Splinterlands Weekly Challenge Battle BATTLE MAGE SECRETS! Holy Protection

Every week there is a Splinterlands challenge to share a rule set using a specific card and on this week's post it is a battle with the Holy Protection rule set. I also encourage Splinterlands players to partake in the challenge because you get to try different strategies and earn some crypto in the process.

Rule set, Battle and Plan

The ruleset this time is Holy Protection. This means that all monsters will negate the first damage they take. There is also 39 mana available and I am left with every splinter except for death.

The summoner I choose to use this time is Drake of Arnak. In a match like this, I think that having an extra armor will help my cards live longer and my cards can be played at their highest level.

Splinter	Mana Cost	Position	Reason
Drake of Arnak	4	Summoner	+1 Armor
Diemonshark	8	1st	Trample and enrage
Tide Biter	3	2nd	Reach and camouflage shield
Demented Shark	6	3rd	Inspire
River Hellondale	7	4th	Inspire and Resurrection
Dhampir Infiltrator	4	5th	Double attack and Sneak
Deeplurker	6	6th	Opportunity
Total Mana:	38

My plan is just to have a lineup using Diemonshark as my tank. Then I fill up the rest of my lineup with a double inspire plus melee monsters. Since I am using a dragon summoner, I also use Dhmapir Infiltrator for a double strike and sneak.

Round 1

At the first glance of my opponent's lineup, I think I have the stronger lineup but the only issue is that my lineup is slower and my damage is all spread out. So it will depend on how much I miss on whether or not I will win.

Round 2

I missed quite a few attacks and I think the speed difference is going to hurt. I am not sure if I can kill my opponent fast enough due to it.

Round 3

My Diemonshark already resurrected and lost his divine shield. It's not looking good for me at all when my opponent is focusing most of his damage on my Diemonshark.

Round 4

The speed difference and me missing a lot of attacks are hurting my chances. I did finally take out his Diemonshark but I think my chances are quite low in winning this match.

All those misses during the first few rounds really hurt me. I couldn't even take out my opponent and it doesn't help that my opponent had more speed than me either. My cards only landed like half of their attacks and this is far lower than my usual in fights. So luck just wasn't on my side.

Conclusion

The battle this time did not go as I expected. I think my lineup was strong but luck did not play out in my favor due to having around half of my physical attacks miss. My opponent's focus on speed caused this. The speed allowed him to attack me first and I couldn't really do any damage until most of my opponent's cards already took their turn. At the same time, I missed quite a few attacks and this caused me to lose out on taking out some of my opponent's damage. It's a bit unfortunate but luck was not on my side.

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 play in a ruleset.