Hello there.
Today I'll share my battle under the Explosive Weaponry ruleset. But first, I will share some of my thoughts regarding it. With the Explosive Weaponry ruleset, all monsters have the Blast ability. Monsters with the Blast ability deal additional damage to the adjacent monsters of their target. The adjacent damage is calculated as, the main damage divided by 2, rounded up. If the main damage is 1, the adjacent is also 1. If the main damage is 3, the adjacent damage is 2. Reflection Shield negates the adjacent Blast damage. The adjacent damage has the same properties as the main damage, so using a Void or Shield monster in the second position can help reduce it.
In this ruleset, there are a lot of viable strategies. Reflection Shield, Void, and Shield are effective and already mentioned above. Using Taunt to direct the Opportunity, Sneak, and Snipe attacks are also good. Using Protect to give armor to your monsters is also a viable strategy. Martyr monsters can also be used to buff your monsters quickly. Triage is also an option to help reduce some of the damage. For offense, Scattershot is a good option to spread the damage and to ignore some of the strats above. Going for speed is also an effective strategy to attack first and hopefully kill a few monsters before they can attack. Double Strike, or multiple attack types are also good since they can attack twice and deal more blast damage.
Of course, the ones above are just guidelines. Since we can have up to 3 rulesets in a battle, these can change quickly. If Magic is available, I'll probably prioritize it since it can ignore armor. If Earth is also available, then I can go for that because they have a magic taunt monster.
I believe that being flexible in battle is the ideal strategy. Check the opponent's history, check what they are most likely to use, and counter it. But always pick teams that can also counter different strategies.
Without further ado, let's get into the battle.
The Ruleset
This was a tournament battle, so it was a Bronze battle with Explosive Weaponry and Odd Ones Out Rulesets. A 43 mana battle is on the high amount. I can think of a lot of different strategies for each summoner so I will try to counter as much as I can.
The ideal team for Earth is a combo of Mycelic Slipspawn and Spirit Hoarder. Using Pelacor Mercenary as the tank can be an option. Regal Peryton can also be an option, but they might lack damage. For Life, the Drybone Barbarian or Imperial Knight are viable tank options. War Pegasus is a fast Range monster with Shatter, and Djinn Renova is a very good Magic monster with Strengthen. For Death, a lot of their strong monsters are unavailable like the Windeku and Revealer, but there are still some available like the Pelacor Deceiver, and Dhampir Stalker. This can counter the Earth team since it reduces their magic damage, while also lowering their HP. A lot of Dragon cards are Even, so there might not be a lot of benefit to using Dragon apart from Helios for the Speed increase.
The Lineup
| Card | Ability | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Increases the Armor of ally monsters by 1 and has Conscript | Gladiator cards are really strong so I want to use them. I also want to give my monsters armor to block some of the Blast damage. | |
| Enrage | The Drybone Barbarian has really high damage with enrage. Its blast damage will be insane if it gets to attack and hit its target. It also helps that it has high HP to be able to take a few good hits. | |
| Martyr | The Drybone Barbarian is already going to hit for a lot of damage, but with a Martyr stack, it should become even more ridiculous. | |
| Strengthen | My secondary tank, magic damage, and hopefully the Strengthen enables my team to survive longer. | |
| Snipe, Bloodlust | My main damage dealer. I hope I can kill a lot of their backline and accumulate bloodlust stacks. | |
| Triage | I want to keep my team healthy with Triage. I'm hoping my backline doesn't get burst down to quickly, and I can sustain my team to victory. | |
| Shatter | The Shatter is so important if the first monster has a lot of armor. Being the first attacker, it can also remove the armor of the second position monster in a Franz Ruffmane mirror, setting up my Drybone for a double kill. |
For me, Earth was very tempting but I felt like they lack damage because only odd monsters are available. Grund would have been deadly in Explosive Weaponry. Death also had a lot of their strong cards unavailable, so even if Thaddius counters a lot of the possible teams, and is good on Explosive Weaponry, I had to pass. Life on the other hand had a lot of available monsters that are really strong. I almost always go for a Katie lineup in Odds Ones Out, and it has worked for me a lot of times.
The Battle
The Matchup
My opponent decided to go with a Dragon Life team with Captain Katie. They opted for Helios for the Speed increase, but it was only a level 1. They will attack first and hopefully my team can survive and counterattack. Their Disintegrator is wasted a bit since I only have 1 Melee, and it will be idle for a while. I'm guessing they were expecting a Melee team, since they also used a Gloridax Soldier with Shield. Too bad for them I have a lot of magic damage.
End of Round 1
That was a very eventful Round 1. The first few attacks showed the difference between the Helios and Franz matchup. Their Drybone attacked my Drybone but only removed the armor. My Martyr was killed and buffed both my Drybone and Renova before they attacked. What resulted was a really strong counterattack from my end. My Spirit Hoarder healing my Renova means that it is safe from dying next turn.
End of Round 2
My Drybone attacked first and removed the armor of the first two monsters. My Djinn Renova then killed both afterwards with her attack. My Spirit Hoarder healed my Renova just for kicks and laughs. Looking at the state of the battle at the end of Round 2, my Drybone should kill both monsters at the start of the next round.
End of the Battle
I think it would be fair to say that I won that battle in a landslide. Only my martyr monster died, which I wanted anyways. There were a few level differences, but I think my opponent prepared for a different team. This is why I try to make my teams flexible, so that I can be prepared for different scenarios and have a good chance of winning them all. If I faced a Melee heavy team, I think my team will still come out on top. The only thing I am a bit bummed about is that my Katie wasn't able to get any Bloodlust stacks.
The Result
Conclusion
In tournaments where there are additional limitations on top of the Rulesets and banned elements, I try to make it a point to look at the possible teams and imagine them fighting against one another. I will then choose the team which I think is best. For this specific battle, my opponent used an underleveled team composition that is going for speed. They also tried to counter a melee team, but got steamrolled when they faced a different one. I think using a flexible team is the best strategy unless you are completely sure what the opponent will be using [They used the same team 5 times in a row in their history].