Welcome to my Splinterlands Weekly Battle Challenge. This Week we have RIVER NYMPH from Chaos Legion Edition as our official theme. She is a rare rarity monster who has a support mage role.

Personally I want to change the theme, because I can not think something spectacular or above normal from River Nymph. She is just a support, however I think I have changed too many main theme recently so I will stick up with her this time. This would be one of my simple post.

RIVER NYMPH QUICK REVIEW

Shorten lore:River Nymphs inhabit the rivers of the Splinterlands. Shy and reclusive, they usually remain hidden beneath the water's surface. However, they have a strong respect for life, and they have been known to aid those in need. They are also fiercely protective of their homes and will defend it if it is threatened.

She is a mage who of course deliver magic attacks. Do not expect her to blast way your opponent because her attack is weak. Well a girl hit like a girl but it doesn't matter because we need her not to kill our opponent. She is one of the support type, so her magic attack is a bonus.

The support we need from her mainly for her Cleanse Ability. She is great against opponent who use status ailments or during Noxious Fumes ruleset. This is her area of expertise.

I won't make a long chit chat about her, I will pick any battle which have Noxious Fumes ruleset and we will see how she will lift up her team with her Cleanse Ability.

BATTLE CHALLENGE

battle link : https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_77aee36aa1939353e8205e7bb03bb446&ref=dewabrata

This was a Modern Format Gold League Rank Battle. I was playing with half-ass silver team, my summoner was only level 3. This battle had Noxious Fumes ruleset and a 48 mana cap, I think its a good one for River Nymph battle challenge.

Overall my opponents were stronger. Some of them were on Gold League level, but not all. I had a guts saying I would win this because I came up with better line up, let's check my line up here:

Position	Card	Ability	Plan and Strategy
Summoner		+1 speed, +1 armor	The strongest Rare Rarity Summoner from Chaos Legion edition. Her attribute buffs are the best, +1 speed and +1 armor. She supports both offense and defense at the same time. All monsters will get benefit from her buff, whether they are melees, ranges and mages.
Main Tank		Trample	This is one hell a fast tank. Diemonshark is one of the trademark of Chaos Legion water element monsters, fast, have high armor, high health and decent melee damage. This shark is hard to kill unless you attack it using magics. I choose it because It fits in my plan.
Second		Cleanse	Our main theme for this week. She will cleanse the poison from my Diemonshark, help him live longer. A simple job but unfortunately only she can do it in this battle.
Third		Tank Heal	A signature healer from Chaos legion water element. She is fast, and hopefully she can heal the tank before it takes more damage. Her weaknesses are that she doesn't have high health nor any attack damage.
Fourth		none	Nerissa is my main damage dealer and the core of my formation. I need her high health and high magic damage.
Fifth		void, phase	Djinn Oshannus is my second core monster. I need him due to his massive 11 health points. His magic attack is decent too.
Last		Taunt, Close Range	My favorite backline taunting tank. He will die fast for sure because I do not bring any monster with a triage Ability, but hopefully she can buy enough time for my Diemonshark to live longer and have the opponents taking more poison damage.

Play Defense, NEGATIVE APPROACH

My team goal was simple, to force my opponent taking a long rounds battle and see which one of us would die first. These two were the core of my team, the main damage dealers with the highest health point

1. Getting the 5th Rounds

Nerissa and Oshannus had the highest health in my team. If I divided Nerissa Health with 2 damage per turn from poision, She could last 4 times which meant she would live until the 5th round. Oshannus was better, he could last up to 6th round.

2. Everyone else were walls, meant to protect these two core monsters

The other monsters: Diemonshark, River Nymph, Merdaali Guardian and Wave Brood... All of them were to protect Nerissa and Oshannus so they could last until 5th round untouched. I believe most of the monsters on field would have died on the 4th round.

It's not I doubt Diemonshark capability, I liked playing negatively during certain ruleset, especially Noxious Fumes. Let see how this would go

Round 1

• This battle started by each parties buffed their team and debuffed opponents.
• My opponent came with 7 Melee Damage. 7 range damage and 1 magic damage, combined all became a total 15 damage per round.
• My team had 2 Melee Damage, 1 range damage and 6 magic damage. A toal 9 damage per round. It's obvious opponent firepower was better.
• If there was no Noxious Fumes ruleset, definitely I would lose this one. But I had a high confidence that my team was built better on this ruleset.

• The first round went intensely with both party exchanging damages, however none died in this round.
• The main reason why my opponent team managed to survive all was my lack of fire power. My team did not have enough damage to put their Diemonshark down.
• The same result was occurred on my side, none died but not because of lack of firepower on my opponent side. Wave Brood on the backline taunted our opponents which made their damage split onto two targets.

Round 2

• The fastest monster, my Djinn Oshannus, outpaced by their enraged Diemonshark. Their Diemonshark moved first however my Oshannus who moved next, managed to take down their Diemonshark.
• Their Kulu Swimhunter killed my Wave Brood here.
• My Merdaali Guardain was so busy healing my Diemonshark, keeping him alive.

Round 3 - River Nymph Out!! Good Luck Guys

• In the beginning of this round, both River Nymph out. My Merdaali Guardian followed them too. 6 Damage was too much for them.
• My Djinn Oshannus made the first move again, killed their deep lurker.
• Mantis snipping attack kept hitting Nerrisa Tridawn. This was the decisive mistake, letting my Diemonshark alive.
• My Nerrisa Tridawn killed their Kulu Swimhunter.

Round 4 - Poison Kill 'Em All

• Round 4, it meant 4 x 2 poison damage = 8 health needed... The rest of opponents could not take it, they got wiped out.
• Good Game

Battle Discussion

So what do we take from this battle?

Both Side Used River Nymph

Both my opponent and I brought River Nymph into our team. I think it's ok to say during Noxious Fumes everyone will think having River Nymph is a must. She will cleanse the poison from the main tank and this is what becomes our goal.

Negative Approach Won This Battle

If you see through this battle, the main difference between my opponent and I was the fire power, the damage build up. My opponent tried to attack well during these ruleset. He brought mantis to snipe down my River Nymph. He built their speed in order to hit first, killed first before taking the attacks.

On my side, I really did not bother a lot about how much damage I would build. My aim was to have big health monsters, Nerrisa, Oshannus and Wavebrood because I believed Noxious Fumes would keep giving poison damage per round and this would be a lot dangerous than any damage I could deliver to them.

Because I won this battle, I could say negative approach, over defensive, won this battle. There might are cases where defensive won't work in Noxious Fumes, specially when we have monsters with Immunity ability. But this time, in this battle, again, negative approach wins!

Thank you for visiting my Weekly Battle Challenge, don't forget to leave your comments and feedback below. There are credits in this post for these people:

• splinterlands : for holding weekly social media challenge events
• carrieallen : for ultimate markdown tutorial
• kyo-gaming : for wonderful divider arts