River Hellondale Battle Challenge!

The background for my cover art came from camerajabber.com. I found it with a google search for crashing waves.

Here's the ruleset for this week's battle

In the noxious fumes ruleset I like to work with the fire or water splinter.

There are a few abilities that I like to use in connection with noxious fumes.

1. Immunity
   Monsters with immunity are immune to poison.

2. Cleanse
   Monsters with cleanse will remove poison from your tank.

3. Resurrect
   When a monster is resurrected it comes back without poison.

4. Self Healing
   Monsters with Self Healing will generally gain 2 health or more each turn which is the same damage that poison will deal to them.

There are other abilities which can come in handy for the noxious fumes ruleset, but these are my favorites. The fire and water splinters have multiple monsters that bring some combination of these abilities to the table starting at level 1.

Here's the starting frame for my battle

With the fire splinter unavailable, I expected my opponent to also bring the water splinter. They didn't do that, but they did bring High Priest Darius for the resurrect ability.

Think about how this might play out before you watch the battle

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_f156360b4f9546ea6a031d7a24a331fc&ref=jingo-submo

Let's talk about my lineup

Summoner: Possibilus the Wise

I generally think of the plus 2 health as the least important thing Possibilus gives my team, but when poison takes 2 health each round it buys every monster on my team an extra turn. Melee monsters in my lineup get reach and trample.

Tank: Torhilo the Frozen

I expected my opponent to bring monsters from the water splinter with high starting life totals like Djinn Oshannus and Nerissa. I also expected them to bring River Nymph for the cleanse ability. All of those monsters deal magic damage and Torhilo can withstand a good chunk of it with the void ability. Torhilo also deals 4 damage when able to connect.

1st position: Sea Monster

Sea Monster comes with the self heal ability that I mentioned, so whenever it takes 2 poison damage from noxious fumes it gains that same life back.
Being paired with Possibilus the Sea Monster starts with enough health to gain 3 life each turn and is able to attack from this position behind my tank.

2nd position: River Hellondale

River will resurrect whichever of my monsters goes down first, so it's important to heal something good. Whatever monster gets resurrected comes back with just 1 health but it is no longer poisoned from the noxious fumes. You'll notice that my opponent's resurrection is applied to their Fiend which is still something but not as valuable as resurrecting something like Torhilo.

3rd position: Merdaali Guardian

I generally think the tank heal ability is less helpful than the self heal ability for noxious fumes but it's still good and this monster fit with the available mana for this ruleset.

4th position: Ice Pixie

For 2 mana monsters don't get much better than the Ice Pixie. A magic attack with decent speed and flying. The Ice Pixie goes down immediately to a good magic attack but frequently gets missed by melee and ranged attacks. I also don't expect the Ice Pixie to last long with the Noxious fumes ruleset, but if it goes down first and gets resurrected it has a chance to stick around for a while.

5th position (rear tank): River Nymph

The River Nymph is able to cleanse the poison from my tank. In many scenarios I would put the Ice pixie in the last position as it is more likely to dodge a sneak attack because of its flying, but if my River Nymph is the monster that I resurrect it may have a chance to keep cleansing whichever monster is in my tank position for the rest of the battle.

Did we win?

Yes, this was a great battle and I was able to incorporate multiple monsters with abilities that were synergistic in beating my opponent and holding out against the ruleset.

Do I like River Hellondale?

Yes. As powerful as the resurrect ability is, it routinely gets overlooked and underestimated. I can't wait to get a copy of Agor Longtail to resurrect twice with River and Oshuur.

What will I try differently next time?

I was very happy with my lineup for this battle and the outcome. In general you can't go wrong with Venari Wavesmith and I could have replaced the Merdaali Guardian and Ice Pixie with the Wavesmith.

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.