2024 Battle Of The Day 160/366

Thanks for coming to my daily #Splinterlands Battle of the Day #BOTD for your reading and watching enjoyment.

BATTLE LINK -- June 8, 2024 -- Day 160 of 366 vs. @hood95

Today's battle was an important one, my first opportunity in Season 136 to get into Modern Champion 3 with a win. It wasn't an easy task though and ultimately resulted in some interest decision-making. Check out the strategy that weighed into this 33-mana, triple ruleset battle.

With narrow rules like Up Close & Personal and Earthquake, my opponent and I both identified Pelacor Mercenary as a strong option and selected the earth element. However, from there we went completely different ways.

They turned to the Chaos Legion reward card summoner Lobb Lowland to get access to their self-healing gladiator, Quora. This did come with the drawback of -1 speed for my team, which is a benefit for me with the reverse speed rule in play. In comparison, I tried something new with today's featured card, Underboss Fabino, that I'd never done before.

The new Rebellion tactics summoner for earth, Fabino allows me to give two monsters +2 melee or infect 1 monster poison. This gave me a lot of flexibility with my team selection based on the lineup formation of my opponent. I certainly wouldn't have considered this strategy for asynchronous battles like tournaments and brawls. But with full information and the narrow melee-only rule, Fabino's two abilities are quite powerful.

Mantaroth is a terror in Up Close & Personal, since it has shield and repair on defense plus armored strike for attack. Venka was a huge risk with the reverse speed rule in play, but I felt I could risk it because the ceiling for success is so high.

My opponent and I both enlisted Ureaus for the battle, hoping to luck out with an early poison on a backline monster before it died to earthquake. Finally, notice how neither of us included the Fungus Fiend for earth, since it has the slow ability which would benefit the other player.

When I first saw the opponent's lineup during the tactics stage, I was concerned. Their tank, Dumacke Orc, is a great answer to my Venka, and Quora is always a problem to get off the battlefield. I couldn't just poison their biggest threat, since Quora is immune and the Pelacor has self-heal, so I knew I needed to use the melee buffs.

Mantaroth and Mercenary were my only two options since they are durable under these conditions, as Ureaus and Venka would quickly die off in the battle. To my surprise, the buffs worked extremely well to deal much-needed damage to their self-healing threats. I wouldn't have gotten over the line without the extra power taking down their Mercenary and Quora. Long live Underboss Fabino!

If you've been around these past few weeks checking out this battle series, you may have noticed this was my longest article yet. We've only scratched the surface of these new tactic summoners from Rebellion, and I enjoyed discussing the strategy that the tactic phase provides. These next five legendary summoners from Rebellion will shake up the meta in modern and wild. I'm so excited for the future of Splinterlands!

Enjoy the content? Leave a like/comment and check out BOTD 159 from yesterday!