In the spirit of the new weekly Battle Mage Secrets challenges, I would like to take a look at a Splinterlands battle with a particular focus on a ruleset. In this battle, we will be taking a look at one of those rulesets that can often be the bane of a new player. However, as your collection and set of strategies grow it becomes much more manageable. Today, we will be talking about the Earthquake ruleset! In this battle I will be showcasing a basic strategy that can prove to be powerful in this ruleset.
Earthquake is a ruleset that is a "soft" counter in that it deals some damage to specific monsters, but the incredibly annoying part of this rule is that it deals that damage to a large portion of the monsters that you have to choose from - everything WITHOUT the Flying ability. Every monster that doesn't have Flying will be taking physical damage at the start of every turn. The obvious winners here are monsters with Flying. But there are a few other good choices here - monsters that give your team additional armor, can provide some healing, or that take less physical damage due to Shield can be great options in the Earthquake ruleset.
If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!
Here are the rules for our battle. Of course we have Earthquake, which will be dealing 2 damage at the start of every round (beginning with the 2nd round) to every monster without Flying. To go along with it we also have Even Stevens and Born Again, which limits our options to monsters with even mana costs, and give every monster the Rebirth ability.
Brighton Bloom is a standout summoner in Earthquake battles. Earthquake damages every monster without Flying, so being able to give your entire team Flying from the start allows us to dodge all of the pesky Earthquake damage. Brighton's relatively low mana cost of just 4 mana is great in this battle as well, since we are working with a somewhat low mana cap of just 20. This allows us to dedicate the bulk of our resources to some powerful monster cards.
The combination of a low mana cap and Earthquake made it seem probable that our opponent will not be bringing much magic damage to the fight - monsters with magic attacks tend to have a higher mana cost and also be more fragile, which makes them poor choices for this particular combination of rules. This meant that Mycelic Infantry had a good chance of being able to put its armor and Shield ability to work protecting it from various physical damage attacks.
I wanted to give Mycelic Infantry some support, and Goblin Psychic fits the bill here - a respectable magic attack plus Tank Heal will boost our lineup's damage output and give Mycelic Infantry healing to help it stand up to enemy attacks.
We were just about out of mana at this point - 20 isn't very much to work with! Xenith Archer fit into the available mana and would help to provide a little more damage output. One can never have too much damage!
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I feel pretty good about my chances. The enemy team does have a heavy hitter in Grund, as well as a Flyer with Gargoya Lion. But Grund will be taking damage from Earthquake each turn, and the enemy team will only be able to attack with a single monster each turn. This lower damage output means that Goblin Psychic's Tank Heal and Mycelic Infantry's Shield will particularly useful in this fight.
This battle take a little longer to develop thanks to every monster gaining an extra life from Rebirth. But by the start of round 3, things are looking great for my team - the enemy Grund has already died once and is just about to die to Earthquake damage. My Mycelic Infantry has taken a few hits but still has plenty of health, and with the enemy damage output about to fall off a cliff when Grund goes down, I like my chances!
One more round and the battle is nearly won - at this point Goblin Psychic's Tank Heal is able to out-heal the enemy Gargoya Lion's attacks, and I don't have to worry about Earthquake damage thanks to Brighton Bloom's summoner ability. It is just a matter of time.
It didn't take long - by the start of round 5 Gargoya Lion had used up its Rebirth, and my entire team was still intact. One more magic attack from my Goblin Psychic sealed the victory! And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
My strategy for this battle worked out perfectly - the combination of Goblin Psychic and Mycelic Infantry, paired with Brighton Bloom's powerful summoner ability, was more than the enemy monsters could handle. While this fight spotlighted some solid monsters for the Earthquake ruleset, it also showed the importance of strategy. Recognizing that the ruleset combinations made it likely for my opponent to go down a certain path in their teambuilding was a key factor in being able to pull off the win!
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:
Not Sneaking Around - Battling with Fog of War! - A Splinterlands battle analysis, featuring Fog of War!
Splinterlands Economics: Causation - A look at causation, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
Splinterlands Economics: Ceteris Paribus - An introduction to the concept of Ceteris Paribus, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
Thinking about giving Splinterlands a try but haven't signed up yet? Feel free to use my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=bteim, and be sure to reach out to me if you have any questions!
All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.
