https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_f305f3f12a162a177c20505d5c182005&ref=atbui89

This week's battle challenge involves the Time Mage! The Time Mage is a Life splinter Magic monster that is an excellent support card due to it's Slow ability. This card can be the difference between a win and a loss in any lineup.

Time Mage Highlights

The Time Mage might not seem too strong as first. She only does 1 damage and has 3 health. However, the Slow ability that it possesses will remove 1 Speed stat from all enemy monsters!

If you're just starting out, you may not be aware that speed kills! Getting to attack first and potentially dodge an enemy attack is a MASSIVE advantage in Splinterlands.

She has the Slow ability from Level 1 so even 1 card is useful to have. At Level 3, she gains another point to damage. A new ability is unlocked at level 5 which is Rust. And finally, at max level, she gains yet another point to her damage making her a very powerful, 4 mana card.

Symbol	Ability	Description
	Slow	Reduces the Speed of all enemy Monsters
	Rust	Reduces the Armor of all enemy Monsters

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So when do I use the Time Mage?

• Since General Sloan buffs all Ranged attacks with +1, you really want to take advantage of those heavy hits so playing the Time Mage will help you attack before your opponent can.
• Essentially, she can be played in nearly every lineup except for high mana battles since her damage output and health are both low.
• Little League is a great place for her. With this ruleset, many monsters have low attack and low health so including a Time Mage can help you attack first while dishing out some damage underneath that pesky armor

This Week's Featured Battle

In this featured battle, my General Sloan and the Life deck matched up against an Obsidian with the Earth deck. With the Spreading Fury ruleset, speed becomes extremely important because after all, you can't kill what you can't hit. This battle is interesting because Magic cannot miss (unless Phase is involved).

Battle Ruleset

Symbol	Rule	Description
	Spreading Fury	All Monsters have the Enrage ability. Increase Melee attack and Speed when damaged. Values are multiplied by 1.5 and rounded up
	Healed Out	All healing abilities are removed from Monsters and Summoners.
	38 Mana	This is considered a high mana battle
	Active Splinters	Fire, Water, Earth, and Life splinters are available

Strategy Highlights

• Spreading Fury
  • Once enraged, all monsters will get a 1.5X speed boost and melee monsters will get a 1.5X damage boost. This can make already fast monsters even faster (and hard to hit)
  • Magic attacks are a great choice because they do not miss unless there is Phase which isn't very common
  • Generally, you want a strong, fast melee monster to tank and concentrate your attack to the front with Magic or a monster with True Strike (cannot miss). Because of this Obsidian is a very common play
  • I try not to go with Sneak or Opportunity because you may accidentally buff one of their monsters which makes them do more damage and potentially much harder to hit
  • Tarsa can be an excellent choice because Fire has a lot of naturally strong Melee attackers
  • Kelya is another great choice if you're playing the speed game since she gives a speed boost to all friendly monsters

• Healed Out
  • Without healing, Magic gets an even bigger boost because Magic attackers do damage directly to health (unless Void Armor is involved)
  • However, the Unicorn/Goblin Psychic/Wood Nypmh strategy isn't nearly as good without the healing
  • Llama combos are (slightly) less powerful here
  • Life Leech and Scavenge still work to give you a health boost

• 38 Mana
  • I consider this a high mana battle and as such, I want to play (and expect) strong attacks

My instinct with Spreading Fury is to play as lot of Magic because I do not want to miss my attacks. However, Earth Magic is one of the slower setups and even if they don't miss, I don't like attacking last.

For that reason, I decided to go with Life because I have a few monsters who can either buff my speed or debuff my opponents speed while still delivering heavy blows. Without healing, it's important for me to hit first, hit hard, and debuff magic if possible.

The Lineup

Position	Card Image	Card Name	Notes
Summoner		General Sloan	Life Summoner who gives a +1 attack bonus to all Ranged attacks. One of my favorite Summoners and I feel that it is severely underrated
Pos 1 (tank)		Shieldbearer	One of the best cards in the Life deck that makes General Sloan work so well. It has the Taunt ability which causes all enemy monsters to target it, drawing attention away from the lower health backline who will be doing the heavy attacking
Pos 2 (secondary tank)		Crystal Werewolf	Without healing, Magic attacks become even more dangerous so it was important for me to give up a backline attacker for a magic debuff (Silence). He also has a decent amount of health which can help as a secondary tank for only 3 mana
Pos 3 (attacker/support)		Time Mage	As I mentioned before, I want to attack first and be able to continue hitting so it was important for me to slow down my enemy or increase my speed as much as possible. She's placed in the middle to protect her a bit but also to give my Ranged attackers some breathing room since they can't attack from the front
Pos 4 (attacker/support)		Supply Runner	Once it's at Level 5, Supply Runner is one of the best cards to use with General Sloan (or anyone really). That Swiftness ability is unlocked and boosts the speed of all friendly monsters, making Ranged attackers extremely deadly. Since he's paired with the Time Mage, I'm getting an extra speed advantage over my opponent
Pos 5 (attacker)		Pelacor Arbalest	This card can single handedly wipe the floor with your opponent with the Double Strike ability. Add in General Sloan's buff and you're doing 3 damage each attack! Good luck surviving a few rounds against it
Pos 6 (attacker/sneak shield)		Gargoya Devil	Another backline Ranged attacker that gets a big boost from General Sloan. What's special about the Gargoya Devil is that it can do MASSIVE damage with the Deathblow ability. This allows it to do double damage (8 damage) if its target is the last enemy monster which is huge if you're dealing with a Last Stand ability. It also has 1 armor so placing it in the back will help keep the backline slightly protected from Sneak

Let's Battle!

• My opponent had a decent lineup, basically what I expected from a Magic Play
• This actually played into my hand since I nerfed Magic damage with my Crystal Werewolf, negating their Obsidian buff
• The Unicorn Mustang tank is very common and since it is already quick, I wanted to make sure I could slow it down or speed myself up as much as possible or else there would be a high chance of missing once it became Enraged

Did it work?

Yes! Admittedly, I severely outclassed my opponent with some maxed Silver level cards while they appeared to only be using Level 1 starter cards. Regardless, this strategy would work just as well against a leveled up enemy.

I analyzed the battle with Splintertools and as I suspected, I had a 100% chance of winning. There wasn't really anything that I would change about this lineup, I think it perfectly countered my opponent and was prepared for different types of tactics.

Final Thoughts

When I first started playing, I was blinded by big attackers (Sandworm, Living Lava, etc..) and didn't pay too much attention to speed. I quickly learned that missing or not even getting an attack off before dying was highly frustrating!

With the Time Mage, you can really tilt the scales in your favor by potentially getting the first few attacks off before your opponent's monsters get a chance to respond. This card is a staple in my lineup and is used constantly at low to mid mana battles. It's also fairly cheap at about $0.22/BCX.

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Thanks for reading! I hoped you enjoyed it!

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