my Lava Launcher damages it. Tenyii Striker hits War Chaang to take away Divine Shield, it retaliates and takes away the Divine Shield on Tenyii Striker.
My Arkemis the Bear lost Divine Shield to their Lava Launcher. Its Armor gets destroyed by Antoid Platoon and it takes face damage from Radiated Brute.
Now my Arkemis the Bear damages Antoid Platoon, it still lives because of the Shield ability. Now it's my Chimney Wallstop's turn and it kills the Antoid Platoon, getting Bloodlust for some extra stats.
Now in Round 2 my Arkemis the Bear is going first, because of the Enrage it now has higher Speed than my Ranged attackers. It takes away the Divine Shield on Radiated Brute. My War Chaang and Lava Launcher now lower Radiated Brute's Health.
Tenyii Striker attacks my War Chaang, which loses the Armor it got from Arkemis the Bear, and War Chaang once again Retaliates. Which now makes Tenyii Striker Enraged though so it'll start dealing more damage to me!
My opponent takes out my Arkemis the Bear with their attacks.
Chimney Wallstop gets his turn now and takes out Radiated Brute to get more Bloodlust. He then loses his Divine Shield when he gets attacked by Disintegrator.
At the end of Round 2 and the start of Round 3 the battle looks like this.
Now for round 3 the War Chaang is once again the one taking away Divine Shield. This time Chimney Wallstop attacks before the Lava Launcher though because of the Bloodlust that increased his Speed. So he hits the Armor on the Disintegrator and then Lava Launcher does a hit on the Health.
Which means it won't be until Round 4 that the Disintegrator dies. Chimney Wallstop is the one who kills it so he gets another Bloodlust stack. By now Tenyii Striker is able to overcome my War Chaang.
With that Bloodlust my Chimney Wallstop is at 8 Attack, 5 Speed and 12 Health.
Now he doesn't have the Enrage status yet. But this round isn't over. Lava Launcher destroys the Armor on my Chimney Wallstop and then the Molten Ash Golem hits him for 1 damage. Which causes Chimney Wallstop to become Enraged and with that status now his stats look like this.
He gained 4 extra attack and 3 extra Speed just from becoming Enraged.
In round 5 he will attack Lava Launcher to destroy the armor then my Lava Launcher will hit it. In Round 6 my Chimney Wallstop will then take out the Lava Launcher and my Lava Launcher will take out their Tenyii Striker.
At that point my Chimney Wallstop is really unstoppable and would basically just one shot that 11 Health Molten Ash Golem. Iiiiif it wasn't for the Divine Shield of course =P But yeah in the round after that he will kill it and secure the victory!
Was My Strategy Successful?
Yeah it was a really great strategy! That combination of the two high health frontlines and the extra Armor from Arkemis was a great choice. Especially with the Gladiator Chimney Wallstop and his Reach ability, he was quite the MVP of this battle. Although of course War Chaang and Lava Launcher destroying several of the Divine Shields and damaging the enemies helped a lot. Yeah overall it was a great strategy. Placing War Chaang in the back was a great choice for potential Sneak as well as it kept that Tenyii Striker really busy for a while. I must say that I was extremely lucky on those Retaliate's though! When I don't need Retaliate to happen it happens a lot, but when I do need at least 1 Retaliate like in this past Brawl it never happens 😅😔 Though those Retaliate's weren't important as they would never be able to take out Tenyii Striker. Only keep him busy for a bit.
Conclusion
It was a great strategy for me. That War Chaang was really placed well for expecting some potential Sneak attackers. I must commend my opponent as well, their choice for Molten Ash Golem was also a great way to protect the backline when expecting some Sneak attackers from my side. Because that Molten Ash Golem has quite high health it would be able to tank a few hits. Too bad for my opponent that I didn't bring any Sneak attackers.
That's it for my Battle Mage Secrets challenge this week. Thank you for reading!
If you haven't signed up for Splinterlands yet and want to check it out, you can do so with my referral link at: https://splinterlands.com?ref=athunderstruck
Thanks for sharing! - @alokkumar121
