Close Range allows those deadly archers to get close and comfortable at the very front of the lineup. With General Sloan and Yodin Zaku bolstering ranged damage and Quix The Devious and Contessa L'ament negating those buffs it can often be a game of strategy to see who will win.
Close Range
You can use high HP or high speed Ranged monsters at position 2 (or even at position 1 if it has Heal). Choose summoners that give a bonus to Ranged attack or to speed and then choose high damage Ranged attack monsters. Beware of the possibility that your opponent might pick Lir Deepswimmer as summoner or monsters with Return Fire. High HP and Heal is the way to go in this ruleset. - Splintercards
Odd Ones Out
Only Monsters with odd Mana costs may be used in battles. - Splintercards
There are no special tricks for this ruleset, but having an idea of mana points of a few monsters helps in predicting what your opponent can and cannot use.
Splinter Choices & Mana:
With Life available, I will go with General Sloan. Ilthain would be a great option to Return Fire but I think going on the offensive is better here than countering the opponent.
Both Water and Death offer some good opportunities but with General Sloan there can be a massive buff applied to the lineup which will really go a long way to increasing overall damage output.
The Line Ups:
General Sloan
In a Close Range ruleset, I want to take advantage of having as high damage as possible with my ranged attackers. So for this strategy, General Sloan makes the most sense to me. This will ensure I can have a consistent damage output in the battle in order to work around any enemy buffs such as Repair or even Tank Heal.
Uriel The Purifier
Uriel is big, tough and hard hitting. Ideally I will get to keep him alive for as long as possible to take advantage of his attack which requires alternate rounds to charge. With 6 armour and 10 health, I hope to keep him alive to do some nasty damage to punch a hole in their frontline.
Portal Spinner
As this card has armour and decent health of 4, I am placing it as a secondary tank. It does offer good damage of 2 but alongside a buff from General Sloan, it will do the maximum of 3 damage which is excellent. This card does have a random selection
War Pegasus
By utilising the ability Shatter, I am hopeful of removing all enemy armour the turn prior to Uriel The Purifier. This should hopefully erase an enemy from the battlefield pretty quickly, assuming Uriel is still alive that is. By using the War Pegasus' speed of 4, I am deliberately aiming for this monster to attack prior to Uriel to maximise damage.
Gem Meteor
This is another of my random wild cards. The Gem Meteor is only in the line up due to health and speed really. It's random attack is not something I am too concerned with. As long as it stays alive long enough to deal good damage due to General Sloan, I am happy.
Adelade Brightwing
I placed Adelade Brighwing at the back of the line up to allow her to protect the rest of the lineup with Repair while she continues to attack with her 2 magic damage. I could have placed a higher damage output monster at the rear position but I wanted to take advantage of her utility to keep my team alive.
Opposing Line up:
Grandmaster Rathe
This is an excellent choice if the opponent chooses armoured monsters in their line up. It will stop my Adelade Brightwing from finishing enemies who still have armour. This selection of Summoner is good because it reinforces the line up with Void Armour. The Amplify could mean Return Fire damage would be increased and if that is the case then it could be a very challenging battle. A great selection from the opponent.
Blinding Reflector
For 3 mana this is actually a decent tank. Especially with Void Armour buffing the survivability of it. A good cheap card that hints at much more power hidden behind it in the lineup.
Jared Scar
This is a powerful card and if the opponent can get this card going forward then it may cause some serious damage with the Bloodlust ability. The question is how much damage will Uriel The Purifier sustain before this monster gets to take a serious melee swipe?
Gargoya Scrapper
Void is a great ability and this is a good little card for 1 mana. I don't think it will have much of an impact on the outcome here though.
Gargoya Devil
I was close to using this card myself but decided against it for two reasons; first was the 7 mana cost. It was quite high for the damage, armour and health situation. While it does have flying and it will make a general nuisance of itself, I felt going for two cards with higher health would be more important here.
Adelade Brightwing
This is a good selection especially with Void Armour from Grandmaster Rathe. This card will cause my lineup some trouble as it will pierce through armour and put some of my monsters down where I cannot do the same to them. Hopefully my higher speed War Pegasus can Shatter armour quicker than Adelade can repair it?
Djinn Renova
The Strengthen ability is one we don't see often. It is a nice bonus but the good health and decent speed of 3 help make this card as potent on this battlefield as it is. A good 7 mana to use this card but now we can see the reason the opponent has gone a little lighter in the front of the line up. This battle will be a race to the last card and I think it'll be close due to the Djinn Renova's magic damage.
The Battle:
Round 1:
Round 2:
Round 3:
Round 4:
Round 5:
Final Rounds:
Post Battle Thoughts:
Adelade Brightwing was a star of the show here. She kept repairing on both sides until quite late and it made it more difficult for me to get through the opponent's armour due to the Void Armour imposed by Grandmaster Rathe. Overall I am happy with the battle and I think the selections by both sides made sense.
Due to the availability of mana and the options available, any changes to their line up would need to be wholesale and the battle was close enough that one or two misses at the wrong moment could swing the battle. Such is the case in Splinterlands that very fine margins can win a battle and either that's an additional mana point to spend or in some cases just levelling that card as high as possible.
Overall though I am happy because I am starting to see the fruit of my investments into the deck. This time around there was only a 8% reduction in RP points due to my under levelled Gem Meteor- noting that I think this is the first time I have actually used that card deliberately.
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All card, icons, Splinter images and stats courtesy of Splinterlands
Ability and Ruleset blurbs taken from Splintercards
Splinter Element Icons taken from Splinterlands
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