Hey Splinterheads, I hope you are all having a great Splinterday!
The Battle Mage Secrets Challenge is a wonderful and effective way to get to know rulesets better and improve your gameplay. Not only do you study and analyse rulesets and example battles closely, you also get to read and see what other Splinterheads are thinking and doing with their little darlings on the battlefield.
With many battles now being comprised of 3 rulesets, it is important to know your rulesets well, how they relate to other rulesets and what corresponding cards work well to either exploit the ruleset or defend against it. We have also seen a number of new rulesets coming into the game lately and a bunch of new monsters have received new abilities.
The game is becoming more and more technical, leaving you with ever decreasing chances of winning battles with sheer brute force and overkill strategies. All these reasons and the clear challenge that players (and bots unfortunately) are getting „smarter“ all the time underscore the need to know rulesets very well. The Battle Mage Secrets Challenge helps and motivates us players further to do just that.
Today's ruleset in focus is Going the Distance.
RULESET
Going the Distance
Description
Only units with ranged attacks may be used
The ruleset Going the Distance, in which only archers can be used, is a tricky ruleset because there are not many monsters around with the Close Range ability. The red deck has a few, so playing fire monsters is a good option and, of course, there is Fernheart in the green deck. Fernheart gives the Close Range ability to all monsters, but the earth deck is not always available. The only neutral cards with the Close Range ability are Gargoya Devil and Tatiana Blade.
It is not absolutely necessary to load all positions in your team with Close Range monsters, but 2 or 3 will be needed as tanks to have a chance of winning. On the other hand, placing a standard ranger with high health in the first position as cannon fodder is the only option, when you have no Close Range archers. It is also advisable to look for monsters with Return Fire to increase damage dealt to your opponent and the Headwinds ability to nerf your opponent's range power is also very useful.
Going the Distance is a recently added ruleset and I am glad to already have invested in Fernheart at level 3. Market prices have come down significantly lately, so upgrading him further may be a good idea but he has been doing very well at level 3, especially with the Going the Distance ruleset. I like having the option to secure a full team with Close Range in case the Going The Distance ruleset comes up (provided that the green deck is available).
The battle I have chosen to look at closely today is a fire fight with Reverse Speed, Lost Legendaries and Going the Distance and has a mana cap of 59. The Dragon and Earth splinters are not available.
Here is the team I put together:
I went for a fire team, as I have several monsters there with the Close Range ability, who have a high mana cost but a 59 mana cap is great for a fire fight. Malric Inferno was my choice here because he is the summoner with the highest level in my fire deck at the moment.
Molten Ash Golem is not a great frontline tank. He is rather slow! I put him in first position to soak enemy attack as he has 10 health. The midfielders have a lot of work to do and I want to protect them for as long as possible. As we have the Reverse Speed ruleset, he is ideal in this situation.
Lava Launcher is in next. His job is to inflict maximum damage on the opposition. In this battle I am much more concerned with the Going the Distance ruleset than considering speed, so it is firepower first right now. He has tons of shield, so once he moves into first position, he will be able to steer the ship for some time before the midfield becomes too exposed.
Tinderlock takes third spot. Normally he would need to be at the back of the line in oder to exploit Last Stand but here the Close Range ability is more important than his one-man-showdown. 2 speed is uselful in Reverse Speed and he has lots of health. He should hang around for a while, too.
Gargoya Devil is the fourth Close Range monster in the lineup. When not using Fernheart, this lineup is the strongest team to withstand Going the Distance that I can put together, with two strong regular archers to close up the backline.
Ash Mirage is here for Headwinds, taking 1 range from all enemy rangers. I think this is more useful and applicable for this battle than looking for Return Fire monsters. He doesn't have much health but 5 speed and 3 range are super stats to damage the opposition.
Last spot is for Ettin Spearman. He is slow normally but more resilient here and can inflict a lot of damage with Piercing. With 9 health, he is also harder to wear down with Sneak attack.
My opponent came with an average life team and only one Close Range fighter. Also considering the Reverse Speed ruleset, this was looking to be an easy fight.
The round began quickly. Ash Mirage and Gargoya Devil took the opposing devil out in a flash and Molten Ash Golem took lots of hits to vanish early, as expected. Laval Launcher lamed Rune Crafter with a monster hit.
Rune Crafter bit the dust next and the rest of the round went to the opposition, reducing Lava Launcer to 1 health, yet enemy tanks could no longer fire.
Round three was quick and easy, fighting the enemy down to one. I had two Close Range monsters left and superior firepower.
There was only War Pegasus left and I needed to get some dinner...
The kid did well. I still haven't really gotten into the Riftwatchers cards but Tinderlock is featuring more now, especially with the Going the Distance ruleset around. In today's battle, he did well to show that he can be a good back-up tank and therefore is versatile enough not to always be in last position to claim Last Stand and scratch his ego.
There is not much to brag about here, the opposition didn't bring a serious team to the arena. The Going the Distance ruleset means to me that Close Range is the most important ability to apply here and other rulesets have to wait in line. Return Fire and Headwinds are very useful, but when rangers move to first position, they need to be able to fire to win the battle. It outweighs other rulesets, like speed manipulation of blocking certain cards, like legendaries.
Seeyaround Splinterheads!
