Studying seriously

This tournament had the following rules: Novice, anytime sit'n'go, all chaos legion cards playable, 3:20 team select time, 25 sps entry. A maximum of 20 players can join. The only way to get any profit is ranking 6th or higher. 7th to 10th would only even out, while 11th to 20th placements lose their stake. 1st place earns 4x their stake.

As a bonus prize, anyone who joins this or any other Chaos tournament earns an (additional) entry on a monthly raffle for a Chaos Legion legendary card.

Check the event details yourself here: https://splinterlands.com/?p=tournament&id=c24d5211245671e60bf68aab0ff0bad63108b21d

The top 5 winners were, from 1st to 5th: @thedarking51, @bjyshadow, @zandroid64, @jambinceent, @guarana90.

First, we'll study @thedarking51's battles from the 2nd round against the other top 5 players. There were only 2 groups during the 2nd round, but @thedarking51 was only matched against @jambinceent, since they're from Group 1. The other 3 players were in Group 2. So this is the battle we're looking at:

Click here to watch @thedarking51 vs @jambinceent

The first thing I notice is the idea of having Mycelic Morphoid stalling against the opposing frontliner. Delaying their attack for a single round also guarantees Goblin Psychich gets a heal on Myselic Slipspawn if it's not dead yet. Queen Mycelia even helps Myselic Subspawn last for an extra round thanks to her protection.

Fiends on both sides help protect against sneak attackers, but neither player used those. The battle mostly spun around heavy hitters because of the weak magic and melee mayhem rule set, but Earth Splinter still won despite nearly completely ignoring them.

Up next, we'll study battles from @bjyshadow who was Group 2's leader. He lost against @guarana90, but won against @zandroid64.

Click here to watch @bjyshadow vs @guarana90

Honestly, I don't even know what @bjyshadow was thinking. Maybe he just doesn't own some of the cards, sure, but despite the fact this was a really high mana battle, he chose Doctor Blight and Spirit Hoarder, which are 3 and 4 mana each.

These cards may be strong for their mana cost, but they stand no chance against a bunch of high mana legendaries. I guess this battle is proof you can get very far without owning every tool out there.

Click here to watch @bjyshadow vs @zandroid64

This was a really long and even battle. @zandroid64 made a really good and a really bad decision: using River Nymph in the poison battle made Diemonshark survive for a much longer time than he normally would, but Void Dragon was a terrible pick, providing only one damage to his team. Wave Brood worked well for stalling.

However, @bjyshadow made an incredible choice when he combined Legionnaire Alvar with River Helldondale, because there's no monster with the shatter ability on level 1 in Chaos Legion, so the opponent needs to go through his armor all over again when he's resurrected. He also chose Nerissa Tridawn instead of Void Dragon, which added a lot more combat ability to his team, but River Nymph might have done the trick here as well.

I hope you've found this as helpful as I have. Leave a comment if you're into this kind of post. Be aware I'm mostly interested in covering bronze and novice tournaments only since that's the league I'm playing at.

Image sources: https://ecency.com/hive-13323/@nane-qts/free-splinterlands-graphic-resources-20