Hey Splinterlands Fans, I hope you are having a great Splinterday. It is time for the Battle Mage Secrets Challenge and today’s ruleset in focus is Equalizer, which gives all monsters equal health of the highest health monster on both teams.
I like the Equalizer ruleset because it allows you to use low health monsters, that would otherwise not be so useful on the battlefield. Some 1 and 2 health monsters with higher health can be absolutely lethal. Most of them have special abilities that will tip the scales in your favour and clinch victory for you.
My favourites are the Chaos Agent, Scavo Hireling and then come all the Fiends.
Chaos Agent is great in first position with high health, as his defensive abilities, Backfire, Phase and Dodge are very effective against all attack types.
Scavo Hireling is also a great card to use in an Equalizer ruleset, but not in the first position, as his defenses are not so great. He is great in the last position where he will not be targeted and his abilities *Repair and Slow abilities are great to defend shielded monsters and slow the opposition down.
There are a bunch of other low health monsters that greatly benefit from getting high health, such as Ever-Hungry-Skull. He has great defenses and can therefore be suitable for first position.
Let's look at the low-health-monster strategy in action in an Equalizer ruleset. I have chosen a fire battle to illustrate how powerful Chaos Agent can be in first position, when he has more health.
Here is the lineup with Conqueror Jacek as summoner:
I like bringing Jacek in these situations, when all monsters have equal health, by applying Scattershot and Piercing to wear down the entire enemy team, instead of focusing on blasting away the frontline monster one by one.
First in Line is Chaos Agent. His defensive abilities with 4 speed definitely get some misses to save precious time for the rest of the team to fire away at the
enemy, while holding the fort at the front.
In second position we have Scavo Chemist. He serves to slow the enemy down, cleanse the frontliner and act as a buffer for the midfield and backline.
Then comes Uraeus to terrorize the enemy backline. His Poison often triggers, making him one of my favourite Sneak monsters.
In fourth position is Lava Spider with the Snipe ability to attack the midfield.
Number 5 is Spirit Hoarder. His job is to heal the backline, blind the enemy and take away tank buffs. He is a great little card in the backline.
Last but not least, comes Tenyii Striker. He is he for his fire power to support Uraeus in breaking up the enemy lineup back to front.
This lineup allows me to attack the enemy on all positions, with focus on destroying the backline while maintaining solid defenses at the front. Let's see how the low-health-monster and Scattershot strategies work together in this battle:
We have a 23 mana battle with three rulesets: Counterspell, Equalizer and Stampede. The available splinters are fire and earth. The meutral cards can also be used.
ROUND 1
So the Equalizer setting for this battle is 7 health. It is always wise to choose cards with not such high health as it will be of benefit to the opposition. Both sides picked cards with relatively low health so 7 was the go. Jacek gave my team speed superiority and Scavo Chemist increased it further with Slow for the opposition. The highlight of the round was 6 shots taken at the Chaos Agent which resulted in 6 misses and 6 backfires!!
ROUND 2
The striker/Uraeus duo nibbled away at the enemy backline and the Chaos Agent achieved 3 misses from 4 enemy shots. Spirit Hoarder, the slowest on the team, had to go.
ROUND 3
The Chaos Agent got poisoned, reducing his health to 2. The Striker/Uraeus duo did more good work to get rid of the third enemy backline monster and there were only 2 opponents left on the battlefield, who stubbornly held on to their lives. The Chaos Agent then finally took his leave.
ROUND 4
During Round 4 the sneakers decimated the Screeching Vulture to 1 health and leaving him poisoned, who took out Scavo Chemist with his last breath. Only the Vampire Bat was left.
ROUND 5
Two shots into Round 5 and the battle was over. My sneakers were left standing together with Lava Spider. Good job fellas!
The battle showed how powerful low mana cards, such as the Chaos Agent, can be. He was perfect for first position and exquisitely defended his team, collecting a total of 9 misses, all resulting in backfires and magic reflects. The sneaker duo disassembled the enemy from behind, which was a good ploy, because The Vampire Bat took a bit of work to sink. All in all, the strategy worked well and Tenyii Striker showed that a hard hitter with 5 melee is super valuable, when surrounded by low mana monsters.
Thank you for reading my post dear Splinterlands Fans and I will see you soon for another Battle Mage Secrets Challenge. Till then, see ya round like a hotdog!
WHAT IS SPLINTERLANDS?
Splinterlands is an autobattle digital card game on the Hive blockchain. The playing cards are NFTs, therefore they belong to you and you can trade, transfer or delegate them as you please. All you need to move cards and other ingame assets around is a Hive Keychain login. There are three types of battles you can play: ranked battles, brawls and tournaments. Every battle you win brings rewards, including SPS and/or loot chests containing cards, potions, packs and merits. The ingame currency is DEC and the governance token is SPS. For gladiator packs you need to earn merits through brawls and loot chests. Tournaments can bring you stacks of SPS if you play well. There are several third party card markets, including Peakmonsters.com and the best places to learn to play are PeakD and YouTube.
