Strategy Corner #43 - Up to Eleven Ruleset - Another ruleset with strange name :)

Is it already a bull market? :) We certainly have some nice hype for assets and tokens in the Splinterlands system. I hope it will be steady and stable growth, not just a pump-and-dump momentum. Another good thing is that we received the first draft of Lands 2.0, so people are even happier.
But let's get back to more mundane things, like strategy :). Today's ruleset is not the most exciting one, so let's check the definition.

Description:

All units have the Amplify ability.

Use Thorns, Return Fire, and Magic Reflect to ensure your opponent suffers.

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

I seriously encourage you guys to check this site, even more advanced players could find something interesting there.

It's not the first time that the name of the ruleset doesn't say anything to me :). Of course, I have checked it, and I am still not familiar with the movie :). Back to the point Up to Eleven, or maybe I will call it amplify ruleset :), is another niche ruleset, which is not so easy to use in your favor. I mean you can always use some additional damage as was mentioned above in the definition, but you just lose the element of surprise. Usually, opponents have a chance to be prepared and there are many useful tools to do this like reflection shield. I customarily try to make some small trap with thorns or reflect magic unit, just in case opponents would forget about it. But I don't try to rely the whole strategy on that.
Let's check our battle:

Today's battle is a Bronze Modern Tournament battle, with an interesting ruleset combination. We could see how important are those soulbound summoners now, and I was totally wrong about them.

As mentioned, the combination of reflect magic and amplify ruleset (You know me guys, I'm so bad with the names, so I will not use the appropriate names of them :) ), one thing is almost certain - using magic damage units is almost suicide.
For me, it was quite clear to get some armor debuff (as I always say there is no such thing as enough armor), and here I recently quite impressed with that fire soulbound summoner (put the name here :) - ok it's ETERNAN BRUNE :) ), and Fine Voxom could be a beast. I'm a big fan of Lava Launcher, sometimes maybe even I overestimated it and used it too often.
The opponent decided to use a magic unit, Quora Towershead is so strong that it could survive despite that reflect magic ability. The problem I see it's quite a spread damage, we will try to discuss it in the analysis section. Now let's jump to battle and see if Quora is enough :)

Round 2, was not the perfect start, I wasn't expecting Quora, so my cannon fodder unit was killed immediately. I will explain my idea later, but we got some kills too and got buff from bloodlust. Quora - Fina 1:1 :)

Round 3, was definitely our round, our Fina managed to get another kill and buff. The opponent got some misses and we didn't get any casualties. Quora - Fina 1-2 :)

Final Blow - Round 5 - let's jump to the last round, our Fina killed Quora, and it was the nail in the coffin. The fight was very dynamic, the opponent managed to kill our tank and we lost armor protection, but it was too late already. Fina Quora - 1-4.

I think we have quite a lot of material to analyze. The battle was fast and dynamic, but it was a few good points where we could stop. First thing, let's discuss Quora and other gladiator units. I know I always say that Quora needs nerf, but recently, because of her most effective position as I tanker, she is less and less effective. In higher mana matches she just cannot stand higher damage output. In that battle, the situation was even worse because of the amplified reflection of magic damage. I think it was the first opponent's mistake. The lucky thing for the opponent in that situation was our Radieted Scorcher. Easy kill and buff from Bloodlust ability could be the key to the victory but still wasn't enough. In general, Scorcher is a good idea, it can survive the first attack, and even with that armor debuff from summoner, usually it can destroy armor from some higher armored tank unit.
The second thing is targeting. The opponent made all the mistakes he could sneak, opportunity, and reach. The damage was so spread, that it was almost impossible to eliminate any damage dealers from our team. I think this is a major mistake for less experienced players.
Our team did a great job here, so let's check our choices.

FEROX DEFENDER, is recently one of my favorite card for fire team. For the lower mana battles, much better unit than Arkemis The Bear. Of course, in the bronze league the damage output is almost non-existent, but still granting that armor protection, and quite nice defensive stats is enough in my opinion. On higher levels, Ferox has amazing abilities, armor repair, and shatter, I haven't played it there, so I'm not sure how strong he is, but on paper looks crazy good.

FINA VOXOM what to say here, 5 mana 3 damage, 4 speed, 7 HP, what else do you need ? I know it's a legendary card, but I think the card is just too strong. I mean offensive stats are ok, but as the unit with opportunity ability, the amount of Health Points is just insane. On the silver level, it gets more damage and piercing, and later I don't even want to comment: stun and redemption. Definitely one of the best gladiator monsters, and a great addition to any fire team.

SERPENTINE SPY, the old good spy :). I think the card in the current meta is not the strongest one, but I remember the time when Serpentine Spy was so key card and it was not easy to get it cheap from the rental market. You know, that I am usually not a big fan of Opportunity Monster. One of the reasons is just not enough damage to eliminate the target fast. That's why usually is a good idea to have at least 2 units with that ability and three would be optimal. Soy is still solid and fits the role perfectly.

I think you can notice that recently more and more battles included soulbound summoners. I'm not sure what it looks like in a higher league, but in silver and lower, where usually you have enough leveled gladiator cards, it's a great idea just to use it. Quora, Fina, Captain Katie, and Ketralba are just too strong to ignore it. Of course, we can still use some tools to counter that. Dispell is a perfect example, but it's not so easy to use on a backline monster. That's why sometimes Fina could outperform Quora :). I think the dev team could think about some other abilities that could be used here to balance that situation. Maybe in the next set? :) What is your opinion about it ?

I hope you like this kind of report, battle, and strategy presentation. More strategy analysis, discussion, and prediction games you can find on my Wednesday Twitch Channel stream. There will be schedule soon :)

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 up with some ideas, I hope you will like them and participate. Every week I will publish one battle, and your goal is to point out the 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 the rules can be read here.

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

The prize of the blog prediction game for the 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 wins the battle

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

Examples:
t2b = monster on the second position of top player dies first, the bottom player wins
b6t = monster on the sixth position of bottom player dies first, the top player wins
t3t = monster on the third position of top player dies first, the top player wins

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