The battle challenge ruleset this week is Five Alive. In this ruleset, up to five monsters may be used. Usually up to six monsters may be used. This ruleset along with the similar Fab Four ruleset were released just recently, so I am still getting used to them.
The battle I chose to showcase is a 32 mana Guild Brawl match with the 'Keep Your Distance' and 'Five Alive' rulesets. Fire, Water, Death, and Dragon were the splinters available to play.
Here is a link to the battle:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sm_Gc6Ba8018Nnzexf570kh&ref=ninjamike
In this match, I knew that I would only be facing Ranged and Magic attacks. So I decided to use Almo Cambio as my tank because it has the ability to dodge Magic attacks as well as the Return Fire ability. In addition, it has very high speed and health. I went with the Water splinter and chose the Keyla Frendul summoner which will give one additional armor and speed to all my monsters. After my tank, I placed a couple Ranged attack monsters and a Magic attack monster. I finished out my lineup with a monster that will heal and repair the shields of my tank.
Start of Battle / Round 1
My opponent chose the Death splinter. They used a combination of Magic and Ranged attack monsters.
Round 2
After the first round, both of our tanks are holding pretty strong.
Round 3
After the second round, my opponents tank is down to five health. In addition, the return fire damage that my tank has done is starting to add up. My opponent is having difficulty getting through my tank.
Round 4
During the third round, I defeated my opponents tank. Meanwhile my tank is doing its job.
Round 5
After the fourth round, my opponent is down to just two monsters. Things are looking good for me.
My main strategy was to have monsters in first and second position that were nearly impossible to get through. This strategy worked perfectly for me. Most of the non-Melee attack cards in the game either attack the first position or have the Snipe ability. There are very few non-Melee cards that have the Sneak or Opportunity abilities. All my opponents attacks were at my first position card. Meanwhile my more vulnerable cards with low health in the rear of my lineup were never attacked.
The Five Alive ruleset is not the most interesting one unless the mana for the battle is enormous. At 32 mana, the battle featured in this post was a medium mana match. So it was fairly easy to fit in five monsters that worked well together. However, I have found that as the mana for the battle gets larger, it gets more and more challenging to create a good team that synergizes well together. This is because I feel limited to choosing from a few super high mana monsters to fill out the five slots. This issue is even more extreme in the similar Fab Four ruleset.
