Share Your Battle

First time in the history of my battle challenges, that I am not able to participate in the challenge, since I do not have the card, that is featured.

Defender of the Truth

Defender of the Truth is an Epic Alpha/Beta card, and therefore neither part of the Starter Set, nor part of my deck. And over $60 is to much for a card I might not use a lot.

It has Protect from Level 3 and therefore is very similar to Venari Wavesmith - except it comes a lot later and has only one ability. So in my opinion it seems like Venari Wavesmith is a better card, than this epic Alpha card. And it is a lot more expensive: A Venari Wavesmith at level 1 is around $6-8. A Defender of the Truth level 3 (where it gets protect) is around $400-600, so almost 100x.

Lore

The Defender of Truth is a powerful wizard of Khymeria, as well as an important political figure for the Order of the Silver Shield. When the Khymian warriors march to war, the Defender of Truth is their General. He inspires his troops with the divine protection of the Silver Shield.

The "Surrogate": Venari Wavesmith

Much has been said about this card - and even myself was already talking about it, in my still ongoing series analyzing the new reward cards.

It is a rare reward and right now the fourth most valuable card of the reward cards, ranking above the epics. Compared to the Beta Defender of the Truth it has only 1/15 of the CP (Wavesmith 20, Defender of the Truth 300). Compare it to a level 3 Defender you would almost need a level 2 Gold Foil Wavesmith to have the same power. So yeah, regarding power, the old card is a lot better.

But except for that. Maybe it is a better investment to buy a Defender. Idk.
The stats speak for the Wavesmith. Protect at level 1, Dispel at level 5, similar magic attack, speed and attack. Only one shield missing. And Defender of the Truth is available in Little League, which can be a benefit. The one mana less can be a big benefit in low mana battles.

Lore

Banished from Below 3 of 5 - A massive race of rat-like people called venari have lived in the Strite for thousands of years. They are skilled technicians and mechanics who can make advanced devices and tools the likes of which Splinterlanders have never seen. The venari control powerful forms of magic that they have synthesized from the minerals and mana flows of the Strite. Through their complex field of science called smithing, they have been able to create and recreate many types of natural and magical phenomena from any magical element.

Battle Challenge

So finally we get to the point, where the battle starts. Check out my battle here:

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_5ba721bee01db68b6fe39ce14fcd93b8&ref=andy-plays

The Rule Set:

44 mana, Explosive Weaponry and Close Range - it was likely that this was going to be an interesting battle. All monsters having the Blast ability and Ranged could attack from first position. And with so much mana to spend, it was likely to see some big ships coming up.

My Team

I went water - which is no surprise to you, since I wanted to use Venari Wavesmith.

The Summoner: Bortus

Giving -1 magic at first this seems not too intuitive. But one the one hand, I got a Gold Foil Delegation, so it enables me to use some higher level monsters. On the other hand, I use it mainly to defend myself against stronger magic users. Which was a good play this match.

First Position: Torhilo The Frozen

Probably already said it in one of my former battle challenges or other reviews: I love Torhilo! First, he is a beast! An almost perfect tank against magic attackers and combined with Bortus even better. Everything up to 2 magic damage is completely lost in the void. Pun intended.

Second Position: Sea Monster

This was mainly due to the fact, that we were playing a blast rule set and having a healer on second position seemed like a good play. So all the blast attacks could be - at least particially be healed up. Unfortunately my Sea Monster is only level 1.

Third Position: Djinn Oshannus

Definitely one of my favorite cards in the game. Due to my summoner only being able to summon level 1 legendary cards, it is only at level 1. So no Phase. But Void and 2 Magic attack helps. It is actually used as mix between tank and attacker.

Fourth position: Venari Wavesmith - The Challenge Card

There it comes, the Wavesmith. In this setup it was almost useless, since only Naga Warrior was affected. But since everything else was focused on Magic Defense (I neither have a Lobstradmus level 3, nor a Frozen Soldier level 5 for the magic reflect), I thought it was a good idea to have at least some defense against other sorts of attack. And the Proctect helps a lot against Melee and Ranged.

Fifth Position: Custacen King

The Healer. Having some big tanks up front, I thought it might be a good idea to give them some additional heal, so they could stand up longer against potential heavy attackers.

Sixth and Last Position: Axemaster

The Attack Damage Carry. Well, Oshannus has some damage, as do Torhilo and Sea Monster, but since they have different rules in this rule set, Axemaster was there to do some damage. Unfortunately only at level one, and not already at level 3, but still 2 ranged damage two times can make quite a difference.

Opponent Team:

Well, clear magic spam. And all do have 2 magic damage per default. Alric Strombringer as a Summoner giving +1 magic damage, Naga Warrior as a attack tank. And a complete high damage backline with Spirit Miner, Ruler of the Seas, Djinn Oshanuss, Mischievous Mermaid and Captain's Ghost. Without Bortus this would have been a total of 15 magic plus 3 melee damage - and all with additional blast. So it came down to "only" 10 magic damage.

The Battle:

In the first round I could kill my opponents Naga Warrior, while "only" loosing some health on both my tanks. Unfortunately Torhilo missed his attack. But it didn't make a big difference.

Because after round 2, it was pretty obvious how this would end. Not even one of my tanks down, while my opponent was at only two cards left. The strategy worked so far.

And in the end it was a flawless victory! Not even one of my monsters dying wasn't what I expected. Torhilo was down 1 HP and Sea Monster 4 HP. That's it. Really didn't expected this. Even when I wrote the recap, I was pretty surprised how everything worked out.

Analysis

Magic Defense works pretty awesome against magic. And using an already high HP self-heal tank on position two is a good choice for a Blast rule set.
Sometimes even defense wins games. And not only Championships.

So yes, my strategy worked out even better than expected.

Cheers,

@andy-plays