Strategy Corner #49 - Born Again Ruleset - Are Martyr units necessary ?

I promised to catch up on any news related to Splinterlands Ecosystem, but still, I'm in traveling mode, and I cannot find any spare minutes to do this. Fortunately, I still managed to find some time for writing this article:).
For today's topic, we have Born Again. As I mentioned several times already, in my opinion, we have a very Martyr-heavy meta. And the ruleset, where we can apply martyr buff twice could be just gross :) But today I will try to present: And Now For Something Completely Different :). But firstly let's check the ruleset definition :)

Description:

All units receive the Rebirth ability which allows them to self resurrect once.

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.

I think most of you should know already how effective could be good gladiator card with an additional buff from Martyr. Cards like Quora, Ketralba, Katie, and a few more can win the battle on their own, and it's even more likely with the boost. Of course, there are some counterplay, Dispel is so important right now. But let's back to the main topic, the Born Again ruleset. The first strategy is heavy martyr setup which gives us a double buff for every card. Of course, as always it's the most obvious strategy, so the opponent could try to predict and counter that play. I think quite an important role in this ruleset plays armor. Every resurrected unit has only 1 HP, but full armor (and additional armor from summoner or other units). You can see that in today's battle and we will discuss more in the analysis section. Another strategy is just to ignore martyrs, and that one I would like to present today. So let's check our battle:

Today's battle is a Modern Silver Tournament match against my friend @atnazo.

I chose that battle mostly because both players skipped any martyr units. It's quite unusual, but sometimes happens :). We have no magic ruleset and True Strike.
My thinking here was quite obvious, negate opponent armor (Noe), get good strong opportunity units (we already talked about it, but sometimes it's worth repeating some good stuff, I know we are talking here about Deeplurker :D ), and some defense at the back.
My opponent tried to use a very strong gladiator card Isgald Vorst sacrificing option to get armor from Keyla. Two sneak attackers, one opportunity, and two front attackers. Hmm, let's see if that will work :)

Round 2, our cannon fodder was killed once, unfortunately by Gladiator Unit - Isgald Vorst, so now it is even more scary. We got not-so-bad focus, so we managed to kill twice Uraeus.

Round 3, this time we both lost our cannon fodder units, which were sneak defenders. It seems we have an advantage here, but more about it in the analysis section.

Round 4, we managed to kill Diemonshark once, but rebirth brought him back to life. The same thing with our Noa, with rebirth his armor debuff worked again, but probably not for long :).

Round 5, we lost Noe before we could kill Diemonshark, so we needed to apply more damage to destroy armor first, quite unfortunate :(. We killed Pelacor Bandit, but just one. The only question here is: is Isgald too strong here?

Round 6, yep as I said Isgald Vorst versus the rest of the world :), is still not sure how it could end. All gladiator units with Bloodlust could be so dangerous. :)

Final Blow - Round 7 - Isgald got another kill and buff, but it was not enough. Our Kulu was resurrected and still, we got plenty of damage on the battlefield. Isgald couldn't survive this :)

Our team was just too solid. Firstly I think having armor in the Born Again ruleset is a must. Of course, in the current meta, there are so many things to negate it, like in our battle with Noe the Just. But still, you need to try to get that armor for the sake of good conscience :). The opponent put everything on Isgald Vorst, which is a very strong unit, but without more support, it's usually not enough.
Most of you know that I was not a big fan of Deeplurker in the lower league (silver and below). The situation changes quite drastically with the addition of newer cards like Noe, and Kulu. We will discuss more in the Core Team section below. In short, that trio is just a killing machine :)
As I mentioned, in my opinion, the most obvious mistake of the opponent is the lack of armor (and anti-armor cards) and the spread of the targets. One opportunity unit, even so strong is usually not enough. Lack of focus was the main reason for the failure here.
From the perspective, I think I would change the order of the two last cards. I think having the defender against sneak on the back, and different opportunities to target before could be a better idea.

KULU MASTERMIND, let's check our killing machine trio. Firstly Kulu Mastermind, my first soulbound card which I was lucky to get to the highest level :). The card is just amazing, very good offensive stats and weapon training are a great addition to Neo the Just. This (and Isgald Vorst) gives so much necessary power to the opportunity team in the water splinter. I think I maybe overuse that combo, but usually, it's just a wining setup :).

NOA THE JUST not the first time here, I'm so big fan of that card. In our battle True Strike negates mostly all of the advantages of Neo - high speed and Dodge. Normally, the front position of that card could be quite difficult to deal with for the heavy physical enemy team. And of course, do not forget Noe usually still can attack with Kulu weapon training ability :). I still haven't figured out if the first position is optimal for Noe. Usually, I try not to waste the card attack, but it's not so obvious. Any advice for that?

DEEPLURKER, last but not least. :). My previous most hated card. In many Splinterlands.tv streams, I encourage you to burn those cards (of course just joking). But in the newer meta, I think Deeplurker is a very effective card even in a lower league. I have seen many times Deeplurker wasting 2-3 attacks to kill some cannon fodder unit. With Noe and 1-2 additional opportunity units, that situation is less likely. The option to kill a more fragile (but later probably high damage) monster is very powerful, and as you can see in today's battle quite effective :).

Today's battle let me realize two things (I hope for you too), the first obvious strategy is not always the most effective (but sometimes you cannot stop the snowballing Quora or Ketralba :) ).
Second, some of the opinions could be changed depending on the situation. Deeplurker wasn't a bad card, in a higher league with poison ability was always very effective. Before the new card release in lower leagues when I saw the only opportunity monster - Deeplurker on the opposite side, I knew I could not lose that fight :).
Now, the effectiveness of the opportunity monster increased dramatically. The additional tool like Noe and other cards that negate armor, and of course more good opportunity monsters was the main reason for that.
And what is your favorite opportunity monster setup?

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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