Splinterland's Engagement Post: Revealing my neutral only strategy

Welcome back, Summoners! I'm @easilykilled, and today I would like to make a post to discuss a common ruleset we have all faced within the thrilling world of Splinterlands. This week, our submission for the community engagement post is about 1 of my favorite rulesets Shades of Gray. So, grab your spellbook and let's get started!

Introduction

Hey guys, today I'm going to be talking about Shades of Gray a common ruleset that is we sometimes end up facing.

Here are some of the more common neutral units

Uraeus is a neutral strong unit that has a low mana cost as well as having the sneak and poison abilities. With his high speed he is often able to hit the enemy and hopefully place some poison's down for us.
	With Xenith Monk we get a unit with regeneration, void armor and magic reflect, this makes him a s strong unit to use as a tank. His high hp and speed are also good for this role.
Another unit we need to mention is Disintegrator not only does he provide us with the ability of demoralize which lowers all the melee attack of our enemy but he has trample, retaliate and knockout
	Magi of chaos is a strong magic damage dealing unit with the oppress ability. The 4 magic damage that he deals makes him a very strong damage dealer in the neutral element
The final unit I want to talk about is chaos agent, as a 1 mana cost unit he finds his way into a lot of my lineups, and his abilities can get him to survive a surprisingly long time

Opinion

Now that I have shown off some of my favorite neutral units lets show off a battle that can hopefully highlight some of the strengths that I discussed above.

The Match Ruleset

This match challenge had mana cap of 53 with the following rulesets: Shades of Gray. Here's a quick rundown about the ruleset and what splinters were available:

• Shades of Gray: Only Neutral Units may be used in battles.
• Element available: Fire| Life | Earth

Keep in mind that with the shades of gray ruleset, players are still able to pick summoners from the available elements, these still provide their buffs and debuff's for your team.

My Team

For this battle, I decided to go with the fire summoner, a big consideration in this match is the ruleset, in my mind the best option is to try find some way to debuff the enemy units, primarily through negating some of their magic damage, speed or melee attack. Here's a breakdown of my team:

• [Tarsa]: Our fire summoner, providing +1 HP and +1 melee damage to all our units
• [Xenith monk]: Xenith monk is our tank, this is to hopefully tank some of the damage from the enemy and especially not falling victim to magic damage
• [Pallus]: Pallus is in the 2nd spot, a very strong unit with reach, and flying, he also has high health and can easily become our 2nd tank.
• [Uraeus]: We put our Uraeus next, they are a cheap 3 cost unit that I added to start targeting the enemies backline.
• [Magi of Chaos]: We have Magi of chaos next with his high magic damage.
• [Supply runner]: We added a Supply runner to our team, they have swiftness which increases my whole teams speed and has strengthen which increases the HP of my units.
• [Disintegrator]: Disintegrator is our backline protection unit in this battle, they have Demoralize, trample and knockout abilities

Opponent's Team

Now, let's take a look at my opponent's team. They went with a lineup that used the same fire splinter as us Tarsa. Here's what I was up against:

• [Tarsa]: Their fire summoner, providing +1 HP and +1 melee damage to all their units
• [Coeurl lurker]: My opponent used Coeurl lurker as his tank, a high HP tank with taunt and dodge.
• [Pallus]: Pallus is in the 2nd spot, a very strong unit with reach, and flying, he also has high health and can easily become a 2nd tank.
• [Gargoya devil]: He used a gargoya devil, a strong ranged unit that has flying, deathblow and close range.
• [Magi of Chaos]: He has Magi of chaos next with his high magic damage.
• [Uraeus]: He also has a Uraeus which he placed next, they are a cheap 3 cost unit that can start targeting my backline.
• [Drybone raider]: Finally our opponent used a drybone raider to protect his backline, it has ranged and melee attack with the shatter ability and double strike.

Battle

My opponent strategy was involved trying to force all my attacks at his tank and trying to use his mixed damage types to target my front line, he did also include a Uraeus to start on my backline.

My strategy with the rulesets in this match was to survive the onslaught as much as possible and try to prevent as much magic damage he would use with my tank. I also wanted to use demoralize incase he had a lot of melee units and I added Disintegrator at the back to protect from sneak and hopefully get some retaliates in.
Watch the battle here

In Round 1 we were able to kill his tank, but you can see a bunch of misses from both teams however he was able to place poison on our disintegrator, luckily he triggered retaliate on the hit.

Watch the battle here

Conclusion

I think we got very lucky with our retaliations in the match, we were clearing the enemies front line at a decent pace but I am unsure if we would have won without getting so many of these hits in.

Additionally

I think the following units from rebelion are definitely something to keep in mind in this ruleset I don't have these units but I think they can be added to the lineup easily, with mantaroth as a tank you dont mind magic attacks as his shield will stay intact for his shield strike ability.

Venka with his armor pierce and charge ability is another way to get a lot of melee damage on the enemies tank.

Thats it from me,

Until next time, keep battling, keep grinding, keep growing!