Splinterlands Share Your Battle Weekly Challenge VENTOR KINJO - Level 2 Summoners Defeats Level 4!

Back To Splinterlands -Building My Team to Level 2 Summoners

I'm back to show another great battle with level 2 summoners trying to show different ways to play as you grow your account. This week I have a great example of how you can beat higher level cards with Superior strategy.

I'm hoping to complete my level 2 collection here in the first half of 2023, but there's a couple of those pesky cards that are upwards of 30 to $40 that are going to take a while. Hopefully I can get them out soon and get out a post showing that they were worth it.

Weekly Challenge -Ventor Kinjo

This week I chose Ventor Kinjo as my highlight card. This card can be very heavily used even though it may initially look like it wouldn't do much damage. Sometimes a card is not about dealing damage but more about not taking damage.

Edition: REWARD
Rarity: LEGENDARY
Element: NEUTRAL
Attack: MELEE
Abilities: REFLECTION SHIELD: This Monsters Doesn't take damage from Blast, Magic Reflect, Thorns or Return Fire
Abilities: CAMOUFLAGE: This Monsters cannot be targeted for attacks unless its in the first position.
Health: 1
Speed: 2
Attack: 1

Reasons Why I like it
Ventor Kinjo is it very unique card. While it has low health, and low attack damage it has some abilities to make it exceptionally useful, even in very high mana matches.

The reflection Shield ability makes it really useful in certain rule sets. The fact that reflection Shield prevents damage from blast magic reflect thorns or return fire means that this monster can be a complete wall in second place, and also doesn't have to worry about taking Thorn damage in melee mayhem matches. I believe there's only a few cards that have the reflection Shield ability and this is one of them. The fact that it's also a neutral and ultra low mana means it can fit into a lot of matches.

Adding in camouflage means it won't be taken out very early by opportunity cards and can just sit in the second spot and the soak up all that blast damage without concern of being taken out until the primary tank has been taken out.

The Matchup

https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_f75c4bd12b03611db40f431b317ab606&ref=senstless

MANA: 34

Ruleset: Explosive Weaponry: All monsters gain the blast ability.

Ruleset: Melee Mayhem: Melee monsters can attack from any position.

SPLINTERS: Fire, Earth, Death, Dragon

Initial Rule Set and Mana Gameplay Thoughts

This is a very interesting role set. Adding melee mayhem with explosive weaponry means it'll likely be a very low mana melee attack setup, or a life leech and thorns matchup from death. Either way the 15 mana limit is going to make it very challenging to put out a robust team. I think I will choose to go with the traditional fire lineup and take a health and melee boost from tarsa.

• Summoner Tarsa
  Getting that health and melee boost I think will be key. It might help me get some additional damage on my first attack and the blast attack will continue to hopefully eat away at the other monsters.

• First Position Antoid Platoon
  Great card for little man of matches, two armor Plus for health combined with Shield means it can take a punch. Should be able to sustain a couple of rounds before being knocked out.

• Second Position Venator Kinjo
  This is where the card belongs and will really shine with reflection shield. All the opponents monsters attack on my primary tank will not do any damage and it'll protect the rest of my lineup.

• Third Position Scorch Fiend
  I really could have put this in last place instead to protect from sneak attacks but I ended up putting it here thinking that my primary tank secondary cards would be knocked out quickly

• Fourth Position Radiated Scorcher
  I love radiated scorcher for one mana you they boosted boosted it to melee attack, three health, and shatter in case they have any armor out there. It's hard to find a better one man card

• Fifth Position Ant Miners
  Aunt miners truly shines in low man of matches for you expect I turn over, these scavenger will give it an opportunity to really add up some health before it starts to get attacked hopefully.

• Sixth Position Battering Ram
  Bedroom ram is another great card especially in explosive weaponry sets. Given a fact it has opportunity it will attack the lowest health card and into a splash damage to the surrounding carts. We always hope that the card that's attacked is in the middle and it does splash damage to both sides.

Opponent Lineup & Match Play

• Summoner Thaddius Brood looks like my opponent chose to do the health reduction and thorns attack. Reducing the health on a 15-mpana match is always a great choice thinking we did some quicker knockout. Given that this is a level 4 card I will expect to see some higher level common and rares.
• Cursed Windeku looks great at level 3. Three melee plus thorns plus damage plus 10 health means that I'm going to have some issues taking this one out. The thorn damages are going to take a toll on my team
• Venari Bonesmith magic attack plus blast plus poison means this is a really good card to be using.
• Corpse Fiend always have to add in 0 minute card plus it can attack from the back row with melee mayhem.
• Carrion Shade another great card for one mana flying plus attacking from the back row with blast should help.

Overall I'm not sure how I'm going to do. The increased level of cards on facing add some complexities that I'm not used to seeing and I'm not sure how well I will fare. I'm not feeling overly confident but I'm very happy that Ventor Kinjo will soak up so much damage in second position.

Round 1

Round one starts off and underneath the counter it tells me there are 35 actions that will take place in this round. That is a crazy amount of actions for any round let alone one with only 15 mana. I'll try to summarize this as best I can without boring you the details. The major highlights are bone Smith got lucky and applied poison to Android platoon on the first attack of the match. And started building its health with life leech. This was quickly followed up by cursed when did you removing the rest of the armor. So much for Android platoon lasting more than one round. The other highlight is battering ram used its opportunity to seek out corpse feet delivering a knockout plus dealing splash damage to both BoneSmith and Carrion shade. This gave Aunt reminders a chance to start building its health. As my monsters start to attack, they are all taken out by the thorns. So this is overall a huge blow to my team, and minors continues to grow its health. And my splash damage is taking its effect on bone smith. I'm very lucky by the time I attack with Android platoon, I'm able to knock out bone Smith with splash damage.

Round 2

As round two starts the poison hits Android platoon and knocks it out by the way, and I'm left with an even weaker team. Cursed Wendeku gets to attack first it's knocks out Ventor Kinjo. Lucky for me battering ram attacks next and delivers a knockout plus a blast damaged to Kirsten DQ knocking it down to one. That means Aunt miners both games of health and gets to attack next securing my win and knocking out Xurded Windeku

Thoughts - and Chances to Win Again

Ventor Kinjo was able to observe four splash damage, and took three direct melee damage. That alone set me up quite nicely and allowed many of my other monsters to survived other rounds. Even though I got unlucky when poison was applied, and unlucky with a miss I'm cursed Windeku I still like my team a lot.

Taking a look at the stats it looks like I was a 98% favorite to win, most likely it has to do with potential speed differences and a few misses that would cost me to lose. I will say that's really impressive to have level two cards take out level four cards given their increased health, attack, and abilities. This just shows that strategy can be card level many a times. I will probably continue to play lineups similar to this in other scenarios to try to maximize my chances to win.

~~@senstless

#sbi-skip