Splinterlands BATTLE MAGE SECRETS - Featuringn Earthquake and Back to Basics!

Featuring Bronze League Summoner and Monsters in Action!

Back again with another battle mage secrets post featuring earthquake and back to basics in a two rule segment. I am playing My bronze League account this season in the silver league and I'm currently sitting in silver one. This would be a solid approach for anyone who is choosing to play up a league with your cards, or is playing bronzer trying to battle their way up to silver. Well most of the cards don't have as many abilities in the lower leagues, I think it creates a little bit more finesse and a much different strategy than a higher leagues.

CHALLENGE RULES

RULESET: EARTHQUAKE

Description: All non-flying units take 2 physical damage at the end of every turn.

Snared units are considered non-flying. Since the damage given is physical, it can be reduced to 1 if the unit has the shield ability.

Reasons Why I like it

Earthquake is a pretty devastating rule set when you think about it. At the start of every round starting in round two everyone will take two physical damage just like a melee attack or hero attack. This will either eat away armor, or your health whatever your monster has left. The only way to avoid this is if your monster has the flying ability. This means a lot of monsters that are typically strong now become very weak and vulnerable from taking this additional guaranteed damage, while making monsters that otherwise we're not as attractive much more attractive as they no longer take any damage and you can simply Outlast your opponent.

The wrinkle this provides a some monsters have the snare ability. The snare ability catches flying monsters and basically turns them into non-flained monsters from a hit likelihood, and an earthquake perspective. While snare is fairly uncommon in the bronze level cards there are a few that have it. The big challenge for this matchup will be that all monsters are going to lose their flying ability with the back to basics rule set.

The Matchup - Where Rules Sets, Splinters and Mana Collide

The Rule Sets

Watch the Match Here

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_dc5c9feff2e5a4d38d802c190b3127af&ref=senstless

MANA: 33

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

Ruleset: Earthquake: All non-flying monsters take 2 physical damage at the end of every turn.

SPLINTERS: Fire, Water, Earth, Life, Dragon

Initial Rule Set and Mana Gameplay Thoughts

** Rulesets
These two rulesets don't play nicely together and almost guarantee you will be sustaining heavy damage from earthquake. Really the only way to avoid this heavy damage would be to pick Brighton bloom has your summoner to give a flying ability to every monster. I currently don't have this card but often think I should have a copy just for matches like this. I think the only way to get an edge up on this rule set is to either give all your monsters some extra armor, or a divine shield. Outside of that there's little you can do

• Mana
  Mana is not crazy high at 33. It will allow you to pick the majority of monsters and combinations you want but you will not be able to pick the biggest mana health monsters that also have armor. We'll have to be a little more limited in your selection
  ** Splinters
  The splinter choices almost wide open with only the death splinter being eliminated. While death does have a bunch of flying monsters, back to bases neutralizes that benefit and I don't see any real pros or cons to losing it. I think this will either be a dragon match with bright and bloom, or another summoner that adds some additional armor to everyone.

• Summoner GRANDMASTER RATHE
  I wanted to play grandmaster Rather because not only does it add armor, it adds void armor. In most back to basic real sense there is a heavy dependence upon magic as the games the biggest edge of going under the armor and being able to attack them in position. This will give me some additional protection magic and earthquake until it's gone

• First Position PELACOR CONJURER
  This is just a cheap two mana filler only. For two Men and five health with some armor it's a great cheap first car put out there and absorb those hits that you know we're going to come in the first few rounds for protecting some of my other monsters the background

• Second Position RUNEMANCER ATUAT
  A solid choice in my opinion given its high health, magic attack, armor that will get converted into void armor giving it a chance to live longer than most. If you want to armor and health has it was a stained somewhere else

• **Third Position TIME MELDER **
  Another very high armor that magic monster that will benefit from my new summoner. It will now be able to abs orb two rounds of earthquake, or around earthquake plus the magic attacks before taking you in my health

