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.
In today's challenge we are looking at the Odd Ones Out ruleset.
ODD ONES OUT
Only units with odd mana costs may be used.
Summoners are not affected by this rule.
Odd Ones Out and the counterpart ruleset Even Stevens teach you to know the mana cap of your cards off by heart. As these rulesets appear quite often, it is a good idea to balance your deck with equal sets of even and uneven mana cards. Some to the neutral cards come in handy here and when playing in Wild League, having a larger range of choice is a big bonus.
These 2 rulesets sometimes don’t allow you to put the best cards in the best positions so it may at times be necessary to improvise or take a risk. This makes Odd Ones Out all the more enjoyable as you cannot always anticipate the playing field. The battle I have chosen to study today is an example, where we have a low mana game and I want to use as many 1 mana cards in a Opportunity ruleset as possible.
The battle stats are the following:
RULESETS: Tis But Scratches, Odd Ones Out and Equal Opportunity
MANA: 14
AVAILABLE DECKS: all but Water
So here we have an interesting situation: Odd Ones Out and Equal Opportunity (besides Tis But Scratches). My opponent will automatically attack my low mana monsters first, so my strategy is to load as many bases with 1 mana cards and try to leave as much mana for my main attacker to try and wipe out enemy monsters as quickly as possible. Here is the team I put together:
In An Odd Ones Out ruleset, I am looking to have the largest choice of uneven monsters, so I am opting for the Dragon deck to give me additional options. Furthermore, a -1 speed debuff from QUIX also gives me additional chances to keep my monsters alive, if my opponent uses range attackers.
Position 1 is CHAOS AGENT. I love this card. For 1 mana I get some premium cannon fodder at the front with Dodge and Phase, looking to get some misses and stay alive as long as possible, before getting toasted.
Position 2 is GARGOYA SCRAPPER. I rarely use this card, as I don't have usecases for him. Here he is useful to attract fire away from my main weapon, so again the position is held as cannon fodder.
Similar for KRAAR XOC. He is also cannon fodder with the additional use of Scavenger to keep him alive. Low mana monsters will drop quickly and feed him extra health points.
JARED SCAR is the main tank and positioned last for maximum protection, while delivering Opportunity hits from the backline. He has amazing abilities: Bloodlust, True Strike and Piercing, meaning he will always hit his target, pierce through armour and lust on low mana enemies, as they drop. With 6 melee in the starting blocks, he will devour his enemies with single blows.
So now let's take a closer look at the battle in focus today. My opponent had similar ideas to field multiple low mana monsters to soak up hits but made the fundamental mistake of not bringing a powerful hitter to clean up the playing field.
Being the fastest monster on the field, the Life Sapper struck first and got rid of GARGOYA SCRAPPER, as expected. JARED SCAR then demonstrated his battling skills to toast the Cursed Slimeball and collect his first Bloodlust. Carrion Shade then killed the CHAOS AGENT, who didn't get a chance to get a miss. Meanwhile, KRAAR XOC collected his third Scavenger point and moved to the first position, where he was missed by the Crypt Beetle.
Life Sapper had first turn again, followed by another masterful blow from JARED SCAR to get rid of his next victim and Bloodlust a second time. Crypt Beetle then missed again :)
Now being generously bloodlusted, JARED SCAR has superior stats to shoot first to waste the enemy agent... and Bloodlusted again. Life Sapper took 2 health from KRAAR XOC, who was then swiftly buried by Crypt Beetle.
JARED SCAR then delivered a monster blow with Piercing to reduce Crypt Beetle to 3 health. Life Sapper took 2 health, but that didn't impress JARED...
JARED fired again and Bloodlusted again. There was nothing Life Sapper could do to save herself in the next round...
nuff said...
He doesn't get much action in my lineups but did great here. Look at his stats!
This battle was an example, where I knew my decks well, meaning I knew how and where to find multiple 1 mana cards to work with a low mana battle in an Odd Ones Out ruleset. The circumstances, such as mana cap and other rulesets always play a role, when deciding what your strategy will be. I love this ruleset, as it keeps me on my toes to memorize the mana cost of all my little darlings.
Seeyaround Splinterheads!
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