Splinterlands: Using Underboss Fabino for its poison

Splinterlands is a complex game, and it allows for various cards and strategies. Each fight is different as there are various rulesets applied, and this can give specific cards an advantage depending on how you use them. In this post, I talk about a great battle where I won because I used Underboss Fabino. Usually, I use this card for its melee bonuses, but I used poison this time around.

Featured cards

Underboss Fabino is an earth archon/summoner that costs 5 mana. This card gives +2 melee damage to 2 monsters, or poison to one monster. Increasing its level only increases the level cap at which you can play cards. I have this card at level 2, so I can't use cards at a high level, but the additional options can be useful depending on your own lineup.

In this match, I use the poison bonus on one of my opponent's monsters. I usually stick with melee damage on my own monsters because I am in control of that, but I believe the poison is useful to take out some low health monsters.

Rule Set, Battle, and Plan

The rulesets this time is Reverse Speed. This means that all monsters attack in the reverse order of the usual turn order (slow monsters first). There is also 53 mana available, and I can use fire, water, earth, or death splinter.

This is an interesting match because you have to think differently. I usually use Daarg and water, but the reverse turn order leans me against that. In the end, I chose Earth with Underboss Fabino because I thought that +2 melee would be better than the magic lineup. However, later in the match, I decided to use poison after looking at my opponent's lineup.

Splinter	Mana Cost	Position	Reason
Underboss Fabino	5	Summoner	+2 melee or poison
Ulundin Overseer	11	1st	Flank
Mantaroth	11	2nd	Shield and Armored Strike
Thanalorian Blade	6	3rd	Opportunity and Execute
Buttercup Mauler	5	4th	Sneak and Deflect
Halaran Huntress	4	5th	Opportunity and Flying
Swell Spore Beast	8	6th	True Strike
Total Mana:	50

My summoner is Underboss Fabino for its poison on one monster. My tank is Ulundin Overseer with Flank. Mantaroth is my backup tank with armored strike and shield. After that are three opportunity and sneak monsters. My last monster is a ranged monster with true strike.

The focus of this lineup is to keep my monsters alive while my melee monsters deal damage. Most of my opportunity and sneak monsters have decent speed, so I didn't have too many options there. I did use that ranged monster at the end due to its low speed and decent damage.

Round 1

At first glance, I think that my opponent has the advantage. My opponent has a bunch of magic monsters, and in general, his monsters are slower than mine. However, I noticed that my opponent has Scion with 1 HP, 10 armor, and void armor. It's the perfect chance to land a poison and remove this tanky monster from my opponent's lineup directly. This will even the odds, and I can see if I can win this match.

Round 5

My opponent is down to one magic monster left, and I am left with 4 monsters alive. Most of my lineup has been partially damaged, but I am glad that I took out Scion early through poison. This gave me the chance to attack my opponent's other monsters and reduce the damage. At this point, there is no chance for me to lose.

I won later that round as I expected.

Conclusion

The battle this time didn't go exactly as planned. I was focused on using the melee bonus, but when I saw my opponent's lineup, I thought I was going to lose. At that point in time, I remembered the poison ability on Underboss Fabino and used that to turn the battle to my advantage. This allowed me to focus on the rest of my opponent's monsters and to win later in the match.

You can see my entire match here.

What did you think of my match? Was there anything you would have done differently? I think it is quite interesting to see how different players use the same card.

Posted Using INLEO