Weekly Splinterlands Challenge: Shades of Gray
Welcome back, Summoners! I'm @easilykilled , and this is our submission for the weekly challenge within the thrilling world of Splinterlands. This week, we're taking on the Shades of Gray challenge. So, grab your spellbooks and let's get started!
Introduction
The game description:
Shades of Gray: Only Neutral Units may be used in battles.
The Match Ruleset
This match challenge had a decent mana cap of 40 with the following rulesets: Shades of grey and Reverse Speed. Here's a quick rundown about the ruleset and what splinters were available:
- Reverse speed: Units with lower speeds will attack before units with higher speeds. Attack Accuracy based on speed will also be reversed
- Shades of grey: Only Neutral Units may be used in battles.
- Splinters available: Fire | Life
My Team
For this challenge, I decided to go with an fire lineup and in this case it was mainly to decide on the team wide buffs as only neutral monsters could be used, another consideration to keep in mind is the additional ruleset of the match. Here's a breakdown of my team:
- [Tarsa]: Our fire summoner
- [Mantaroth]: Putting Mantaroth in as our tank, because he has high HP, shield and armored strike.
- [Pallus]: Pallus is a nice 2nd spot unit with reach and flying, with his decently high hp he can be a good secondary tank while still being able to do some damage from the backline
- [Doctor blight]: Doctor blight has poison, affliction and camouflage with low speed (which we want in this ruleset) and we put him in 3rd, hoping he could poison or afflict the enemies tank
- [Uraeus]: Was our next minion, he has sneak and poison abilities in this match I used him to start targeting the enemies backline, his high speed is normally a bonus but not in this ruleset
- [Scavo hireling]: Our next minion, he had 1 ability I wanted: Repair, and 1 I didn't: Slow. Slow ends up being a benefit for the enemies units, but the repair skill I thought would be very valuable and worth the drawback.
- [Disintegrator]: Finally we have disintegrator, he has demoralize to lower their melee damage, retaliate, knockout and trample. I put him in the last position in case our opponent also used sneak.
Opponent's Team
Now, let's take a look at my opponent's team. They went with a lineup that used the life splinter General Sloan and tried to utilize the ranged damage type. Here's what I was up against:
- [General Sloan]: His life summoner
- [Legionnaire Alvar]: My opponent used Legionnaire Alvar as his tank, a good high HP with void armor tank option, he also has Giant Killer and Demoralize.
- [Gargoya Devil]: A good ranged option for number 2, he has close range and flying with deathblow
- [Supply runner]: A ranged unit that has strengthen and swiftness. The extra hp is nice for his lineup but the speed is probably not desired.
- [Gem meteor]: Gem meteor a ranged unit which has scatter shot and piercing, with his high damage ouch!
- [Chaos Agent]: To protect against sneak.
- [Gobson Bomber]: Was his final unit a good range damage dealer with camouflage, recharge and piercing.
Battle
My opponent strategy seems to be using general sloan with a lot of ranged units, behind a good tank and.
My strategy with the rulesets in this match was to try target his backline and tank hopefully applying some poison while keep my tank alive as long as possible.
In Round 1 we see misses from both teams, the higher speed my opponent has doesnt help his ranged units, and at the end of round 1 we have almost removed all of alvar's armor
In Round 2 we almost kill the opponent alvar, we do get rid of his Chaos agent and Uraeus now has a direct line to his backline damage dealers
In Round 3 we finish off his alvar, with his death the demoralize is lifted and our Uraeus is able to hit and apply poison to Gem Meteor.
In Round 4 Uraeus again gets a good hit and applies poison to the enemies Supply runner, combined with Scavo hireling repair skill, our tank has been able to survive another round.
Finally, in round 5 we finally get our victory.
MVP
Uraeus was the MVP for me, as his high damage and applying some key poison's allowed him to destroy the enemies backline damage dealers very quickly.
Tips
If you're facing a similar challenge, here are some tips that might help you out when you encounter this ruleset:
Both you and your opponent have the same unit type to draw from, picking a leader is still important.
Some debuffs are not always desired, and you need to weigh up on their costs.
Conclusion
Until next time, keep battling, keep grinding, keep growing!
