Thumbnail for the weekly challenge provided by @splinterlandsAhoy fellow Splinterlands players and welcome to my next Battle Mage Secrets post.
This week the featured ruleset is Little League. When this ruleset is active only Monsters AND Summoners that cost maximum 4 Mana can be used in battle. This really limits the variety of cards you can use in battle, especially when it comes with a high Mana battle. At the same time this also lets some Monsters shine that you might otherwise rarely pick.
You can recognise this ruleset with the following icon.
So yeah with this ruleset active only Monsters from 0-4 Mana cost can be used and same for Summoners. A lot of Summoners can thus still be played but there are some, especially Legendaries, that can't be used here. Some battles can be really troll having a high Mana Cap when this ruleset is active. That's the case for the battle I want to share today.
The battle I want to share today is from this weekend in the Summun Infuria Modern Silver GF Invitational Tournament. I didn't have as many cards available because some of the ones I rented for Brawl already expired when this tournament started but I still joined to try my best with the ones I did have available still. The battle I'm sharing was against anfaenger.
Here is a picture of our initial lineup.
Battle Rules
This was a battle with a 56 Mana Cap. Almost all Elements were available to play, the only that couldn't be played was Death. The battle had 3 rulesets:
- Aim True: Attacks always hit their target.
- Little League: Only Monsters & Summoners that cost 4 Mana or less may be used in battles.
- Unprotected: Monsters do not have any armor and do not get armor from Abilities or Summoner Buffs.
Here is a link to the battle if you want to check it out: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sm_K2tGAEedVzaWDIRQUoUr&ref=athunderstruck
Battle Lineup
There are a lot of possible plays here with almost every Element available. So that makes it tough to make a decision. Especially with true strike too so you can't really put something to hope it evades some attacks. I end up deciding to go with Mylor and a Failed Summoner up front. That way I have Thorns on all Monsters to hit back against Melee hits and also have some Magic Reflect.
In the front I used Failed Summoner. The Magic Reflect could help my Sneak and Opportunity to maybe take out something in the enemy backline if they bring some Magic attackers. It can also help lower the enemy frontline when they attack it.
In the second position I have Hill Giant, low Mana and decent Health for a solid secondary tank that can also damage the front line when it gets to 1st position.
In that same manner I placed Xenith Monk up next. I'm letting him stay a bit further back because he has lower attack, but also by the time he gets to 1st position I hope to have weakened my opponents team so that the Heal from Xenith Monk could hopefully sustain him longer.
Then I brought Madcap Magus. I wasn't sure what I wanted to bring in this position. The Mylor I rent is only lvl 3 so I couldn't play Elven Mystic for Silence as it needs lvl 4. The GF Queen Mycelia rental I had expired so I couldn't put her in for Amplify and since Mylor is lvl 3 I also couldn't use a lvl 4 Venari Spellsmith for Amplify. That's when I decided I'll throw the Madcap Magus in for fun and hope it does something with that Scattershot even if it's only 1 damage. If it can go a few turns with attacking then the Life Leech could at least turn it into a small tank.
Up next I have the Uraeus. Normally I'd consider playing it completely last but one of the rulesets causes it to lose its Armor making it really vulnerable and so I rather place it second to last.
Last but not least I bring Venari Scout. Slightly higher Health than Uraeus so I rather have that one in the last position as it needs at least 2 hits from Sneak to be taken out.
I don't have a whole lot of focused damage. Rather a stalling frontline that hopes my backline can do something. But that'll only work really well if my opponent brings some Magic attackers that weaken themselves on my Failed Summoner and maybe some Sneak attackers too that damage themselves on my Thorns.
Let's go and see how this plays out!
Battle Analysis
As soon as the battle loads up I see my opponent using General Sloan and I'm like oh crap will they play lots of Ranged attackers?! That's the only thing I didn't really bring a good lineup for! Then the lineup got revealed though and phew they just wanted to play Life Element cards and not really play lots of Ranged attackers. That's a good thing for me!
Their Blinding Reflector doesn't have Magic Reflect because their General Sloan at lvl 3 can't bring that Monster at lvl 5. Not that it really matters cause my Madcap Magus is the only Magic attacker anyway and it has 1/6 chance that it would hit that one.
Okay they have a Melee up front and one in 2nd position with Reach, that's great for my Thorns! For Melee they also have a Sneak and an Opportunity Monster so that's even better for my Thorns! A Venari Marksrat that as their only Ranged attacker, but it won't really die in that position because my Opportunity Monsters won't target it due to its higher Health. They also brought one Magic attack Monster, the Time Mage, with its high speed it'll go first and take Magic Reflect from my Failed Summoner.
Seeing this lineup from my opponent I feel I made the right choice going for Mylor here.
Their Time Mage goes first and takes Magic Reflect, which could set it up for my Venari Scout with Opportunity. But then their Sunkair Harvester goes and attacks first because of the Speed reduction against my Team from their Time Mage. That Sunkair Harvest now takes Thorns leaving it at 1 Health so my Venari Scout attacks that one to take it out.
Their Celestial Harpy hits my Uraeus, but luckily at this level the Celestial Harpy only has 1 Melee attack so my Uraeus survives. Later that round my Uraeus then attacks with Sneak and takes out the Celestial Harpy.
My Venari Scout survives the Sneak hit from my opponents' Stitch Leech, so that was good positioning on my end with the Venari Scout.
Madcap Magus' Scattershot hits the Stitch Leech leaving it at 1 Health.
Thanks to my team setup everything on my opponents' team has taken damage EXCEPT for their Venari Marksrat. I'm glad that's their only Ranged monster in the team.
Here is the battlefield at the start of round 2.
At the start of round 2 my opponent's Time Mage takes out my Failed Summoner.
My Venari Scout with Opportunity takes out the Stitch Leech.
Then Madcap Magus with its Scattershot hits and takes out the Time Mage before my Uraeus gets the chance to. That means my Uraeus will damage the Venari Marksrat.
Hill Giant now gets his turn and takes out the Blinding Reflector.
Now my opponent only has their Venari Marksrat alive and that marks the end of round 2.
Then at the start of round 3 my Venari Scout goes first and takes out the Venari Marksrat. I didn't manage to get the screenshot of that hit in action but you can see in the image that the Venari Marksrat is now at 0 Health after the hit.
GG!
Was My Strategy Successful?
Yeah it was a pretty great strategy to use Mylor for Thorns on all my Monsters and use those Monsters to keep having a tanky frontline. In this particular battle it feels like maybe I should've placed Xenith Monk in the back as it would Heal itself after every hit. But that's just speaking from the fact that he didn't get to 1st position in this fight.
My opponent had me worried when I saw the General Sloan because a lot of Ranged attackers could do a lot of harm to me as I had no reflecting damage against those. But at the same time my triple tank frontline would still take some time to get through so perhaps I would've still won with this lineup if they brought more Ranged attackers.
Conclusion
A great strategy here with my triple tank frontline for tankiness, which wasn't so necessary but I feel like if my opponent brought my Ranged attackers my Hill Giant likely would've gone down too. I would've wanted to see how this went with my more Ranged attackers. Especially if they brought a tank with no attack because then it wouldn't have suffered Thorns damage. Which could've definitely made a difference.
If my opponent brought more Sneak Monsters, for example using Water to bring Uraeus and Pelacor Bandit, well then my backline would've taken damage faster but those Sneak attackers would eventually die to the Thorns anyway. So yeah overall quite strong team that I built here.
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! - @yonilkar
