Hello there.
Today I'll share my battle under the Reverse Speed ruleset. But first, I will share some of my thoughts regarding it. With this ruleset, the way speed works is turned upside down. Instead of the fastest monster attacking first, it will be attacking last, and those with 1 Speed will attack first. For ties, the usual tiebreakers are also reversed. If monsters have the same speed, the melee monster will attack first, then the ranged, then the magic. If they also have the same attack type, then the common monster will attack first, then rare, then epic, and finally legendary.
The evasion computation is also reversed. Faster monsters can miss against slower monsters. Because of this, the Slow and Swiftness abilities are really bad, and will help your opponent instead. Bloodlust is another ability that gets weaker in this ruleset. I remember back then, before the changes, where a bloodlust stack will reduce the monster's speed in this ruleset. But now, it just increases speed like normal; so as the monster kills more, it attacks later, and can miss its attacks more.
In this ruleset I usually prefer magic monsters, since their attack accuracy aren't usually affected by speed [unless there is Phase]. Melee monsters are also good here, since they tend to have lower speed compared to range monsters. But of course, my strategy will depend on the other rulesets and available mana. I like to be flexible so I can counter different strategies.
The Ruleset
This was a tournament battle, so it was a Bronze battle with Unprotected, Equalizer, and Reverse Speed Rulesets. A 32 mana battle is on the normal amount, and only Water and Death are not available. I can think of a lot of different strategies for each so I will try to counter as much as I can.
Because of unprotected, magic monsters don't have the advantage of ignoring armor. Equalizer encourages multiple attack types and double strike to deal a lot of damage. Heal abilities also get stronger because of the possibility of higher HP and being able to do a lot of healing.
The ideal team for Fire is a melee heavy team that have low speed. Antoid Platoon, Radiated Brute, and Tenyii Striker look like good picks. Adding cards like Uraeus and other backline access monsters can also help with the strategy.
For Earth, Obsidian with Goblin Psychic is an obvious choice. Adding magic monsters with low HP like Technomancer, Spellsmith, Spirit Hoarder and Biljka are also good. Then add a monster with slightly high HP to make sure the heals will be effective.
For Life, ranged can be an option. Sloan with Pelacor Arbalest can deal a lot of damage. Venari Crystalsmith can also do some healing. Chaos Knight can be a good tank, while having Vulguine as a secondary tank with its Scavenger can be underrated. Add other range monsters to complete the team.
Dragon has a lot of options available to try and counter the different teams. A big downside though is that a lot of them have high speed and cost. Sthispa with Void Dragon can be an option.
The Lineup
For me, to beat majority of the possible lineups I mentioned above, a Katie team will be a good counter. Drybone just has too high of a damage to pass up. I also want to take advantage of its high health since I am using Meriput for the healing. The Pelacor is just there as a secondary tank, and Marksrat is there to buff up Katie eventually.
The Battle
The Matchup
My opponent decided to go with a Katie team as well, but with a different strategy. They had Jared in front, Marksrat in second, and two Flying monsters in the back. Adelade is a good Sneak tank because of its Flying and 1 Speed. I can see that my opponent was being flexible as well with their team composition and placement. It would be interesting to see how our teams stack up.
End of Round 1
Drybone immediately showed its worth. Because of its high HP it was able to survive Jared's attack, while also dealing 8 damage back. Meriput dealt the final blow while also healing Drybone. With the Marksrat in the first position, it would actually be nice if my Drybone can miss some of its attack to not yet give Katie the stack. Both Adelade and the Harpy don't have enough damage to kill Drybone at this point, so I can deal free damage to their Katie.
End of Round 2
As 'luck' would have it, Drybone did miss its attack on the Marksrat. Pelacor can take a few more hits, while my Katie was able to hit theirs. I think it would be perfect it Drybone can miss again, but since their Katie is now below 8 HP, it should be ok for it to go to the front now.
End of Round 3
Drybone was able to hit and kill the Marksrat, and their Katie went to the front and got a martyr stack. But looking at the state of the battle, their Katie and Drybone having the same speed in a reverse speed ruleset is good for Drybone. I should be able to kill Katie next turn.
End of Round 4
I killed their Katie with my Drybone as expected, and their Harpy killed my Pelacor, which helped Drybone get an extra HP. At this point they only have 4 damage, and my Drybone heals for 3. They can't kill it next turn, and then they will be down to just 3 damage. This means it is pretty much impossible for them to win. This battle is over.
End of the Battle
I will have to say that I was pretty confident that I was going to win that battle. The only scary part was in the first round when Jared almost killed my Drybone. Once Drybone survived that and we were able to kill Jared, it was already over. Their Katie was hitting the backline, while their other monsters are only dealing 3, and I'm healing for 3. This battle showed the importance of high damage and healing in an equalizer ruleset. The magic attacks then made sure of consistent damage during reverse speed.
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 interesting team composition. They were very cautious of sneak attacks which made their front a bit lacking. I guess they also weren't expecting their opponent to use a high HP monster since they didn't use a heal monster. In the end, Drybone's high damage and HP combined with Meriput's healing helped me get the win.