Sometimes Defense Is More Important than Offence

In many sports, experts will tell you that it is the defense that wins championships. This is true in soccer, in American football and even in boxing and MMA. Personally, I think it also applies in Splinterlands.

Instead of just focusing on how much damage our units do, sometimes, it is worth it to pay attention to how much damage we're able to absorb or deflect. It can be hard to do in normal battles when there are three types of attacks to defend against. But in rulesets where we're restricted to only one type of attack, it can definitely pay off.

Wands Out

Here's an interesting battle where we were restricted to just magic units that highlights the point. My opponent had an advantage in terms of attack but I had significantly more health and defense despite having one unit less.

1st position - Prismatic Energy - The OG magic reflect card. Since this is a battle between magic units, Reflect will be really useful.
2nd position - Iziar - A new addition to the Life splinter, it has a pretty decent void ability and health.
3rd position - Captain Katie - Bloodlust will be useful if I do go on the offense. I have placed her third behind two units that withstand a lot of damage.

So as you can see, with Magic Reflect and Void, I intended to weaken my opponent's attack and then use Bloodlust to do some damage with Captain Katie.

And the strategy worked beautifully. By the second round, you could see that my opponent was on the back foot. And again, Captain Katie was gaining with each slay.

Just before my opponent was vanquished, all three of my units were still standing and Katie was clearly going to be a wrecking ball if she kept going. You can catch a replay of the entire battle here: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_2d4e5055e72399c27e711ab3475d372b&ref=charcoalbuffet

Lessons Learnt

So for battles where only melee attacks can be used, Shield and Thorns become very important. In Range only battles, Headwind and Shield can make a big difference. And finally, in magic only battles, Void, Void Armor and Reflect will help you win.