Splinterlands BATTLE MAGE SECRETS Weekly Challenge: Going the Distance!

For this battle, here are the rulesets and mana cap to be considered: Here we have "Up to Eleven: All monsters have the Amplify ability" and "Close Range: Ranged attacks may be used in the first position in battles, aside from the ruleset Going the Distance. The mana cap is 33, and the active elements are Death and Dragon. The ruleset Close Range worked really well with the ruleset Going the Distance. With this, we no longer need to worry about the monster in the first position being useless.

Summoner: Astral Entity: These are the abilities of this card: All enemy Monsters have -2 Armor; they have an increased chance of evading Melee or Ranged attacks; and When a friendly Monster dies, it is brought back to life with 1 Health. This ability can only be triggered once per battle.

Pos 1: Venari Marksrat: I put this card in the first position, hoping that it will die first and boost the stats of the monster adjacent to it. And if it ever dies first, it will be resurrected by an astral entity, and its Martyr ability can be used again.

Pos 2: Lira the Dark: I put this card in the second position and will be the recipient of the effects of the Martyr ability. It already has 6 speed, and combined with the Astral Entity's Dodge and Venari Marksrat's Martyr ability, the chance to evade a ranged attack will skyrocket.

Pos 3: Tower Griffin: I used this card mainly because of its Flying ability combined with the Astral Entity's Evade ability.

Pos 4: Ravenhood Warden: This card is a good support that provides +2 Armor to allied units.

Pos 5: Supply Runner: I used this card to further increase the chance of evading enemy attacks. The card that will mainly benefit from the +1 Speed is Lira the Dark, combined with the Dodge and Martyr buffs.

Pos 6: Soul Strangler: This is one of the few cards with high attack output but little HP and is prone to the Opportunity ability. So I put this the furthest back and used other monsters with the same health. And hoping that the enemy will not use any cards with the sneak ability.

The Strategy: My strategy in this battle is to maximize the speed and evasion of my cards. As you can see in my line-up, I have the Dodge, Swiftness, and Martyr buff combinations. Lira the Dark has 6 Speed, and combined with these abilities, I am hoping that the enemy will have a huge chance to miss.

The enemy used Drake of Arnak, which gives +1 Armor to its allied monster, which will be countered by Astral Entity's -2 Armor. The only way that I think the enemy has an advantage is by using Drybone Raider with two types of attacks: Melee and Ranged. It will also benefit from Venari Marksrat's Martyr ability.

Here in Round 1, we can see that Lira's stats were increased by the Martyr ability and by Drybone Raider as well.

However, Astral Entity resurrected my Venari Marksrat and this again will activate the Martyr ability after dying. Now, Lira the Dark has 5 Ranged attack and 9 Speed.

In Round 2, as planned, most of the enemy monsters missed their attack against Lira the Dark. This means that my line up already has the advantage in terms of damage output.

In Round 3, even thought Drybone Raider has two attacks per turn and has 2 types of attack, it was still easily defeated because it can't inflict all the damage that it has.

With their main attacker gone, it was an easy game afterwards for my monster to defeat the enemy line up. As you can see, only Venari Marksrat was defeated.

Here is the Battle Replay from Splinterlands.

These are my opinions and analysis of the battle that happened.

1. The opponent used the summoner Drake of Arnak, which was not quite effective against my line-up because my Astral Entity easily countered its ability.

2. Relying on attack power is not sufficient to win a battle. High-speed stats and abilities that can evade also proved to be very useful in a battle.

3. When you encounter the ruleset Going the Distance, you might want to consider adding monsters with two attacks.