Sometimes battles in Splinterlands feel like you’re playing with a hidden timer. Every round counts as damage on your stacks passively each round. It makes you think carefully about which units to bring and how to protect them against these harm.
In this battle, Noxious Fumes Modifier gives Poison to every unit on the field. This poison kept ticking every round, slowly chipping away at health everyone's health. There's a lot of ways to deal with it but I wanted to show how Immunity and smart position can win or lose you the game. The fight turned out against my favor but fights in Splinterlands can be unpredictable, both on you and your enemies. This is why you cannot take off your eyes even for a moment regardless if you have the better team than your enemies in theory.

Battle Breakdown

Modifier in this Battle:

• Noxious Fumes - All units start the battle poisoned and lose 2 health at the beginning of each round, starting in round 2.

My Thoughts on Modifiers

• Noxious Fumes Modifier is a battle that is bad with teams that rely on long fights and low health units. Immunity units have a massive advantage because they completely nullify Poison which the main threat of this modifier. When paired with support like Weapons Training, even a low leveled Grimbardun Smith looks very scary and Noxious Fumes becomes much less dangerous like normal battles.

Team Composition

Archon: Marlai Singariel

• She is good here because almost all of my units use magic damage and Marlai Singariel adds +1 magic damage to them. This extra damage helps shorten the length of the battle which is important in Noxious Fumes Modifier because the longer the round drags, the more I get damage from Poison.

Units Chosen

Unit 1: Giant Alpine Skink

• He works as the main tank with Shield to halve melee and range attacks. The decent health is good to absorb magic damage that pass through his defenses. His damage is also high enough so he does not feel like he's just absorbing damage there for the team.

Unit 2: Ulundin Overseer

• He has no attack but very high health and armor which makes him good for soaking damage. His low speed does not matter because the magic damage from Daarg Deadblast's Weapons Training that he would get never misses.

Unit 3: Daarg Deadblast

• He is the core support unit because Weapons Training is very important here. He gives magic damage to nearby units that do not have any attack. This works perfectly with Marlai Singariel and turns non attacking units into real threat with magic attack.

Unit 4: Grimbardun Smith

• He has Immunity which makes him completely ignore Poison from Noxious Fumes Modifier. Since he has no attack, Weapons Training gives him magic damage so he is not useless. He is actually one of the key units I have for this battle and wanted to keep him safe until the end because Poison doesn't affect him. If Grimbardun Smith can go to the end game without taking a lot of damage, I would be in a good position to win the game.

Unit 5: Abyssal Elemental

• Resurgence makes him very valuable because he comes back with full health and armor. The 2 magic attack helps apply consistent damage to keep the damage up.

Unit 6: Captain Fellblade

• She has Sneak with 3 magic damage and 1 melee attack which makes her a strong backline threat. I placed her wrong here though since Abyssal Elemental should be last to protect against possible Sneak units. It was good that this mistake was not too serious in this battle and didn't really affect the outcome of this battle.

The Battle

Opening Rounds:
The early game looks so bad for me. The enemy team has Cleanse that removes Poison from their main tank, Cleanse Rearguard that removes Poison from their backline, Tank Heal that restores health of their tank, Repair that restores armor of their units and Taunt that protects them all. Their team is a clear balanced team that is used specifically for this matchup. One comment I would just say before we continue is that I think Anasth Soothsayer should be a little more far back just because the Tank Heal is very useful to die early. He isn't a tank and needs to be on the second slot. They can put Abyssal Elemental as second tank and even Conclave Tracker as third if needed. A huge loss would happen if their only Cleanse and Tank Healer, Anasth Soothsayer, dies early.

Mid-game:
When Warwall Juggernaut died, the enemy lost their one and only frontline tank. If you are only going to have one main frontline tank, you better make sure that it would be surviving. A good example of this is a well defended and well supported Bera Dallin. If they had something like this, then it would be okay to put the one and only healer on the second position.

Final Rounds:
At the last stage of the game, the number of surviving units went a bit balanced but fighting a 1 damage unit against two units with 3 damage and both have no poison debuff is a clear indication of who would win. My plan certainly worked and they could've made it a closer fight if they just put the healer a little more far back. I am not sure if it would change the result but it would certainly be much closer than this, at least.

👉 Watch the full battle replay here
https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_789e2436948d32e285aa34ad6de917c6?ref=ashenova

Results & Reflection

What strategy I was aiming for:
The main plan is to use an Immunity unit like Grimbardun Smith to fully nullify the Poison from Noxious Fumes Modifier. Weapons Training from Daarg Deadblast gives extra magic damage to Grimbardun Smith and Ulundin Overseer so they are not just standing around eliminating one of their weakness as strong tanks without attacks. This allows the team to survive longer than the enemy while still dealing a good damage to the enemies.

What surprised me:
This did not affect the outcome of the battle at all but I did not know Armored Strike can also apply status effects. When the enemy Warwall Juggernaut attacked using Armored Strike, my Giant Alpine Skink got hit with Enfeeble. That interaction caught me off guard during the battle.

What I learned:
Since Armored Strike can cause status effects, in theory, it can apply things like Affliction or Poison. It might even cause Blast damage depending on modifiers or archons I use. This makes Armored Strike feel like a second attack similar to units that has two attacks or those with Double Strike. This new interaction might useful depending on how I use it and what combo I use.

Closing Thoughts

This battle clearly shows how strong Immunity is against Noxious Fumes Modifier. Grimbardun Smith completely ignored poison while still dealing damage thanks to Weapons Training. With enough magic damage and proper defenses, the tide of battle turned different quickly despite being in a huge disadvantage early on.

Noxious Fumes modifier can be scary at first but it is very beatable. With the right knowledge and planning around it, you can turn a loss to a win even if the enemies are stronger than your team.

Posted Using INLEO