The Battle Challenge Ruleset this week is Going the Distance where only monsters with Ranged attack may be used. It is a fairly new Ruleset. The most interesting thing about this Ruleset is that unlike Melee and Magic monsters, Ranged monsters cannot attack from the first position. Thus Ranged monsters with the Close Range ability play an important role in most battles with this Ruleset. I have not found the Return Fire ability to play a big role in these battles because it seems like few Ranged monsters have it.
From a strategy point of view, the Going the Distance Ruleset is one where shields come in handy since of course you will not be facing any Magic attack monsters. The Shield ability is also useful for the same reason. However, it does seem like not many Ranged monsters have the Shield ability. It is primarily Melee monsters that have the Shield ability.
The battle I chose to showcase is a 23 mana battle with the Going the Distance, Blast, and Enrage rulesets. Sounds like an explosive combination of rulesets.
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_d14c21fd4ba80f4871fe1b3983ea5712&ref=ninjamike
The available splinters were Fire, Water, and Life. My opponent and I both chose the Fire splinter. I chose the legendary Conqueror Jacek summoner which gives the Scattershot and Piercing abilities as well as lots of speed. However, my opponent went with a basic Rare summoner which adds 1 speed.
My opponent went with a monster with a dual Melee and Ranged attack in first position. Interestingly, monsters with dual attacks are allowed in a ruleset if one of the attacks is allowed, in this case Ranged attack. This monster also had the Double Strike ability.
We both used three monsters for the match and two of our cards were identical. Both of our identical cards provide the Martyr ability. When killed they increase the stats of adjacent cards.
In the beginning of the first round, one of my backfield monsters with Scattershot hit my opponent’s monster in second position. This took it out and the blast took out the monster in third position and damaged their monster in first position. Wiping out both of their cards with Martyr increased the Melee and Ranged attack of their remaining card by 2. It cannot attack with Ranged in first position but now I am facing a double strike Melee attack of 4 with each strike.
During the second round, my monster in first position went first and hit my opponents Double Strike monster. This enraged it increasing its Double Strike Melee attack to 6 and its speed to 8! Next it attacked with two strikes leaving my first position monster at a health of just 1. In addition the blasts killed my second position monster with Martyr increasing my stats and increasing my health and shields by 1. The hits from the monster also enraged my monster. In total to start round 3, I am up to a 6 Ranged attack and 11 speed!
I went first in Round 3 and luckily hit my opponent’s last card which had a speed of 8. That ended this battle and left me victorious.
Overall my strategy for this match worked, though just barely. This was a fairly small mana battle with a combination of Rulesets which made it a wild and unpredictable match.
The only Magic and only Ranged attack Rulesets have been added pretty recently. I find them somewhat interesting, though not as interesting as the Melee only Ruleset which has been around forever. Melee only battles can be quite dynamic with the options of playing Sneak, Opportunity, and Reach monsters. However, in only Ranged battles there are many Snipe monsters to choose from. But only a few Opportunity ones and very few Sneak ones.
