I'm pretty excited about the change in focus from monsters to rulesets. It certainly helps to be familiar with your monsters and I'll still talk about the monsters that I chose for my lineup, but when I choose that lineup I'm thinking about how things will interact in the ruleset.
Rather than waiting for a great battle with the aim true ruleset I would like to choose a great battle and talk about the applicable rulesets. I hope that's ok.
Here's the ruleset for this week's battle
This is a very interesting ruleset to figure out. I know that I'm going to face the earth splinter. The earth splinter has some great magic attackers, but all magic attacks will be reflected because of the counterspell ruleset. Immortalis would allow me to use some magic attacks and void the reflected damage which would be a surprise to my opponent, but the mana cap is a little low for an Immortalis Lineup. Obsidian would inflict too much damage on myself. I expect that Mylor is my best option at summoner and I expect to face a good mix of both melee and ranged attacks. I expect fewer magic attacks, but just having them reflected isn't enough to keep me from considering some monsters with magic attacks, so I think that my opponent might have 1 or 2.
The aimless ruleset is even trickier to figure out. A common strategy that I've seen used is to focus on Melee attacks so that you have more control over what they're attacking. I don't necessarily want to overdo things with melee here because I'm planning to use Mylor and if my opponent has Mylor they might do the same thing.
Another great option is to try embracing the mayhem. Magic damage gets under armor and monsters with the blast ability are more likely to damage 3 monsters with their attack if they hit some random spot in the middle of the pack (that's why I love to use Jacek in the explosive weaponry ruleset(that and the speed)). It's also much harder to focus all of your effort on your opponent's tank which makes things like protective abilities for you tank (think void and shield) and tank heal from further back in the line less important.
Here's the starting frame for my battle
I was right with multiple expectations about what I might face. My opponent brought a great team to this battle. The tank heal ability on Wood Nymph and the protect ability on Queen Mycelia are too good to pass up even when facing magic reflect. My opponent also managed to stick a Goblin Tower in back. The blast ability pairs so well with the aimless ruleset which increases the likelihood of damaging 3 monsters in the middle of my pack. My opponent has their deck leveled up beautifully and with the amplify ability on their level 2 Queen Mycelia all of my magic and melee attackers are taking extra damage from magic reflect and thorns.
Think about how this might play out before you watch the battle, I'm screwed right?
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_3c15c3665e5a3634d979307999458853&ref=jingo-submo
Let's talk about my lineup
Summoner: Mylor Crowling
Mylor gives my whole team the thorns ability which is great when I'm expecting melee attackers to be overrepresented by my opponent. My opponent had the same idea which I thought they might.
Tank: Mycelic Infantry
My go to tanks for the earth splinter are Unicorn Mustang when I'm expecting to face magic attacks and Mycelic Infantry when I'm expecting to face everything else. The shield ability will decrease the damage Mycelic Infantry takes from melee attacks, ranged attacks and in this battle thorns damage.
1st position: Fungus Flinger
I've really enjoyed the martyr ability. This monster might be even better as fodder than it is as an attacker. I like to use monsters with the martyr ability in the equal opportunity ruleset and the target practice ruleset where I expect them to be some of the first monsters to go down. In this aimless ruleset we've got a setup for complete mayhem, so if my Fungus Flinger goes down it buffs more important monsters like my tank or my Queen. If it happens to hit a priority target that's just a bonus.
2nd position: Queen Mycelia
Queen Mycelia brings the protect ability to my team which is even more important when I don't know who will be hit on my back line. Queen Mycelia's attacks all get reflected, but they are also a little unexpected and able to get under my opponent's armor.
3rd position: Venari Marksrat
Ditto for everything I said about Fungus Flinger. The Martyr ability is awesome.
4th position: Goblin Psychic
The tank heal ability is awesome. Maybe less important when I don't expect all of my opponent's damage to hit my tank, but still powerful. If I use the Goblin Psychic dealing 2 damage or the Wood Nymph dealing 1 damage, I can expect to have 1 magic damage reflected back to me, so I went with the bigger damage even though it costs 2 more mana.
5th position (Rear Tank): Fungus Fiend
0 mana is a great deal. I can hope to soak up 2 hits and deal 4 damage with thorns to a sneak attacker using this monster.
Did we win?
Yes. My opponent has a better and much more expensive deck than I do
and some of their lineup choices might have even been better than mine, but the aimless ruleset is total pandemonium. I made some good choices in this battle but may have won this match out of luck more than anything.
What will I try differently next time?
I was very happy with my lineup for this battle and the outcome. I was also really impressed with my opponent's lineup. That was a great battle. Because of my tank having such great value I considered putting my martyrs both in front and back of the card that I used as my tank. Another lineup that could have been really exciting with less of a concerted attack on my tank would have been Grund but again I thought that I might face Mylor on the other side and that might have been self defeating.
Thanks for reading and thanks for all the upvotes, reblogs, comments and follows. I'll see you in the game. I hope the updated format that I'm using is helpful. Feel free to share any specific feedback in the comments.