• Fourth Position DAX PARAGON
  Normally not a great choice but with the addition of at least one armor from the summoner it will last one more round than normal

• Fifth Position TEMPORAL MASTER
  Same goes here, a lower health card dealing some magic damage but it becomes a better choice once you add on the armor

• Sixth Position SPIRIT HOARDER
  Inconsistent with the last two choices magic is my primary attack and I figured it was best back here

Opponent Lineup & Match Play

• Summoner LORNA SHINE a great choice providing that each monster will now not suffer the initial earthquake damage unless it's already been hit. This will likely protect most of the back row just like my armor
• COEURL LURKER typically a great first card but since it loses its ability it's only per k now if it's high damage and high speed which is my armor and magic
• SOULD FIEND I think it would rather see this for your first position since it's likely been gone before it moves to first position
• PELACOR CONJURER I'm really decent choice but giving its place in your lineup it's unlikely to see more action as by the time it looks forward it's helpful already be eroded
• RUNEMANCER ATUT clearly a great pic in my mind since I also made the same pic there's nothing wrong here and it's a great choice
• DJINN RENOVA another solid magic clay, unfortunately without strengthened ability due to back to basics it is more susceptible to earthquake damage and a little less across effective for the man

Round 1

Before round 1 starts everything looks pretty even to me and will be interesting to see how it plays out. As we know speed is King and my opponent will get several attacks in before I get my first turn. Clearly learn to shine provides some immediate early impact keeping lurker from taking much damage. The round surprisingly ends without anyone losing a monster yet but we both have taken substantial damage to our tanks

Round 2

Image above is from the start of round 2, prior to the earthquake damage and applying. Well my opponent gets the benefit of not taking any additional damage outside of lurker, luckily I have armored to absorb much like the Divine Shield. After the earthquake damage applied things get interesting. After I take substantial damage I am able to knock out lurker and the themed eliminating much of their team. As the round comes to an end I'm still not sure who was going to win since so much damage will be dealt with earthquake.

Round 3

Again this snapshot is of everyone's health before earthquake is applied. And very clearly several monsters will be taking their last bit of damage with earthquake. My opponent loses PELACOR and I lose temporal master. When the dust settles my team looks much weaker in my opponent is looking fairly strong. After all the attacks I end up losing Runemancer and we'll lose more at the start of next round.

Round 4

Taking a look again things are not great for me or my opponent at this point. I'm going to lose two of my monsters to earthquake damage before the routes starts, and both my opponent and I will lose our armor. This leaves I'll send an interesting position or I will be dealing two damage, and my opponent will be dealing for damage. Neither of us will score another knockout in this round.

Round 5

In most rounds if the round were to start like this I would lose. Very clearly my opponent has four attack magic left while I only have two, and I only have three health while the tank has three. But this is not a normal match, this is what we've all been playing towards earthquake. Has the earthquake damages applied my opponent loses Djinn Renova which saves my monster. Given its higher rarity and same attack speed I believe it would have gone first knocking me out. But since it's eliminated I don't have to worry. That leaves both of our monsters with one health and I have the speed attack advantage of three versus one. Since I get to go first I secure the victory while only having one health left at the end of the round it was a lot closer than most matches end up but it feels good to pull one out.

Thoughts - and Chances to Win Again

I was a little surprised when I pulled up the probability that I had a 100% chance to repeat victory. It appears the void armor played a bigger role than I anticipated. Looking back I guess there was no missed attacks since we both played so much magic, the bigger Factor was my increased armor and converting what armor I had to void armor. It would be interesting to see if it would actually help me to move my smaller monsters before my bigger more protected monsters or if it doesn't really matter. Either way I think my lineup choice was solid with potentially some ability to improve FaceTime lineup order

I hope this helped show the importance of armor and protection from earthquake in these matches as the damage comes at the start of every round and can be really brutal in draining your monsters and knocking them out.

~~@senstless

#sbi-skip