Hi battle mages, I hope you are having a great Splinterday! Today's Battle Mage Secrets Challenge is the Earthquake ruleset.
RULESET: Earthquake
Description:
All non-flying units take 2 physical damage at the end of every turn.
Snared units are considered non-flying. Since the damage given is physical, it can be reduced to 1 if the unit has the shield ability.
I love the earthquake ruleset! When I was building my deck, I always payed special attention to monsters with the Flying ability for two reasons. On the one hand, I am into speed differentials and the Flying ability affords monsters with a 25% miss chance and, on the other hand, to protect against earthquakes. It makes a big difference, when monsters can fly during an earthquake and the more you load your bases with flying monsters, the faster they are and the better they are protected.
The other factors that comes into play during an earthquake, is shield protection. Of course, high healthpoints also play a role, but overall, I prefer to focus on the Flying ability in these situations. Apart from the Dragon deck, I find the Death deck to have the most and best flying monsters.
The battle I have chosen for this week’s Battle Mage Secrets Challenge is a Death match. The rulesets are Earthquake* and Armoured Up. The mana cap is 44.
Here is the team I put together:
ASTRAL ENTITY is my current pet summoner and I play him whenever I can. Here he is a great choice of commander, as he takes away 2 shield from the opposing team, increases my team’s speed differentials through Dodge and has Resurrect. These are great circumstances for an earthquake and, as mentioned, the Death deck has plenty of good flying monsters.
NIGHT GHOUL is my standard tank, when the Death team is led by ASTRAL ENTITY to make sure, that it is he, who gets resurrected. He has tons of shield that will protect him against the earthquake and when resurrected, he maintains all that shield to fight another day.
PELACOR DECEIVER is placed here as a solid buffer to protect the midfield. He may not attack from the second position, but once he can, he is fast and the speed differentials with Flying and Dodge are high enough to guarantee some misses. With high health, he can hold out at the front for quite some time, once the NIGHT GHOUL has passed away.
PHANTOM SOLDIER is another strong card with Flying. He has good health and 2 magic attack, making him a good third position candidate. In case the opposition has shield left after being nerfed by ASTRAL ENTITY, PHANTON SOLDIER can get through any remaining shield with ease.
GARGOYA DEVIL comes next. Again, the *Flying ability will protect him against the earthquake. He has low health but is relatively fast with 3 speed and hits hard with 3 range attack. He also has Deathblow, enabling him to clean up the last man standing with 1 shot, if it comes to that.
PHANTOM SPECTER is a great little card. He only costs 2 mana, has a magic attack and is super fast, so he will most likely shoot first to get the battle started. With six speed plus a further 50% miss chance, he is hard to hit by melee and range. He is in fifth position ahead of SOULSTORM, in case it comes down to the wire and SOULSTORM needs a last chance to shoot before going down with the rest of the team.
SOULSTORM, like PHANTOM SPECTER is mega fast and the miss ratio is very high. With such a lineup, there will be little chance for sneak attacks to hit the tailend after NIGHT GHOUL is gone.
ROUND 1
FALLEN SPECTER AND SOULSTORM opened the batting, but NIGHT GHOUL was wiped out surprisingly quickly by an Obsidian magic team. He was resurrected to make it to the second round.
ROUND 2
The earthquake hit the opponent’s team hard, as there was only one flying monster in the lineup, compared to five flying monsters in my Death team. NIGHT GHOUL died a second time to make way for PELACOR DECEIVER to take over the lead and he was promptly missed. The midfield then casually got rid of the Unicorn Mustang.
ROUND 3
At the beginning of the third round, the earthquake took two enemy fighters to seriously weaken the rest of the opposing team.
ROUND 4
Then the earthquake struck again and it was 5 flying monsters against 1 flying monster, Regal Peryton. Game over.
This was an easy battle to win, considering that the opponent didn’t pay attention to fielding Flying monsters. His tactic to stack the front with high health heavy hitters did not work out, as the earthquake inflicts damage after every round, while my team was mostly untouched by the shakes. I thoroughly enjoyed looking at this battle closely and sharing with you. Take care Splinterheads and see you next time!
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