The Double Blast

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Greetings, battle mages!

My week in Splinterlands has gone pretty well and I have positioned myself in the middle of the Wild Gold League. This week Battle Mage Secrets challenge features the Explosive Weaponry ruleset which means every monster will get the Blast ability!

This is one of my favorite rulesets in the game as you can play it in so many different ways. One very obvious approach would be adding a unit with reflection shield in the second spot. However, in the example battle I have in store for you, I'm gonna use a monster with Martyr to actually benefit from the enemy blast shrapnel.

Here are the rules, mana cap, and available Splinters for this battle:

Let's take a look at my choices!

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My Team

As a summoner, I picked HELIOS MATRIARCH who can bring one Gladiator unit onto the battlefield and also boost the speed of all my monsters by one point.

This can make a decisive difference if we can be the team that gets to attack first. With Blast, it's often about who gets to cause damage first and perhaps even paralyze the opponent.

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Aah...yes. My crown jewel - DRYBONE BARBARIAN.

Usually, I don't this unit as a tank because his health and armor stats aren't that strong. That being said, because of his Double Strike ability, he can perform two attacks in a single round.

If that wasn't enough, Drybone Barbarian will also shatter any opponent armor and clearing the way to his second attack.

Because the Going the Distance ruleset is in play, only monsters with Ranged attacks are qualified so hopefully my opponent will be surprised to see a melee monster facing their squad.

With the VENARI MARRKSRAT, I plan to take advantage of the shrapnels sent by the Balst ruleset.

There's no denying the fact that the Rat will go down at some point and that might not be such a bad thing after all as he will then use the martyr ability to make adjacent monsters stronger.

This is the main thing I'm counting on - to elevate my tank to a real killing machine.

Since there are only Ranged units on the battlefield and no magic monsters around, strong armor is a must.

RAVENHOOOD WARDEN will provide +2 armor to all my units as well as to himself.

BERIX SNAKEYE is the latest addition to my collection.

This Ranged monster is excellent mainly because of his Weapons Training ability but besides that, he also has some killer stats: +6 armor, +5 health, and a strong Ranged attack of 3 attack points.

Speaking of powerful Ranged attacks, LIZA FOX is a Gladiator unit with an even stronger attack(+4).

I've placed her in the back and crossed my fingers that there wouldn't be that many Sneak monsters on the enemy team.

If Liza gets her kills, her Bloodlust ability will activate and then all hell will break loose.

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Entering The Arena

When I was setting up my team and knowing only ranged monsters could be used, I already knew which summoner my opponent would pick.

Yes. Quix The Devious is a real pain in many plans and has ruined a lot of good strategies by debuffing the ranged attacks.

Along with him came some pretty powerful monsters:

• Wave Brood - not that strong offensively but has a hefty amount of health.
• Angelic Mandarin - not a threat
• Zyvax Vuul - a bit stronger than the previous ones. Gonna be hard to hit cos of the Flying ability.
• Kulu Swimhunter
• Swamp Spitter - great monster! I use this one very often myself. Will repair the armor that has taken the most damage.
• Runic Skyclaw - a powerful ranged unit with Flying and Snipe abilities.

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The Battle

This is going to be interesting! Seems like my opponent has a slight advantage because of the debuff but in my opinion, they haven't utilized the Balst ruleset that well.

You can watch the whole battle HERE or/and continue reading my battle report below!

ROUND 1

The first round was a real success for my team. We managed to take out both Wave Brood and Angelic Mandarin. In addition to that, we were also able to hurt the Zyvax Vuul and Kulu Swim Hunter with blast shrapnels!

Venari Marksrat served well and really took one for the team. Proudly.

ROUND 2

Their Runic Skyclaw managed to land a powerful blow in the middle of my ranks but this my choice to use armor proved to be a good one.

After that, now stronger(+3 melee) Drybone Barbarian used his double strike to simultaneously hit Zyvax Vuul and weaken the Kulu Swimhunter. His second strike was lethal for both enemy creatures.

ROUND 3

The third round started with another deadly strike by Runic Skyclaw and my Ravenhood Warden fell as a casualty of war. After that, it was my turn.

Already weakened Swamp Spitter fell first and the dreaded Runic Skyclaw was now in front of us. Even though this evasive creature managed to dodge multiple attacks, its fate had been sealed as it couldn't attack from this spot anymore. Game over.

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Conclusion

Whenever there's the Blast ruleset in play I'm always contemplating whether to use a Reflection Shield unit or Martyr units. I guess they both play out pretty well.

In this case, the use of Martyr proved to be a solid choice as it made my tank so strong that he could wreak havoc with Double Strike. To think of it, Double Strike is actually a really lethal ability to bring to Blast battles. That is definitely going into my playbook.

Thank you very much for reading, until next week!

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Thumbnail background image made with Canva
Other pictures are screenshots from Splinterlands

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