Splinterlands BATTLE MAGE SECRETS featuring Back to Basics

Featuring Bronze League Summoner and Monsters in Action!

Back to share another battle mage secrets post, this time it featuring back to basics. I will walk you through my lineup, monster selections, thoughts about what my opponent will likely play, and some commentary about each round. We'll take a look at what was effective, and what was not food and see what we can do to increase our chances to win next time. This week featuring back to basics will mean it is a much more limited match as we are taking away all of those unique and interesting abilities that make other matches challenging, this one is challenging because of its simplicity.

CHALLENGE RULES

RULESET: BACK TO BASICS

Description: Units lose all abilities.

Summoner effects are still active.

Reasons Why I like it
It really changes which monsters are most useful. It becomes very difficult to balance the need for a decent amount of help to be absorbed by your opponent's attacks, well still having attacks that hit, and have enough damage to burn to your opponent. You don't have to worry about anything but speed differential, and potentially armor. This can make certain cards that are otherwise not nearly as useful much more useful and vice versa. Taking a car away that normally gives martyr or has healing might make the card not worth the mana cost anymore.

The Matchup - Where Rules Sets, Splinters and Mana Collide

The Rule Sets

Watch the Match Here

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_a55ff40c8f8ae7201c88eea6238af66f&ref=senstless

MANA: 16

Ruleset: Back to Basics: All monsters lose their abilities.

SPLINTERS: Fire, Water, Earth, Death

Initial Rule Set and Mana Gameplay Thoughts

• Rulesets
  Anytime you play with back to basics it means that a large portion of cards are no longer favored. Anything with sneak, reach, or opportunity are out. Playing cards with snipe no longer have an impact as everything just targets the tank, and melee monsters in general are not favored outside of potentially the first tank.
• Mana
  16 mana is pretty low to start with, and then when you have a back to basics match it makes it extremely difficult. There is a typical blend to have between cards that might actually do some damage, and having enough health on the field to not get wiped out by your opponent. At 16 mana it won't be many cards that have a decent attack and decent health.
• Splinters
  Only losing life dragon, so I don't see much impact. I'm anticipating it is to be a earth favored lineup although water with its additional speed and armor and also be used, and death is great to reduce your opponent's magic attack and take away one of their health. There's a decent argument to be made for all three if you have a full selection of cards

My Team

• Summoner OBSIDIAN
  I chose to play heavy magic and just wanted to get as much damage out there as possible while hoping my opponent did not play death

• First Position HILL GIANT
  One of my favorite three mana cards provide seven health for only three mana and even has an opportunity to attack if it lives long enough.

• Second Position DJINN BILJKA

Honestly I think I messed my order up here. Should have played this one last and given the fact it only has two health and I think I messed up my order. Otherwise one magic with potential boost to two makes it a good card p for only three mana.

Third Position SPIRIT HOARDER
Another three magic mana card that can get a boost to two even though it's health is very low

• Fourth Position BLACKMOOR NYMPH
  Probably should have been my second position card but it's another romantic card with for health.

Opponent Lineup & Match Play

• Summoner KELYA FRENDUL
  Water is a decent splinter and adding armor to every monster is great if your opponent is using me later arrows it can really keep you around for another round
• TORRENT FIEND
  Looks to be just Cannon fighter to protect their offensive cards that are in the back
• HARDY STONEFISH
  Another good card to absorb a couple of hits especially if I wasn't all magic focused
• CHAOS AGENT
  Since there's no sneak or opportunity you might as well put all these cards up front to leave Djinn Oshannus protected in the back
• DJINN OSHANNUS
  Normally this devastating card would have void but since it loses that and now it's just a Ted health card with five speed and two magic damage
• XENITH ARCHER

Solid play, adding a one range attack at the back never hurts and it might sneak a couple of extra damage points in against my low health cards

Round 1

Honestly pretty concerned has this lines up just given the total lack of health on any of my cards that are going to be doing magic damage. Overall I think we have similar Total health but it feels like I'm behind somehow.

As the round starts off, on the last to attack but I do secure three knockouts in a row. This changes things a little bit and leaves me dealing significantly more damage each round in my opponent for route 2

Round 2

If all of my monsters lived then I would have the potential health damage of eight damage this round. Unfortunately for me I will be attacking last and I lose Hill Giants before he get attacked, and then deliver my six magic damage against Djinn Oshannus.

Round 3

Things are looking okay I guess, I'm going to lose Djinn Bilka when around starts, and likely take another hit. But the good news is that I will knock out Djinn Oshannus this round and lock up the victory. It was really crucial for me to have more magic damage each round as a potential being delivered than to have one big monster with all of my attacks

Round 4

. Ground floor starts but it's lopsided, they don't have any attacking cards and I quickly knock them out for the victory.

Round 5

Thoughts -

This is a good showcase of not putting all of your eggs in one basket. At times it's easy to have too many small cards out there that can get overpowered by a dominating epicure legendary card supported by summoner. When you play back to basics much of that traditional powerhouse lineup goes away and things become much more about volume. Choosing to play three or four small magic attacking cards increased my total potential damage dealt each round to a level that cut through their team too quickly. Dealing six to eight magic damage health for round means that any card they can put in the field was just too vulnerable to my total attack, and they did not have enough attacks to get through my health and eliminate them first.

Back to basic matches are basically a race against health, this is why you typically see people stack as much health as a can up front while protecting your heavy hitters in the back. My opponent likely would have been fitted much more from having even a 2 minute not attacking card in front of Djinn Oshannus that would have made their Total health too high for me to overcome. Back to basic games are as much about stacking health as they are stacking damage. Spreading your attacks and damage out also allows you to continue to dwindle your opponent as your team starts to be eliminated

~~@senstless

#sbi-skip