Splinterlands Battle Mage Challenge - Earthquake

Hey!

This week’s Battle Mage Challenge features the Earthquake rule, so let’s get to it.

Earthquake

When this rule is in effect, all non-flying Monsters take two Melee damage at the end of each round. Considering this, our first option when assembling a team should be flying Monsters, since they will be able to avoid this field effect.

Another trick would be using Monsters with the Shield effect to reduce the Earthquake’s damage by one. Then, if you’re short in flying or cards with Shield, your next best option is using Monsters with high Health and/or Armor. Self-healing cards are also a decent choice, but they usually don’t last, since the combination of field damage plus the enemy damage is too much.

At the same time, to make your opponent more vulnerable to the Earthquake you could use Monsters with the Snare ability, which provokes Flying cards to lose said ability and suffer damage by earthquake. Another good idea would be using Summoners that take down Armor or improve yours, if we are talking about defense.

There isn’t much else to say regarding this rule… you could position Martyrs in positions you wouldn’t place, knowing that they’ll die for sure.

At last, a Summoner that is always amazing for this rule is Brighton Bloom, which grants the Flying ability to every friendly Monster. But I wanted to mention two other Summoners that could be great for this ruleset:

• Vera Salacia: one of the cheapest Summoners of the game. She grants Snare to all Friendly Monsters, making her a problem for your opponent. Besides, she’s so rarely used that no one ever sees her coming.
• Skargore: another reasonably cheap Summoner. Epic card this time, she grants the Enrage ability to all friendly Monsters. If you can’t avoid being damage by the earthquake, you can try and use that in your favor. When not at full Health, enraged Monsters improve their attack and speed by 50%.

Battle

Ruleset

Lineup & Strategy

This Challenge was done using a Brawl battle. Bronze cap, Chaos and Rebellion sets. Alongside with Earthquake, we also had Odd Ones Out, so only Monsters with odd Mana points could be used, diminishing our option, however there was also a Super Sneak rule to balancing it out.

In this situation, I think that the Earth Splinter has a good selection of Monsters, so that was my Splinter of choice. Besides, the Life Splinter wasn’t an option, otherwise I would’ve chosen that one.

• As a Summoner, Obsidian. No particular trait that dazzles me in this situation, I just needed to summon green Monsters.
• As a tank, Palidon Rakk. I almost never use this guy, unless I am in a very particular situation. I didn’t have many options of cards, so this guy is as good as it gets. Good attack, a lot of Health points, but slow. Besides, he doesn’t have any kind of protection.
• Then, my first flying card, the Gargoya Devil. Always a risky bet in the first positions, due to his low Health, but that’s what I had.
• A Martyr, to boost adjacent cards, the Venari Marksrat.
• The Pelacor Mercenary, great card for this rule. He can fly, has a good attack and he has a piece of Armor. Besides in this rule he was able to attack from there, the fourth position.
• Another perk of the Earth Splinter, another Martyr, the Fungus Flinger.
• In last position, another great Monster for this ruleset, the Regal Peryton. Extremely fast and with the flying ability, so great to withstand both Earthquakes and Monsters with Sneak. Unfortunately, in this case, it didn’t dodge any attack…

Battle Link

I was able to win this battle and score three points for my Guild. However, as always when the Earthquake or Venom rules are in effect, battles end up in a tight victory or a draw, and this case was not the exception.

Even though I had a good lineup, I was very lucky in some opportunities when attacking first, even when matched in Speed with my opponent. Anyways, I think that I also made good use of Martyrs this time, since it gave my Pelacor enough edge to finish the opponent’s team.

My opponent had a good lineup, particularly the Summoner was a good choice, since it nullifies Obsidian and takes one point of Health away, which could be critical with Earthquake of Venom.

However, a tiny detail that would’ve helped him win, maybe, was to position his Marksrat to benefit, not only his Gargoya, but also his Pelacor, which is also a flying card. Trying to boost a Gladius is tempting, but Liza Fox is not one of those you should boost. Her attack is already strong, so is not a big difference, besides in this ruleset she’s weak, regardless of her attack.

This is it guys, thanks for reading!

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