Find out the best Strategies to be used on Matches with the Ruleset "Explosive Weaponry"!

"Explosive Weaponry" Ruleset

All monsters get the Blast Ability, which does additional damage to Monsters adjacent to the target Monster.
Additional damage is equivalent to (Main Damage)/2, rounded up.

In my humble opinion, Explosive Weaponry is the most erratic Ruleset of Splinterlands, creating lots of interesting, insane matches with crazy strategies that end up working somehow!

The Blast Ability is one of the strongest abilities available on the game, simply because it is the ability that most increases the Damage Output of a Monster. In the best case scenario, it triples the damage: a 1-Attack Monster usually deals 1 Damage per round; but if this Monster attacks an enemy Monster that has 2 adjacent Monsters, it ends up dealing 3 Damage per round (1 to the attacked Monster, and 1 to each adjacent Monster).

It is no coincidence that one of the most powerful (and expensive!) Summoners in Splinterlands is Yodin Zaku, who buffs his entire team with the Blast Ability. Yodin's other buffs, while useful, do not come close to buffing all his team with Blast, allowing for countless almost-unbeatable strategies!

Then comes the Explosive Weaponry Ruleset, giving the Blast Ability to every single Monster in the game. The whole match becomes a powder keg about to explode!

It's incredibly difficult to protect your own team in these matches, as there are dozens of different strategies that can be adopted by your enemy in order to win the game. That's why one of the most popular strategies is forgetting about the defence (as it's useless anyway) and focusing 100% on the attack.

"The best defense is a good offense", some would say.

Let's see the strategies that one can use on Explosive Weaponry Ruleset!

Basic Strategy #1: Speed, Speed, Speed!

If both players have huge firepower in their hands due the Blast ability being widespread, usually the winner is the one that hits first. By attacking first, your Monsters will be able to easily sweep through the enemies before they can even attack you, guaranteeing a win.

The simplest plan has no mystery, and it's just focusing on high-Speed, high-Damage Monsters like Fineas Rage, Djinn Oshannus or Venari Knifer.

Not only you can play your own fast Monsters, but you an slow down the enemy with the Slow ability. There are lots of Monsters that have this ability right at Level 1, including the Time Mage, the Creeping Ooze (one of my favourite cards of the game!), the Boogeyman and Baakjira.

Similarly, you can buff your own team Speed with the Swiftness. This is a rarer ability and, right at Level 1, only one Monster has it: Brownie, the 1-Mana Forest Monster. Also, some Summoners have a +1 Speed Buff like Pyre and Kelya Frendul.

Basic Strategy #2: More Adjacent Monsters

The additional Blast damage is dealt to ADJACENT MONSTERS to the originally-targeted Monster.

The more Adjacent Monsters your target is, the more damage you'll be dealing.

BEHOLD MY GRAPHIC DESIGN SKILLS! Yeah, it's bad, I know it. Shush you!

Anyway, the point is: the FIRST and the LAST Monster of a team only has 1 Adjacent Monster. The First Monster only has a Monster behind; and the Last Monster only has a Monster in the front of it.

All the other Monsters in the MIDDLE of the team, in the other hand, have 2 Adjacent Monsters: one behind, and another one in the front.

If you can attack Monsters in the middle of the enemy team, you'll be increasing your Damage Output and skyrocketting your chances of winning the match.

The first idea is playing Monsters with the Snipe ability, like the Lava Spider, the Sniping Narwhal, the Mantoid, the Child of the Forest, the Lone Boatman, and the Ferexia General.

Similarly, Monsters with the Opportunity ability can also attack Monsters in the middle of the enemy team: the Venari Scout, the Deeplurker, the Feasting Seaweed, the Serpentine Spy, and Lira the Dark.

The last ability is Scattershot, which is a bit more unreliable as Monsters with this ability attack randomly. It's also a rarer ability that only 5 Monsters have: Blood Maker, Portal Spinner, Acid Shooter, Gem Meteor and Chaos Dragon.

To be honest, I would just play Monsters with Snipe and Opportunity, as they're more reliable and commonly available. By directly attacking the enemy backline, you'll wreack havoc with the extra Blast damage and easily kill lots of fragile Ranged/Magic Monsters.

Basic Strategy #3: Taunt Ability

The Taunt Ability forces the opponent Monsters to the card possessing this ability. The only exception to this rule is the Scattershot ability.

This is extremely interesting in Explosive Weaponry matches, as you can indirectly control which Monster the enemy will attack and, thus, can also control how many Monsters will be damaged due the Blast ability. Usually, Taunt Monsters are powerful tanks that will be played as your 1st Monster, guaranteeing that the Blast damage will only damage ONE Adjacent Monster, and not TWO.

There are a few Monsters with Taunt, like the Mycelic Slipspawn, the Shieldbearer, Magnor and The Kraken.

Advanced Strategy #1: Taunt + Magic Reflect & Return Fire

If you can control which Monster will be attacked by your enemy with the Taunt ability, you can also surround the Taunt Monster with Monsters that have the Magic Reflect or the Return Fire abilties: the enemy attacked will now receive extra reflected damage!

By smartly placing Monsters like Rusty Android, Failed Summoner, Prismatic Energy and Centauri Mage, you can end up dealing lots of extra damage to the enemy!

Advanced Strategy #2: FOCUS. YOUR. DAMAGE.

Snipe.

Opportunity.

Scattershot.

Simply hammering the enemy tank with Ranged/Magic Damage.

All those are valid strategies.

But you know what the best strategy is? Using only ONE of those strategy, and not trying to use all of them at once and end up not doing anything useful with your cards.

Chose a strategy, then commit to it. Focus your damage on 1 or 2 fronts only. If you play one Monster with Snipe, another one with Opportunity, a third one with Scattershot, and a fourth one without any special ability, you'll end up damage FOUR different enemies and not kill a single one of them.

The majority of my Weekly Battle Reports end up with this same situation: my enemy doesn't focus damage and don't kill anything, while I focus my damage and rolfstomp my opponent's Monsters.

Don't forget: FOCUS YOUR DAMAGE!

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