Strategy Corner #10- Back to basics - the most hated ruleset ?

Hiya Splinterlanders :)

Another week, another ruleset :). Back to Basics, I think it's one of the least favorites for most Splinterlands players. For me I think is one of the more interesting. There are plenty of ways to deal with it. As always I recommend checking @iamgem005 post, he always provides a fairly comprehensive list of cards that could be good or bad for the specific ruleset. Let's jump to the definition and talk a little bit about available strategies.

Ruleset definition:

Monsters lose all abilities.

Summoner effects are still active (IE: Yodin Zaku).

Firstly, the description of the ruleset in the game is not perfect, sometimes you got just general information which not giving you all information you need. Best way to read the full description as above from the game documentation at least once. You can check all here.

As it was mentioned in official documentation, summoner effects are still active and now because monsters don't have any abilities you have to rely on summoner powers. I think Yodin Zaku is the best summoner for this ruleset. Unfortunately, he is quite expensive, even for rent. I rarely use it, but there are a few other options depending on the mana available. One of the best ones, which was totally ignored in the @iamgem005 article is Lorna Shine, especially for lower mana matches. An additional shield with Divine shield ability which she provides could change drastically the balance of the fight.
Usually magic is the obvious choice for this matchup, that's why I think Immortalis (always the king) is one of the better choices as well. As always I could talk and talk about other possibilities, but let's jump to the battle and see what was my choice there.

Rulesets are everything here. Back to basics is important, but I think Up Close and Personal is something that defines this battle. My opponent and I thought quite similarly, but I think he just totally ignored another important ruleset - Equalizer. Let's see how it ends for him :).

So with all these rules, the fight should be quite long. Only two first position monsters could attack each other. Fortunately, we both chose Mylor as a summoner, so with thorn damage, it should shorten the whole battle drastically.

Usually, we are going round by round, but here there is not much going on so let's jump to round 4, we lost our 0 mana monster (very important for every lower mana equalizer battle) but he just fill his role perfectly - damaging the most important monster of opponent's team - usually with thorn damage :).

In round 6, we lost our low mana monster, but now we came with really good stuff. One of the things which the opponent just ignored is - low health points monster with plenty of armor. Both our units: Dumacke Orc and Enchanted Defender are just too good in this battle.

In round 8, we still got 13 armor + HP combine power on the battlefield, and all opponent's monster has just 1 melee attack. It means that that will receive more thorn damage than can apply.

Round 12, opponents got more units but as I mentioned this is just a matter of time. He will receive more damage with thorn, and even worse for him, because of the speed difference, it's better for us not to hit him :).

Round 16 , was a long battle, we got a couple of misses, which fortunately helped us :), so we are in better shape now for sure. Finish him :)

Round 18, the final round, was still a quite close battle, but the opponent totally ignored low HP armored units, which for sure helped us win this battle.

For sure that wasn't a typical Back to basics battle, but I think the most important skill in Splinterlands is to adapt your strategy for the exact ruleset in the battle. That was the reason why I choose this battle today, not like standard battle where you can rely on Yodin's range units setup. Let's see our choices:

Mylor Crowling, the best summoners for melee only ruleset. The thorn damage that he provides is game-changing. Sometimes with higher mana matches you can choose something else, but overall you cannot go wrong with her. For back to basics rules and melee only he is even more important and there is not many options to deal with him.

Dumacke Orc , one of the MVP of this battle. With an equalizer ruleset all those 1 HP monsters are very interesting choices. Our new soulbound card is very useful, on higher levels he becomes the beast - shield and retaliates in melee only battle is unbeaten :).

Fungus Fiend, I know that today's topic is back to basics, but as I mentioned, you have to be flexible and adapt to every situation, And with the equalizer ruleset one important thing is to fill all six places with the monster. And every 0 mana monster helps a lot to complete this task.

Our today's article and battle were for sure not typical, but I really want to focus your attention on details and how they can change the perspective of the battle. Back to basics, the ruleset seems so simple, but even without any other variable you still have plenty of choices that could surprise your opponent. For sure if you have access to very powerful cards like Lorne or Yodin, sometimes it's enough to win the battle on their own. Sometimes you need to find a way to beat them, and if you are successful, you feel the satisfaction :).

I hope you like this kind of battle and strategy presentation. More strategy analysis, discussion, and prediction games you can find on my Wednesday Splinterlands. tv stream. You can check the schedule here

If you have any comments, please do not hesitate. Do you think I could improve anything just tell me :)

If you wish to try out Splinterlands you can use my reference link.

Thumbnails and other pictures borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Cooltext

We continue our game from the previous week, today new battle, new card to win :).

I come to some idea, I hope you will like it and participate. Every week I will publish one battle, and your goal is to point out first victim of the battle and who will be the winner. This game is exactly the same as my prediction game which I run on my Wednesday Splinterlands.tv stream. I know that not everyone can attend the stream, so I hope you will still have fun in that way. More about rules you can read here.

Among all participants who get correct answer I will randomly (probably on my Wednesday stream) choose one winner.

The prize of first blog prediction game for lucky winner will be the epic card:

Here we got the battle:

Game instruction:
Try to point out which monster will die first on the battlefield and who win the battle

• t - top player
• b - bottom player
• number - order counting from the first position

Examples:
t2b = monster on second position of top player die first, bottom player wins
b6t = monster on sixth position of bottom player die first, top player wins
t3t = monster on thiird position of top player die first, top player wins

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