STATS

At first glance, when you look at Supply Runner's stats at level 1 you would assume he's nothing special - 6 mana cost, quite expensive for common card - 2 ranged attack, not bad, but again, nothing extraordinary - 3 speed, finally something better - and 4 health, not good but not terrible.

But what makes this little fella' special is the Swiftness ability he acquires at level 5 - all friendly monsters have increased speed. Extremely useful ability in almost every situation (except Reverse Speed ruleset, of course) because speed determines the attack order and probability of landing/evading attacks.
On top of that, at level 10 he acquires Strengthen ability - all friendly monsters have increased health. You can never have too much health.
Now, that's a card you would want to have in your deck, don't you agree?

BATTLE

Lets take a look at this weeks battle. First I will explain the ruleset and how to approach the battle
when facing that ruleset.

Ruleset

Equalizer - The initial Health of all Monsters is equal to that of the Monster on either team with the highest base Health.

• Don't use high HP monsters but focus on high damage.
• Try to use a lot of monsters as well.
• Having a Tank Heal, Thorns, Triage for defense helps a lot.

Lost magic - Monsters with Magic attack may not be used in battles.

• Don't use Magic Reflect monsters or summoners, because those skills are worthless here since there is no magic damage incoming.
• Focus on high speed and abilities like Flying, Dodge, Blind to avoid hits from Melee and Ranges attacks.
• Thorns and Shield are the key in this ruleset, Thorns for dealing damage on received hits and Shield for mitigating the damage.

32 mana - This is medium amount of mana, so we can use a mix of expensive and cheap cards

Available splinters - Fire, Water, Death, Dragon

• Fire - We can use Tarsa summoner (gives +1 melee and +1 health to the team) with Living Lava as tank (it has Shield ability and would take less damage from Melee and Ranged attack) with some great melee attackers Fire splinter is full of. We just need to pick the ones that have decent amount of health or armor so they can survive a couple of hits while dishing out damage.
• Water - Best choice for this ruleset because we can use Kelya Frendul (+1 armor and +1 speed - just what we need) and water deck is full of nice melee and ranged damage dealers.
• Death - We could use Thaddius Brood summoner (reduces enemy magic attack and health by 1) with Cursed Windeku as tank and put a couple of Sneak monsters and ranged.
• Dragon - Awesome choice for this ruleset because we can use Drake of Arnak summoner (+1 armor to whole team) plus Djinn Chwala as tank (she's hot Thorns and a lot of shield and health) combines with some damage dealer from any of splinters mentioned above.

I went with Water splinter because I had rented Lir Deepswimmer legendary summoner earlier that day for a reasonable price. He is literally Kelya on steroids (+2 armor, Blind and Return Fire).
My opponent went with Dragon splinter and Drake of Arnak summoner with Water deck, similar tactic I thought about but he made a mistake not using Djinn Chwala for a tank (maybe he doesn't have her, I don't judge).

Lineup

Round 1 to 2

When the battle started I wasn't so sure I would win. I saw the mistake I made with placing of Furious Chicken and choice of Xenith Monk and my opponent had higher level cards. But all of that proved to be irrelevant later on.
In the first two rounds I took out his tank, while that speed advantage and Blind effect casted by my summoner proved to be useful because my opponent had more then a couple of misses on my tank.

Round 3, 4 & 5

In round 3 they killed my Axemaster which prolonged the battle by at least 5-6 rounds. It took me 3 rounds to kill his Angelic Mandarin, while enemies continued to miss their attacks on my tank and little gnome.

Round 6 & 7

It took me two whole rounds to kill his Pelacor Bandit while they managed to get 1 hit on my tank and continue the miss streak on my star gnome.

Round 8 & 9

Again two rounds to kill one monster. Oh, how much quicker it would go if I only protected my Axemaster.

Round 10 to 16

It took my guys 7 rounds to kill their Gloridax Soldier and there are two reasons for that. He has Shield ability, so my guys did only 1 damage per hit, and he has Flying ability that increases his chance to evade the attack, or should I say chance for my guys to miss. And they started to miss and miss. Luckily the enemy missed a lot too.

Result

The fight took much longer then it should have. Just because of 1 wrongly positioned monster.

CONCLUSION

Did your strategy work?

• Yes, my strategy worked out perfectly. Speed advantage was the key in winning this battle.

What will you try differently next time?

• I will try to position my monsters better to avoid unnecessary casualties.

Do you like the (monster)? Why or why not?

• I like Supply Runner a lot. Its a kind of card you don't expect much from, but then it surprises you how good and useful it is. It makes you feel the need - the need for speed!

Link to the battle itself can be found HERE. 👈

If you still haven't tried Splinterlands try it out HERE. 👈

Thank you for your time, and please vote if you like this post. 👍

Credits

Special thanks to:

@luke-wtp for helping me out when I was just starting the game and the awesome Krill Crew.
@jason04 for guide to format your blog in and epic.
@rqr4 for text dividers used in this post.
@splinterlands for making this great game.