Hello There
Welcome to my Splinterlands Battle Mage Secrets challenge entry, a regular Splinterlands post on Hive Blockchain, which we share and talk about our Splinterlands battle here. And for today post our topic is Shades of Gray ruleset.
Ok for some people, the name of Shades of Gray might confuse you. Shades of Gray means somewhere between black and white, the area of somewhere in between. This is what splinterlands people say for Neutral. So Shades of Gray is a ruleset that only allow Neutral element card to enter the battlefield. Of course there is an exception, and it is for the Summoner. So you might pick any related summoners however only neutral units can enter the battle.
Shades of Gray is one of the recent rulesets, well it is not the most recent one, but in the past when Chaos Legion was introduced, this ruleset was not exist... yet. I do not like this ruleset because our selection becomes very limited, and most of the time it becomes a contest of whose cards level are higher.
I do not know for sure, maybe in Wild format this ruleset becomes more interesting. ok meanwhile, let's check my battle below
THE BATTLE
This is a Modern Silver League rank battle, both of us came with Tarsa Level 4. Whether we went with Fire or Death, both would be the same units. So in this battle it's about whose buff or debuff we needed more for our team. Let see the ruleset in detail.
19 mana cap, the smaller the mana cap, the better I played... It's my strong point playing in small mana cap. We had super sneak ruleset, we could expect our opponent would try to sneak attack us here.
Ok let's see what I did here:
ANTI MAGIC TANK
I chose Gargoya Lion as my main tank. There was a probability that my opponent came with Magi of Chaos and Venari Spellsmith, if they did that they could wiped out my team easily. That combination was debatable because they could be easily wiped out too, but I did not want to take that risk.
ANTI SNEAK ATTACKER
I chose this dude, Dumacke Orc. I was confused, was this orc a dude or a babe? so I checked the lore and here what I got:
Lagakh moved silently along the dark wharf. She had switched off her Bright Eyes, knowing the red glow would give her position away. She relied instead upon her enhanced hearing. As her feet silently padded across the wooden planks. voices drifted toward her from the end of the dock, where two sailors were loading cargo onto a schooner.
Arrgh, sorry, Dumacke Orc is a babe.
Anyway back to the topic, she was the best option to counter sneak attacker, because she had that retaliate ability. Any incoming melee attack, she would pay those back at the odds of 50%.
Her weakness was that 1 health point. It's one of the main reason why I prefer to have that Gargoya Lion as my main tank, I could not let any small chance opponent magic broke through my main tank.
THE MARTYR SUPPORT
I picked Venari Marksrat as a support and this was a hard choice. I had only 3 mana cap and I could go with Uraeus for an extra attacker, or a combination of Venator Kinjo and Chaos Agent for an extra attacker and a filler meat wall.
However I recognized that if I used the buffy babe Dumacke Orc, my opponent might do the same too, so half ass attackers would be retaliated and died.
OK let check the battle:
- The battle started with both of us buffing up our team and debuffing our opponents. This time my opponent was more focused on offense and my team was the defensive one.
- My opponent had 9 melee damage
- My team had 5 melee damage and 1 range damage. Combined those all, we had 6 damage per round.
- This one was funny, my opponent who was more attacking actually had a debuff whilst my team coming in plain... no buff nor debuff...
- They got the first round... They killed my Venari marksrat, and it became 2 vs 3 condition.
- At the beginning of round 2, all of their units were at max health. this looked bad, didn't it?
- somehow the continuous retaliation was triggered... The dumacke orc having a slugfest, kept hitting each other until one of them died.
My Dumacke Orc came out victorious, she won the slugfest of retaliation... or maybe a cat fight between two orc girls.
Definitely I won the 2nd round and this round too.
- Round 4 was the last one. Good game
CLOSURE AND DISCUSSION
My plan was working but it did not completely work as I planned. Here were the deal
- I used anti magic tank, but no mages on their side. It's a waste isn't it?
- I used Dumacke Orc and anticipated Dumacke Orc on their side. It was as I predicted before so this part was working well.
So 50% of my plan was not on spot but I still won this battle. Here are the reason why despite of that, I still won convincingly.
1. Speed Superiority Dictated The Battle.
I know this sounds so rhetorical, almost in every Battle Mage Secret I talk about speed speed speed... I win because of speed. my team have got speed superiority, they weren't fast enough and so on.
And that's the real deal anyway. I will keep saying speed or speed superiority, because it is what makes me win. Literally my Gargoya Lion and Dumacke Orc were faster than any of their units, and that's enough to make a big gap in our strength
2. Reward Cards Are Dangerous
The most dangerous cards for me is not the legendary. Well Legendary is strong, maybe the strongest, however they can be predicted. The wild cards are Reward Cards and the Soulbound cards. Soulbounds are the latest edition of reward anyway.
These cards although they look like the same as Chaos Legion and Rebellion, by number and ability they are no better, actually they are dangerous. Those reward cards are made and published after the core edition is released. So they are made or designed later, to complete or to counter the main edition.
We haven't got Rebellion Rewards cards yet, when they are released, they will strenghen and empowering the rebellion or chaos legion or the newer set because they are here to counter the existing meta. This is why they are dangerous.
Gargoya Lion is a so so card, it doesn't stand out and never will be a best choice. However in this battle, this so so nobody ones became a good tank. Fast, hit hard, had armors and even though it was an antimagic tank, he could beat Disintegrator who was meant to counter melee units!!
That's all for my battle mage secret post today, thank you for reading my post here and see you guys again on Splinterlands battlefields!!
Thank you for visiting my BATTLE MAGE SECRETS Weekly Challenge, don't forget to leave your comments and feedback below. There are credits in this post for these people:
- @splinterlands : for holding BATTLE MAGE SECRETS challenge events
- carrieallen : for ultimate markdown tutorial
- thepeakstudio : for wonderful divider art