@carrieallen has come up with best Splinterlands challenge of the week this week - to showcase the 'no attack' cards, and I've been having MAX fun and some surprising and unexpected success with it. Although maybe I shouldn't be so surprised, one of the best strategists around, @bubke, once said to me 'you should pay more attention to defense', looks like he was right.
What I really like about this challenge is that it has a real 'cheek' to it - defeating an opponent by letting them rip themselves apart on your thorns is, well 'cheeky', or should that be 'irritating'?
And there's an element of style to this type of challenge too, it feels like the equivalent of nutmegging in football, not that I play football, but I know if I did, I'd much prefer a style game rather than a bruiser game, which is far too often the case with Splinterlands matches, so this challenge has the additional bonus of making matches more interesting, something I know @slobberchops will be grateful for, and probably a whole load of other people too.
Initially I set myself the challenge of stacking my selections with as many no attack cards as possible for 'maximum cheek', but being realistic I realized I would need some attack cards in there, because many of the most effective defense cards (tank heal/ triage/ armorer) come with attack, and you'd probably still have to 'actively' damage your opponent to win (or do you? See below!)
Here's two very different examples of success I had with 'no attack' cards - I'm currenly 2 for 2 on this!
30 mana with Dragon/ Earth
This was perfect, I'd gone through my selection and decided what cards would best suit this challenge - Earth came out on top, with my 'ideal card selection' coming in at 30 mana.
Click here to see how this 11 round battle panned out. Spolier alert - I didn't come close to losing even a single monster.
Then again I am playing two of the highest win rate maxed legendary cards in the entire @splinterlands pantheon, but you get the idea:
- three no attack cards
- I'm doing half the cumulative 'active damage' of my opponent.
And he got nowhere near me!
20 Mana with Dragon/ Life
Enthused by this easy victory, I had a pop with the next battle, which was much lower mana:
I've only got two no attack cards in the strict sense of the definition, but because I've got two melee attack doing nothing, I guess they count as 'no attack' and after my first attempt, I evolved the 'cheek principle' to one of doing as little active damage as possible - I've only got a total of 2 active damage going out here, compared to my opponent's 10 damage.
Click here to see how this pads out, it's probably not what my opponent was expecting with that maxed legendary dragon and fiendishly expensive (for what you get IMO) harpy.
The challenge and how to enter the competition
To enter it's easy - just make an entry to @carrieallans's most excellent latest splinterlands challenge of the week competition - to showcase the 'no attack' ruleset - conforming to all the usual rules laid out!
Drop a comment on this post so I know you want to enter this extra 'layer' of competition I've added on....
The additional competition challenge (what determines 1st/ 2nd/ 3rd)
Include at least two no attack cards, to fit in with the spirit of the challenge, and...
I want you to focus on putting together a team focused less on active attack and more on defense, dodge, and heal. So avoid magic and ranged attacks. Dormant melee attacks will count as 'no attack'.
Thorns/ reflect/ return fire/ dodge/ armourer, blind (might be useful) are all good skills to go for.
First prize goes to whoever posts a winning battle with the team that does the least active damage in relation to the total mana for that battle.
So if your team does total 'active damage' of 4 and the mana total is 30, you'll come higher up my leader board than someone with a team doing active damage of 4 with a total mana cap of 20.
If there's a tie, I'll look at your damage compared to your opponent's.
If it's a still a tie after that I'll make it up as I go along!
Deadline - Sunday 14th June, 18.00 GMT - I need to draw a line under this by the end of the weekend! This is also pretty much the deadline for the regular challenge!
Prizes
- First prize is a lease for next season (16 days) of a maxed Mimosa (legendary summoner) - Death is the epitome of winning by cheek, with all that hexing and this cheeky 14 year old does that with style. And one essence orb.
- Second Prize - 20 LEO, I want to do a little something to promote this excellent community! The rate the token's increasing in price it might be worth more than a maxed Legendary Mimosa by Sunday!
- Third Prize - A Khmer Princes - quite a cheeky card!
- Runner up prizes - I'll also send an armourer card to anyone who makes an entry and amuses me!
If you win and you'd rather have the LEO or the Khmer princess, let me know, that's fine!
OK they're a bit tight, but this should just be a bit of fun! And you're already entering the challenge anyway, right?!?
Final thoughts
This is just a bit of fun, it might be possible that I've completely messed up the rules and it'll be easy for someone to 'game' first prize, in which case, if you game it with style, you'll still win first prize, unless you're a dick about it, and then you won't win anything.
I reserve the right to define what counts as 'being a dick about it' absolutely and entirely subjectively.