In Reverse Speed, your slowness will be rewarded. It's true. Slow becomes fast, and fast becomes dead... with a few exceptions. Okay, maybe a lot of exceptions. We're here to talk about the Reverse Speed Ruleset.
The TRAP - I feel it every time I face a Reverse Speed battle, so I know it must be something with which most players struggle. The trap is to put too much emphasis on the Speed. Many players completely ignore the Speed attribute in 90% of their battles, then when Reverse Speed comes up it is suddenly the most important thing in the world to them.
Speed is only as important as you make it. If you have built a team that is completely reliant on Speed to make the difference between winning and losing, then I'll spoil it for you: You're going to lose. I've played the Exploding Dwarf game enough to know that it's usually no better than a coinflip, and as strategic players, we want to use our strategy to give ourselves a slight advantage in the battle. In the example of the Exploding Dwarf, you must build your entire team to make certain that your Dwarf gets the first attack. This usually involves double-buffing you team's Speed by giving up valuable positions to speedsters.
I'm much more fond of a balanced approach to the Reverse Speed ruleset (and gameplay in general). Each card should be selected on an independent basis to maximize stats and position. I don't like for one card to be dependent upon others to "work correctly."
In Splinterlands serves 2 basic purposes:
Here are a few random tips for success in the Reverse Speed ruleset. Heed them. Or don't. It doesn't really matter to me one way or the other.
I suggest considering Magic attackers of every Speed in this ruleset, not just the slow ones. Magic attacks are always valuable and worth keeping alive, even if they only happen at the end of a turn. The Phantom of the Abyss for example is a 6 Speed monster with a powerful Magic attack; I almost always use him in Reverse Speed battles when I'm playing with blue.
One thing that continues to fascinate me about Splinterlands is the traps a player can lead themselves into through sheer habit. I catch myself looking at the same cards every time, and using a rotation in battle that's probably only 20-30% of my total collection.
On the other side of that coin, you probably don't want a collection so big that you forget the majority of your cards. My advice to avoid this is to pace yourself when buying cards. Don't buy 5 new maxed cards at a time. Instead, buy 1 then spend a few hours battling with it. Learn which rulesets it likes and which ones it hates. Then, once it's been safely added to your player routine, move and on work toward another card.
Think about Thorns. Usually when you play the thorned Spineback Turtle, you expect the Thorns to get some action. Why wouldn't they? The Turtle has 1 Speed. In a Reverse Speed battle, the Turtle will be missed more frequently, and by extension, its Thorns will be sad and useless.
Think about Retaliate. In this Ruleset, it's sometimes an excuse to use a fast monster where they seem to have no place. Where in a normal battle, a fast monster with Retaliate is often missed (and Retaliate wasted), in a Reverse Speed battle, a fast monster will always be hit. This means that Retaliate will be triggered almost certainly before the monster's deathblow.
This is good advice for almost always, but in Reverse Speed it always works especially well for me. Debuff everything about the enemy's team except for Speed. Use Rust to reduce the Armor, Headwinds to kill the Range attacks, silence to squash the mages, and finally, Demoralize to weaken those pesky Melee attackers. If you can pull this off, you'll have all the time you need to win a Reverse Speed battle.
If you have some favorites of your own, share them in the comments. There are a lot of cards out there!
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