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 Healed Out.
## RULESET: Healed Out
Description:
All healing abilities (Heal, Tank Heal, and Triage) are removed
This applies to summoners and monsters
The Healed Out ruleset prevents monsters from healing through Heal, Tank Heal and Triage. This will mostly concern tanks in the first position, like Cursed Windeku, Sea Monster or Quora. Tank healing monsters, like Goblin Psychic and Merdaali Guardian are inhibited and Triage Monsters, like Angelic Mandarin and Djinn Renova are less effective. Summoners affected include Kitty and Lily.
This loss of healing ability is not only significant for the individual monsters and summoners in question but also for certain gameplay strategies that depend on healing in rulesets, like Earthquake and Poison.
Strategically, a good way to deal with this ruleset is to field teams with high speed and high health to outpace and outlive to enemy team. I myself don't use monsters with Tank Heal and Triage very often but Heal plays an important role in my gameplay. When I have the Healed Out ruleset, I therefore either run the same monster (like Cursed Windeku) and back him up with a strong secondary tank, or I choose a different frontliner altogether (like Harklaw).
Other considerations for this ruleset are to use monsters with abilities that will increase their health, like Bloodlust or Life Leech.
The battle I have chosen to look at closely today is a Death Match with Healed Out and Unprotected. The mana cap of 48, the Earth and Dragon decks are unavailable.
Here is the team I put together:
As my main account is the only account playing in Wild League, I like bringing a Beta summoner whenever I can. ZINTAR MORTALIS was the first summoner I invested in when I first started playing the game and he is appropriate to use here. I guess I am anticipating that my opponent is going to apply a similar strategy to mine by fronting his team with big tanks. Minus 1 meelee is going to slow him down.
Whether he can Heal or not (which he can't at Level 2 anyway), CURSED WINDEKU is my preferred option in a Death Match. Here his Thorns will do great work in anticipation of a strong enemy tank attacking him. His 10 health also means that he will hang around for a while while the midfield and backline do their carnage work.
Next comes NIGHT GHOUL as backup tank and to draw all attention to himself with Taunt. He is a brick wall for the enemy to have to get through. He has tons of health and shield (Unprotected in this battle) and will therefore dominate matters for a while. He is not the fastest but he is not there for the sprint.
The next best thing to a no-heal-situation is a good Bloodlust. USUT is rapidly becoming my favourite soulbound legendary and he is featuring more and more in my Death lineups. I still need to find a solution for his slow pace but as he makes kills he will gain speed. His great defensive stats will protect the backline very well and his Bloodlust will hopefully determine the outcome of the battle.
SILENT SHAVI, the master snake, will Sneak attack the backline of the opposition and wear down any obnoxious archers wanting to steal the show. Stealth monsters are a must in any battle situation and any rulesets imposed. With 5 speed we want him to take first shot to shake up the opposition.
VAMPIRE is here to attack with superior speed. Life Leech is also very useful in a Healed Out ruleset to increase the monster's health while others have no healing abilities. With 5 speed and 3 range, VAMPIRE will do tons of damage while protected by NIGHT GHOUL's Taunt.
In last position we have the OCTOPIDER. I am always happy when my Beta cards are involved in the action. He also has great stats and will be protected by Taunt to live another day. At 3 speed and 3 range he will inflict similar damage to the VAMPIRE. This powerful backline will likely decide the outcome, provided my overall strategy works out and outsmarts the opposition with tanks, speed and firepower. His Demoralize ability will take another meelee attack away from the opposition additionally to the nerf by MORTALIS, turning the opposing tanks into toothless tigers :).
ROUND 1
VAMPIRE and SILENT SHAVI opened the batting and reduced the Shieldbearer to 7 in a flash. OCTOPIDER and CURSED WINDEKU followed on to leave the Shieldbearer with 1 health to then be cleaned up by Thorns. In the meantime, the opposition nibbled away at the NIGHT GHOUL but there were no impressive moves.
ROUND 2
The next enemy domino to fall in Round 2 was the Luminous Eagle at the hands of the VAMPIRE, leaving the opposition midfield nicely exposed. Silvershield Sheriff, the only real danger to my team, then took out the NIGHT GHOUL, leaving CURSED WINDEKU with high health in first position. Again with an OCTOPIDER/WINDEKU combination, the next enemy monster, Silvershield Knight, bit the dust.
ROUND 3
In a foul swoop, VAMPIRE then toasted the Silvershield Assassin, making the Silvershield clan look rather weak and powerless. The rest of the round prepared the enemy coffins for burial.
ROUND 4
Again the VAMPIRE struck a killer blow to get rid of the Sandworm, leaving the Sherrif with his pants down and ready to be thown to the dogs. Battle won!
VAMPIRE
Lady VANPIRE leeched 4 health from enemy monsters and played a leading role in destroying the opposition by shooting first and inflicting tripple damage each time. With all the new cards coming on the scene lately, including Riftwatchers and soulbound reward cards, Beta cards are fading more and more into the background. Even in Wild League, they are appearing less and less. I am always glad to use my old favourites from back in the day and it seems that my opponents have forgotten them or never knew them in the first place, making them great secret weapons like in today's battle.
As we can see in this battle, Healed Out didn't play a role, especially because I didn't plan on fielding a healing monster in the first place. Bloodlust didn't contribute to the outcome either and VAMPIRE's health didn't matter. Once again, it was sheer speed and firepower that decided the outcome of the battle. So, honestly, I don't really have a master strategy for Healed Out and I am looking forward to checking out other players writing about it this week.
See you around Splinterheads!
the title image background (a painting by Dante) is borrowed from npr.org
