Hey Splinterheads, I hope you are all having a great Splinterday!
The Battle Mage Secrets Challenge is a wonderful and effective way to get to know rulesets better and improve your gameplay. Not only do you study and analyse rulesets and example battles closely, you also get to read and see what other Splinterheads are thinking and doing with their little darlings on the battlefield.
With many battles now being comprised of 3 rulesets, it is important to know your rulesets well, how they relate to other rulesets and what corresponding cards work well to either exploit the ruleset or defend against it. We have also seen a number of new rulesets coming into the game lately and a bunch of new monsters have received new abilities.
The game is becoming more and more technical, leaving you with ever decreasing chances of winning battles with sheer brute force and overkill strategies. All these reasons and the clear challenge that players (and bots unfortunately) are getting „smarter“ all the time underscore the need to know rulesets very well. The Battle Mage Secrets Challenge helps and motivates us players further to do just that.
In today's challenge I am not following the prescribed ruleset in focus, Heavy Hitters, as I didn't find an appropriate battle to study. Instead, I am going to look at one of the new abilities brought by the new soulbound reward cards, Weapons Training.
Description
Adjacent monsters gain half this monster's attack if they have no attacks themselves
When the new soulbound reward cards came out at the beginning of the year, one of the many new features was the conscript summoner. These new summoners began running around in ranked battles, opening the doors to the great trouble-making gladiator gang. Quora and Blayde suddenly appeared during daily quests to create havoc. Another supadupa new thing was the martyr ability, mindblowing stuff! But most of all, it was about the new Weapons Training ability. Adjacent monsters with no attack could now be armed. 6 legendary cards with this ability came in and later a 7th promo card, Zyriel appeared with the same ability.
This was a great new battle twist to experiment around with and master. Well, I am a long way from mastering Weapons Training, but some of my new soulbound legendaries are now starting to get to levels 2 or 3, making them a lot more relevant and applicable than when they could only train mute monsters with one attack. I finally scored my third BCX of Ferexian Hero on my main account recently, giving him 5 attack with Tarsa and I have been looking for opportunities to try him out.
I have tried out Weapons Training many times, especially with Kulu Mastermind and Baakjira, but never really got anywhere. I tried the other splinters, too, but there was nothing to write home about. I have learned one thing, though: you need two weapons trainees, one is not enough.
I mostly lost interest in Weapons Training until Ferexian Hero went to level 2. He is really interesting now, but the options to put with him in the fire deck are limited: Venari Heatsmith is not really a guy to hinge an attack strategy on, neither is Scavo Chemist. Other than Almo Cambio, there are no real alternatives in the neutral deck, either. That leaves 2 cards: The no-attack monster accompanying Ferexian Hero, Iidri Fyre and the gladiator, Krasch Wonderford. I am happy to have both, but that has only been a possible combo in a brawl, unless you have at least Are You Not Entertained ?.
Here I have a top ranked battle to show you: a fire battle with the rulesets Are You Not Entertained, Melee Mayhem and Even Stevens. That allowed an amazing trio with supersonic stats!
The battle stats for the three rulesets Are You Not Entertained, Melee Mayhem and Even Stevens are a 39 mana cap and three splinters available: red, blue and gold.
Tarsa always gets what Tarsa wants: 5 melee for Ferexian Hero. nuff said.
I put Ferox Defender in first position to Protect and absorb lots of hits through plenty of shield. He was there to keep the door closed for as long as possible to let the trio do its work. His Shield was also to protect the midfield and backline from Stealth and Scattershot attack for a while.
Antoid Platoon is a great little card, and one of my favourite monsters to play in Little League. Here the Platoon's role was to attack from the second position and absorb lots of hits through Shield and collect health through Scavenger.
In third position came Iidri Fyre with Taunt to divert all fire to herself and receive Weapons Training from Ferexian Hero. She has good stats, plenty of health, speed and shield. With a total of 3 melee, she would be a powerful fighter from the third position in a Melee Mayhem ruleset.
And here was the hero of the day, Ferexian Hero! I was really looking forward to seeing what this guy could do with his attaché. It was the first time I played him at level 2 with no-attack support on both sides. He is able to attack from the second position with Reach under normal circumstances, but as I mentioned above, my track record with Weapons Training for one support monster only, had not been very successful. I was also looking forward to seeing how a gladiator will perform here.
Krash Wanderford is a card I don't use often at all, for the simple fact that he has no attack and spending 4 mana on Swiftness is often not really worth it. But now with 3 attack, its a totally different thing, because he now becomes a tank and will attack first or second in a ***Melee Mayhem**** setting with 7 speed.
Melee Mayhem = Exploding Rats in last position (anti Sneak with high speed). Even when they only get one chance to shoot, the damage inflicted by Blast delivered with super speed is devastating! Shooting a second time, of course, is even better and once the rats die, Redemption takes one health from all enemy monsters. Great card but not applicable in all situation. Here it was a perfect setting!
ROUND ONE
Round 1 started with a bang: Exploding Rats and Krash came down hard and fast on Diemonshark, taking all his shield, followed by a smack by Iidri Fyre, before he could take his first dab at Ferox Defender. Coastal Sentry hammered away at Ferox Defender and for the rest of the round, the enemy went after Iidri Fyre. Ferexian Hero delivered a monster blow and Antoid Platoon did well to then reduce Diemonshark to 1 health.
ROUND TWO
Exploding Rats opened round 2 and took out Diemonshark. The two weapons trained Krash and Fyre then took out Coastal Sentry. The enemy team was already reduced to 4 before my main tank, Ferox Defender, had to go. Ferexian Hero cut down Xenith Monk by half before Antoid Platoon again reduced the tank in front of it to 1 health. Iidri Fyre also did super well to collect a couple of misses during the first 2 rounds.
ROUND THREE
Once more, Exploding Rats went first and spread fury with fire to bury Xenith Monk. Krash and Iidri followed as before to decimate the next tank. Ferexian Hero then toasked Demented Shark to leave only two enemy monsters in the arena.
ROUND FOUR
Exploding Rats exploded some more to wipe out Venator Kinjo and the battle was almost over. The final blows to a powerless Xenith Archer were a sorry sight for the opposing team that was no more.
HERO OF THE DAY
The HERO OF THE DAY award was supposed to go the Ferexian Hero, who this post is about, but Exploding Rats stole the show with a total of 14 damage and 3 kills!
What a top battle that was! It was my first real success with Weapons Training and it was great to watch. It was well worth the wait for Ferexian Hero to get to level 2. Two other factors played an important role. Iidri Fyre protected Exploding Rats right to the very end of the battle and took 2 misses. This enable Exploding Rats to seriously terrorize the enemy tanks and decide the outcome of the battle.
Seeyaround Splinterheads!
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