What a perfect time to write about Gaming! Earning tokens for winning a battle, getting rewarded for blog posting via upvotes and finally a bonus for participating in contests!

This time I'll be bringing out Elven Cuthroat, not as the typical sneak fast attacker, but as my Meat Shield and you'll know how shortly...

Starting out with the game ruleset:

• 30 Mana
• Equal opportunity
• Earth and Death Inactive

Oponnent history: Seems a typical Mylor abuser with the usual lineup consisting off Unicorn + Mushroom Seer + Wood Nymph.
Althought Earth is inactive, I'll most probably go with the same team composition as I'll explain below, but still, I'm relieved I won't be facing his strongest comp!
Enemy will likely go either for Fire or Life deck.

My Strategy

I decided to organized everything in a Table for better visual!

Position	Monster	Characteristics
Summoner	Drake of Arnak	+1 Armor + Versatility
1st position	Djinn Chwala	Thorns + Great tankiness
2st Position	Elven Cutthroat	Low Health + high spead
3nd Position	Fire Elemental	Blast + 2 ranged damage + high speed
4rd Position	Pyromancer	Blast + 2 ranged damage + decent Health
5th Position	Centaur	4 Mana filler + 4 Health

Thorns: When hit with a Melee attack, does damage back to the attacker
Blast: Does additional damage to Monsters adjacent to the target Monster
Opportunity: Monsters with the Opportunity ability may attack from any position and will target the enemy Monster with the lowest health

Playing according to the ruleset is as more important as playing the opponent!

• +1 Armor is crucial by absorbing at least 1 attack from enemy, by having 4 monsters on the backline, that's equal to absorbing 4 attacks
• Elven Cutthroat Role:
  • Being the lowest Health makes it the first target: protecting the other damage dealers
  • 3 speed: can perform an attack before dying + chance of enemy missing if it got less than 3 speed!
• The importance of Blast: By attacking the backline, it'll damage 3 monsters instead of one, in fact Pyromancer and Fire Elemental will deal 4 damage/round (imagine playing with yodin)
• Thorns in a situation when all the backline got taken out, Djinn chwaya will still provide decent damage to melee attackers!
• Centaur well... I had 4 mana left and picked it for being ranged and got higher health than elven

Battle

Here is the link to watch the battle: Enjoy!
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_3bdaaecb1868d3c0c87816916bee80e4&ref=cantfoldaces

Round 1

At first glance, it's a favourable matchup for me, enemy might thaught I'll be going for magic deck by picking Stone Golem at the front line(It doesn't matter too much in opportunity ruleset).
Enemy backline is relatively beefy with the exception of creeping ooze some might take some time to take them down
Elven will attack "Silvershield paladin" before dying.

Round 2

As expected of Elven being taken down,
Both Fire elemental and Pyromancer dealt a total of 8 damage to the backline,
Luckily the last attack from cave slug missed Fire elemental
Djinn chwala doing its thing and eleminates enemy tank!

Round 3

This match is technically over and Djinn chwala can take over the battle by itself
Pyromancer is safe and will keep dealing good damage
Silvershield paladin will take more time to eliminate because of its shield

Victory is Mine

Throught this match I could show that a sneak attacker can be played as an entity to protect the other damage dealers in a specific rulesets, that's the fun part about Splinterlands, always having to think about the best strategies and how well to play around the available picks. That's all, Thank you for watching!

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