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 we are looking at the What Doesn't Kill You ruleset.
RULESET: What Doesn't Kill You
All units gain the Enrage ability
In this ruleset all monsters have the Enrage ability. All the little darlings get a speed and health buff and Melee monsters get an attack multiplier. I guess it makes it a popular Melee setting and therefore a predictable setting in my mind. I have always preferred this ruleset for making all my monsters faster and healthier rather than making tanks more monstrous.
As an ability, I like Enrage only with the fire deck due to Skargore of course. Other than that, I only look out for Enrage monsters for Earthquake and Poison rulesets. Here I certainly go for the speed buff to enable my team to attack sooner and hopefully outlast the enemy with increased health. When there is a Poison ruleset, the team loses health quickly, which Enrage cannot save, but when Melee monsters get an attack multiplier and the entire team is faster, the two combine quite well.
When you have the What Doesn’t Kill You ruleset, grab big tanks backed up by high health midfields and backlines. When you take monsters who bring high speed to the table, Enrage can make them super fast to wipe out the enemy in a flash. Mind you, I have by no means mastered this ruleset so I am in fact more interested in reading what other players do in these situations than in elaborating too much on my startegy, which certainly can be improved.
The battle stats are the following:
RULESETS: What Doesn't Kill You, Noxious Fumes and Fire & Regret
MANA: 43
SPLINTER: Red/Blue/Gold
In the battle we are looking at today, we have three rulesets: What Doesn't Kill You, Noxious Fumes and Fire & Regret. Although we are looking at the What Doesn't Kill You ruleset specifically, I am actually more concerned with the Noxious Fumes ruleset, where Enrage is very useful. I decided to go with a Water Team, led by Oshannus. Here is the team I put together:
I decided to go with Possibilus the Wise, keeping enraging Melee monsters in mind. With increased Melee, the damage done can be even greater when Trample comes into play. Stealth attackers lurking in the background would also have greater fighting power once enraged and having the possibility to attack a second time.
Sir Oshannus is strategically placed in first position, again keeping the ruleset in mind by expecting the enemy tank to have high Melee power once enraged. The Forcefield ability is a counter to attackers with 5 attack or more, reducing it to one.
Coastal Sentry got the green light for a fight due to her abilities Double Strike and Piercing. She has great stats as it is, but once enraged this dame is a lethal Melee fighter. Attacking with Reach from the second position given to her by Possibilus, she is ready to inflict so carnage.
Baakjira is a brick wall in third position with his huge 13 health to provide protection to the midfield and backline. He also brings a bunch of abilities like Void, Heal, Strengthen and finally Slow to debuff enemy speed.
Although Angelic Mandarin will cop return fire, he is here for Triage and to use the remaining mana available after selecting most of the team.
Rive Nymph is here to take negative effects (Poison) away from Oshannus and help with a little magic attack.
Deep Lurker is a must in the lineup as the second Melee fighter looking for Enrage and hopefully a good Trample.
So now let's take a closer look at the battle in focus today. My opponent....
The Squid opened the round and took a swipe at Sir Orshannus, who then had his turn and enraged the Sentry, who herself promtly responded with a double attack. As Oshannus had Forcefield, he only lost 2 health. The enemy Deep Lurker attacked the River Nymph (later triaged by the Mandarin), but she survived to take negative effects away from Oshannus.
Round 2 began with a dose of poison for all the little darlings, except Oshannus and all monsters were enraged. Oshannus then rightly took first shot to weaken the Sentry, who was then wiped out by our Sentry, followed by a double Trample after the enemy Sentry was resurrected only to depart again immediately. Heavy action going on here! Once River Hallondale was forced to take first position, it was clear where this battle was heading. To finish the round, Deep Lurker chose Hallondale for a pre-dinner snack and a nice little Trample.
After another drop of toxic green stuff on everyone but Oshannus, he proceeded to toast the Guardian, leaving the enemy team narrowed down to 2. Coastal Sentry then followed with her fourth Trample to get rid of the Deep Lurker and Baakjira was a sitting duck to be gobbled up by the Mandarin. We had a nice dinner!
The HERO OF THE DAY award goes to Coastal Sentry. After getting enraged, she had 6 Melee. With Double Strike, Piercing, Reach and Trample on top, she dusted all enemies who tried to defy her and managed to get 4 Tramples in total to decimate the opposition. This was the What Doesn't Kill You ruleset put to good use!
This battle was easily won. Oshannus played a deciding role here with Forcefield, which otherwise would have been quite hairy. The enemy Sentry would have killed him easily and thereby exposed the rest of my team. Baakjira would have resisted for a while, but as he has no attack, the battle may then have gone the other way.
When you have the What Doesn't Kill You ruleset, you can safely predict a heavy Melee team being thrown at you. Putting Oshannus in first position in this battle made all the difference.
Seeyaround Splinterheads!
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