Hey there you lovely Battle Mages! We're back today with another issue of the Ruleset Strategy Series!
Today we're talking about one of my favorite rulesets, and one that I win 80% of the time. In this ruleset, there are many ways you can outsmart your opponent by tilting the advantages toward your favor. Forget everything you thought you knew about Health; today we're talking about Equalizer.
The initial Health of all Monsters is equal to that of the Monster on either team with the highest base Health.
At first glance, the wording of this one can be a bit strange. The important thing to remember is that every monster on the battlefield will start an Equalizer battle with the exact same Health. Everyone's Health is brought up to the Health of the highest Health monster on the battlefield.
Equalizer gives me an opportunity to use monsters that would normally die very quickly under regular battle conditions. But you must remember that your opponent enjoys this same benefit, so you must think a few steps ahead of them, and you have a few crucial choices to make about your strategy.
The first thing you must quickly ask yourself in an Equalizer battle is how you are hoping to emerge victorious. I have noticed that victories in this ruleset come in two main ways: High Health or quick win. If you're focusing on Health, chances are you won't be able to bring your opponent's team down quickly or easily, so you must then rely on the abundance of Health points in your own monsters. If you're focusing on the quick win, you'll want to use abilities like Double Strike and Retaliate with an emphasis on monsters with substantial attack power. Neither of these approaches is 100% better or worse than the other, but to be successful, you must commit to one them.
High Health - When taking the Health approach, you really only need one monster with ridiculously high Health. After you have wisely placed the one (which will almost always come with a hefty mana cost) you can fill the rest of your team with monsters based on combinations, attack and defense. But remember, when you use Magnor or the Kraken to boost the Health of your entire team, you'll also be boosting the Health of the enemy's team in this ruleset.
Quick Win - There are many benefits to taking this approach in the Equalizer ruleset. I always enjoy the Equalizer battles in which neither player used a single high-Health monster. These battle never make it past a few rounds, and if you knew what was coming, you'll almost always win in these conditions. For a quick win, I like to ignore the Health aspect and focus instead on certain abilities. These abilities include anything that increases either damage or frequency of attacks. I'm talking about Blast, Enrage, Double Strike, Retaliate, etc.
Another point that I must think about in an Equalizer battle is how much healing I'd like to incorporate into my team. As the game has gotten more complicated, healing has grown to mean several different things.
Life Leech - This is one of my favorite tricks to winning at Equalizer. Like with Opportunity, many Life Leech monsters begin with lower Health in normal battles. In Equalizer, Life Leech is extra powerful because of the Health points at which they'll begin the battle. Think about it this way: There is a great deal more life on the field to be leeched. I'd recommend always using a monster with Life Leech in these battles if you can. It really helps if you can also throw in a monster with the Shatter ability, because chances are they will be repairing Armor (as I will advise you to do in the next point).
Repair - If you can slow down the rate at which your monsters lose Health and allow yourself a few more crucial attack chances, you'll probably come out on top in Equalizer. Repair is a great way to do this, especially if you're repairing the Armor of a monster with the Shield ability.
Multiple Tank Heal - Using excessive tank healing is fine in the Equalizer ruleset, as long as you make sure that your strongest attackers are protected enough to take an entire round of pummeling without being killed. Tank Healers tend to take away from your overall attack strength, so it's important to choose the right number of them. Basically, if you're using 2 tank healers, they better be enough to make your tank nearly indestructible.
This is a little complicated. One of you must be the one who plays the card with the highest Health, and whoever does will generally be at a lesser advantage through the battle. This does not necessarily mean that they will lose, but it almost always means that the enemy is benefitting from the Equalizer ruleset more than they are. I like to be in control of this, and I can do that by very clearly deciding to be the one who plays the highest Health monster or the one who doesn't. I want to leave as little as possible to chance, because anything can happen when you get into the slippery territory of helping your enemy.
Considering that everyone essentially gains Health in these battles, here's the bottom line: If possible, you should gain more Health as a result of the ruleset than your opponent. If you were to tally the combined new Health of your team and subtract from it the combined original Health of your team, you get X. If your X is greater than your opponent's X, then chances are you will win the battle.
Here are some cards that I find myself using frequently in this ruleset. I'll offer a brief explanation of why I like each of them. Please consider that there are many correct answers to every problem in Splinterlands; that's what makes it a brilliant game. If you have favorite cards of your own in the Equalizer ruleset, let me know in the comments so future readers of this strategy guide can benefit from your advice. Thanks! Let's get into it.
That's about all I've got for today! I hope these tips have been helpful for you in the Equalizer ruleset, and I wish you luck out there on the battlefield!
Splinterlands on Twitter
Splinterlore on Twitter
Splinterlands on Publish0x
Spliterlands Discord Community
Splinterlands Telegram Community
