HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Welcome to week 35 of the new iteration of the Splinterlands Weekly Challenges (at least, if I haven't miscounted so far, yet. 😜).

For any old Hivers/Splinterland players who've just come back and are confused, fret not! Even with the name and format tweaks, right at it's core, battles are still the foundation of these posts.

In this week's edition of Battle Mage Secrets, practice makes perfect. That is, unless you are the target of said practice sessions. In that case, I wouldn't want to be in that poor soul's position at all!

No matter! I present to you the ruleset — TARGET PRACTICE 🎯🎯🎯

The game's description of TARGET PRACTICE is as follows: "All Ranged and Magic attack Monsters have the Snipe ability."

This is an interesting ruleset which elevates the "tank" position to that of the next non melee unit in the backline instead. There are several ways to take advantage of this situation. You can either use an extremely tanky non melee unit to draw fire away, or forgo all non melee units altogether. Decoys can also be used to draw fire away from other vulnerable units.

I will take advantage of this ruleset in my battle showcase today to show how 1 of my units in particular becomes a lot stronger than one would expect with TARGET PRACTICE. Introducing the Dragon splinter unit, LARISSA KERATO.

Larissa is not what anyone would expect as a Gloridax champion Gladiator, but she was enrolled by the Dragons nonetheless. She is one of the only remaining members of a proud waning race known as the chamen, whose story is tragic at its worst and brilliantly heroic at its best. The legend says that the last battalion of chamen warriors faced off against an indestructible enemy, the loathsome Titan of Doom. Knowing they would be destroyed, the brave mages and soldiers of the chamen rode off to intercept their enemy as it bore down on the innocent city of Athua that they had called home for many generations. The battle raged for three days, and every last chamen warrior was destroyed, but the Titan was far from unscathed. Its injuries were enough to cause it to retreat into the storm cloud from whence it came without inflicting any harm on the city of Athua, whose residents heard nothing of the chamen’s deeds.

From Splinterlands Lore on LARISSA KERATO

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LARISSA KERATO is a Legendary card released during the Gladius expansion. At LEVEL 1, it has 2 ⚔️Magic ATTACK⚔️ and 2 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 0 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 3 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the DOUBLESTRIKE & AMPLIFY ability. It's summoning cost is 7 🧪MANA🧪.

As a unit itself, LARISSA KERATO might look lacklustre. In fact, I would say that at 7 mana, her raw stats are on the lower end. However, what is often overlooked is her ability — Doublestrike AND Bloodlust. What this does is double her damage and if she lands the killing blow, all her stats are increased too! This quickly turns her into an unstoppable monster with a few lucky hits.
This could make all the difference if the battle comes down to the wire where the slightest advantage is the fine line between victory or defeat! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 This is definitely what I'd consider game changing! 😱😱😱

⚔️🛡️My Battle Showcase🛡️⚔️

Let me present a battle I fought recently in which the ruleset TARGET PRACTICE was in effect. My opponent used the Soulbound Rewards edition Summoner Helios Matriarch from the **DRAGON ** splinter as his main pick, while I also used the Soulbound Rewards edition Summoner Helios Matriarch from the DRAGON splinter. 🐉 VS 🐉

At first glance, it would seem like I was at a distinct disadvantage.

• My opponent was using a level 4 Summoner VS my level 3.

• His units were also significantly higher level than mine across the board. My units weren't maxed out for their level, while my opponent, already having a level advantage over me, had his all maxed out! 😱

• His units were likewise significantly higher levelled than mine. 😱

• This gave his entire team a huge increase in raw damage output.

• To exacerbate matters, he barely had any non melee units for me to target too!

I was honestly expecting this to be a really bad matchup for me 😜🤣. This was a team who had an innate advantage in this ruleset. The significantly higher levels would be hard to beat. Would I be able to turn the tide of battle against such an opponent then? Victory or defeat would lie in the small details.

I would say that the ruleset TARGET PRACTICE was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. The advantage it gave my team resulted in me outlasting my opponent in this battle. It definitely provided the edge that I needed to overcome my opponent.

This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆

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LINK TO MY FIGHT

👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

1st CARD SLOT

The Void Dragon is chosen for this slot. He plays the role of the Main tank perfectly with his great stats. His high health stats and the FLYING and VOID ability will also allow him to have much longer staying power on the battlefield. This allows all other units to be kept safe until he is taken down.

