The World in Slow Motion - Time Mage Battle

Where It All Starts

Time Mages are members of the Order of the Silver Shield and close associates of the Wizards' Council. They are trusted to peer through the fabric of time and reality to foretell the future or manipulate the present by slowing the flow of time. They can also speed up the aging process of armor, causing it to rust prematurely.

However, with such power also comes great risk. The future is ever-changing, and the ripples of time can affect everyone. Time Mages must undergo strict training to ensure they don't abuse their power and use it only for the most dire of circumstances.

Oh man, the wonders of timelines, time travels, changing the future. The craziest time travel story for me would be the movie Predestination. It's a story of four different characters of different genders and timelines are the exact same person! The same person impregnates himself in the past and gave birth to himself.

Anyways, going back to Splinterlands, I didn't know that there are mages in the Silver Shield order. So they must be the ones supporting the Shield Bearers, Knights, Paladins, Warriors and Archers from the back. Cool, Cool, Cool, Cool! I wonder they didn't add the tag Silvershield to the mages. Silvershield Time Mage? Divine Silvershield Sorceress? That would have been really cool to establish the Silvershield order more neatly.

The Stats

So what does this Time Mage has to offer?

At base level, it already possesses the slow ability. At level 4, max level for Silver, it offers 2 damage, 5 speed and 3 HP. It gains the disintegrate ability at level 5 which is very much consistent to its lore. Time mages possesses the ability to fasten the maturity of metals so they disintegrate quickly. At level 6, max level for Gold, it still offers the same stats as level 4 but with the disintegrate ability. Its magic damage only increases to 3 at level 8 (max level).

As you can see, this doesn't have the best HP in the game so you should be careful when using the time mage. They can easily die off a pelacor conjurer coupled with amplify.

How do you make the Time Mage shine? Here are my top pick summoners for this:

Summoner	Comment
	Lorna grants an additional layer of protection to the Time Mage. When coupled with a monster that grants armour with protect ability, it'll be harder to take down your monsters. The longer the Time Mage remains in battle, the longer the slow ability is in effect.
	Classic Life splinter summoner. The +1 armour granted by Tyrus already provides a lot of protect to Time Mages (at least for melee and ranged attack damages). May not look much, but if it's able to make Time Mages last a round or two, then it's mission accomplished for Tyrus.
	A dragon splinter summoner??? Well.. Delwyn Dragonscal amplifies magic damage so this should have great synergy with Time Mages. Especially now that I've noticed more people are using magic + Life line-ups. Just make sure you don't use this versus an opponent who knows how to bounce magic damage.

And which rule sets best suit the Time Mage?

Rules of Combat	Description	Why?
	Equalizer: The initial health of all monsters iq equal to that of the monster on either team with the highest base health.	The Time Mage's weakness is its low HP which is easily addressed by this ruleset. Imagine a Time Mage with 10 or 11 HP.
	Equal Opportunity: All monsters have the opportunity ability	Being a fast monster with slow ability, you're guaranteed to strike first before your enemy. So you can take down those pesky low HP monsters. Again, since you have low HP, make sure to field a chicken or a fiend when possible.
	Back to Basic: All monsters lose all abilities	This is a world with no fancy abilities. Just plain melee, ranged and magic damages. As such, you can just play this is a plain magic damager. Its low HP safe from snipe, reflect and opportunity attacks.

The Battle

Rules of Combat
Modifications: Equalizer, Even Steven
Mana Cap: 28
Playable Splinters: Fire, Life, Dragon

Link to full battle

My lineup

Position	Card	Mana Cost	Comment
Summoner		4	I would have chosen Lorna Shine if I could. So I chose the next best option, Tyrus. Provides +1 armour so it's decent enough for my team.
Position 1 - Tank		6	Normally, people try to put this somewhere in the middle to keep providing buff for the team. But this time, I wanted to put the Time Mage in the middle so I decided to use this as a tank. I have two other meelee monsters so this as a tank should be fine
Position 2 - Pseudo Tank		4	Provides additional damage to the opponent's tank. With buffed damage from the Silvershield Knight, it should cause a dent on the opponent.
Position 3 - Debuff		4	Provides magic damage for variety and debuffs the opponent's speed. It's also fast enough to alway ensure it attacks first before dying.
Position 4 - Annoying Fly		2	Low cost monster that does 3 damage (buffed). The opportunity ability will not shine on equalize rule set since all have the same HP. But this ensures you that it can attack from the back and wouldn't miss.
Position 5 - Range Attacker - Healer		4	Provides healing to whoever's in the first position. Healing monsters are always welcome to any team. Ensures that the tanks get to take a few more hits before going down.
Position 5 - Range Attacker - Pure Damage		4	2nd Best ranged card at 4 mana. Provides 3 damage and is quite bulky. The twisted jester is the best 4 mana ranged card for me.

Rounds Breakdown

Link to full battle

At the start of the battle, you'll see already the impact of the Time Mage. By reducing the enemy's speed, The Silvershield Knight is guaranteed to attack first before getting hit by the Defender of Truth. This also means it will be healed first before getting hit again by the other Magic monsters.

You'll also see what I mean by the Time Mage being fragile due to its low HP. Good thing this is an equalizer battle so its HP is boosted. Otherwise, it would have fallen down already by the Pelacor Conjurer's amplified reflected damage.

The round ends with the Pelacor Conjurer going down and my Silvershield knight losing its armour and half its HP.

Again, being the fastest, the Time Mage opens the second round. The Silvershield knight gets to attack first before going down. Without the slow effect from the Time Mage, the Silvershield Knight could have gone down without dishing any damage since it is the same speed as the Defender of Truth. See? The speed difference has a huge impact on the match-up.

The Time Mage opens the round again. Its damage causes HP loss right away ignoring the Defender of Truth's armour. The Sunkai Harvester almost died but since my team's faster, the Venari Cyrstalsmith got a chance to heal it back. It's a shame though that it still dies from the Pelacor Arbalest and Bila the Radiant. At least it was able to eliminate the Defender of Truth thus removing the armour from its protect ability.

The Time Mage is now on the verge of death but was still able to do an important attack, removing the opponent's divine shield. The star of this battle finally goes down. In the meantime, the Bila the Radiant is quietly accumulating its HP which is now at 14!

This is now quite intense since Bila the Radiant can single handedly wipe out my remaining monsters. The Pelacor Arbalest goes down. Next round it will be Bila the Radiant versus my remaining monsters.

Bila the Radiant is now very thicc!!! 16 HP??? not it's down to the wire on the remaining rounds!

My Harpy is barely hanging on but with timely heals from the Venari Crystalsmith, it's still able to put up a fight!

We're very near the end game! if the Venari Crystalsmith falls, it's game over for me!

Fortunately, my Peacebringer is faster than Bila the Radiant. So it deals the final blow closing the curtain on my opponent.

Battle Result

Fancy another Time Mage battle? Click here.

Final Words

Hope you guys picked up few tricks from the battle above with Time Mage.
I don't always rent this card but I did for the sake of the weekly challenge and to try out varying strategy for the Life Splinter. It's cheap anyways so it it didn't hurt my budget. The Slow ability is always a welcome addition to any line-ups and the 2 magic damage is decent enough to chip away your opponent's HP. Then again, use with caution versus teams who can bounce iff amplified magic damage. Otherwise, it's game over for you.

Til next time folks!

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