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2nd CARD SLOT

The Venari Marksrat occupies this slot. It's main role here is to sacrifice itself to give it's adjacent units a boost via the MARTYR ability.

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3rd CARD SLOT

The Larissa Kerato fills this slot and it's main role is to be the DPS for the team. With DOUBLESTRIKE & BLOODLUST, she can easily become an unstoppable force on the battlefield.

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4th CARD SLOT

The Vulgine fills this slot. It's role is to mainly be a cheap filler unit for the team.

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5th CARD SLOT

The Spirit Hoarder occupies this slot. His main role is to offer healing support to the team's backline via the TRIAGE ability.

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6th CARD SLOT

The Oshuur Constantia occupies the last slot. It's main role is to be a DPS for the team, as well as support the team with it's RESURRECT ability.

I hope you're starting to see the pattern here in my team setup. 😉

⚔️🛡️Battle Action Report🛡️⚔️

As you can see, both of us fielded very different units in our matchup. We both used different splinters, and our unit selection were completely worlds apart too! 😱

🐉DRAGON🐉 VS 🐉DRAGON🐉

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My opponent used the Djinn Chwala as his tank in the 1st slot which was a VERY good choice. With his great defensive stats, and the THORNS ability making it the perfect anti melee unit, this is a unit which will protect it's entire team until it falls.

The Carnage Titan occupied his 2nd slot. This is an amazing support and DPS unit. Capable of dishing out damage and also having the DOUBLESTRIKE and REACH abilities, this is a unit that can completely change the tide of battle.

His next 2 units were similarly also Melee DPS units in the form of the Dhampir Infiltrator and the Celestial Harpy. Both these units have the SNEAK/OPPORTUNITY ability and are capable of taking out vulnerable units in the backline.

The rest of his team was rounded off with the Naga Assassin and Soul Fiend. These 2 were probably sacrificial units to protect the backline.

All in all, I would say that the opponent picked a really strong team.

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My choice of the Main Tank was the Void Dragon who is perfect for this task. He has really high HEALTH stats in order to take extra hits to ensure that all the other units are protected. Not only that, it also has the FLYING and VOID abilities. This allows it to last longer on the battlefield.

The Venari Marksrat comes next in the 2nd slot. It's low stats and lack of any attack means it's just there mainly for it's MARTYR ability. Once (and hopefully) it dies, the surrounding units get a boost in stats.

My next few units were a mix of DPS and support units.

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The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was a mid mana game with 33 mana as the limit. The rulesets were TARGET PRACTICE & ARMOURD UP.

• The first round saw both sides exchange hits. However, I gained a significant advantage when my Larissa landed the killing blow and finished off his Naga Assassin thus activating her BLOODLUST.

• Round 2 saw my Marksrat die as I hoped. Larissa and the Void Dragon got boosted thanks to MARTYR and Oshuur promptly resurrected the Marksrat again! 🤣

• Round 3 saw Larissa getting completely out of control as she scored another 2 kills. The multiple BLOODLUST and MARTYR activations had turned her into a monster which only got stronger as the battle wore on.

• It was all over for the opponent now as I eventually mopped up his entire army. 💀💀💀

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the TARGET PRACTICE ruleset to give me a slight advantage. Individually, on their own, my units would face a huge disadvantage against an enemy which has higher levelled than me. However, thanks to Larissa taking advantage of the ruleset to score an initial kill to get her BLOODLUST chain reaction going, I was able to turn the tides of battle! The opponent simply could not handle all that at all.

Well as you can see here in this video recording of my battle, the results were pretty good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

This was truly an eye opener! 😁🏆

Slowly, but surely, I wore down the opponent's team and the match ended up with me inflicting a crushing defeat. My team selection proved to be the edge I needed to eventually overpower my opponent. 💪🏻

🔮🔮🔮Hindsight is 20/20🔮🔮🔮

Would I have done anything differently? 🤔 This might have seemed like a disadvantage at the start but I ended up winning handily. IF I had to use the same cards again, there would be no better lineup than what I had already used for the match. Any other combination MIGHT have resulted in a loss for me. I'm really satisfied with the results against such a worthy opponent. 🏆🥇

💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

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I definitely can appreciate the ruleset TARGET PRACTICE and how it changes the dynamics of usual gameplay. This is one of those rulesets which can be turned into a huge advantage if surrounded with the proper team. The role it brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

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