Featuring Bronze League Summoner and Monsters in Action!
I'm happy to share a battle mage secret post. This battle will highlight bronze League monsters in epic battles featuring various rule sets. This week's focus is explosive weaponry where all monsters gain the blast ability. Let's take a look at this battle and see what I did right, what I did wrong, and what we can prove upon for next time
CHALLENGE RULES
RULESET: Explosive Weaponry
Description: All units gain the Blast ability.
Additional damage is equivalent to main damage divided by 2, rounded up.
Include a unit with Reflection Shield in your lineup to absorb blast damage and protect your back line.
Reasons Why I like it
Giving all monsters the blast ability, which gives them all blast damage on your tax can make some monsters exceptionally powerful. Typically cards that have blood bust, or high attacks are more powerful than normal. Classically this rule set has been dominated by cards that play snipe as it will damage up to 3 monsters versus your typical 2. This also has a big focus on cards with reflection Shield.
The Matchup - Where Rules Sets, Splinters and Mana Collide
The Rule Sets
Watch the Match Here
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_789dd4a223a7fb5d55f196cab42b9e9c&ref=senstless
MANA: 32
Ruleset: Explosive Weaponry: All monsters gain the blast ability.
SPLINTERS: Water, Life, Dragon
Initial Rule Set and Mana Gameplay Thoughts
- Rulesets
As I said before, I think this rule set papers fast attacking cards, with an additional focus on big attacks, bloodlust, or snipe. Some way to get additional damage in the first few rounds that can turn out to be critical - Mana
P 32 mana is a little light but leaves enough room to play most of the cards you want while still making some sacrifices. And 32 minutes I don't think it'll be too big of a deal either way and you should be able to make a fairly good team from either splinter - Splinters
Going down to only two splinters plus dragons makes it a little bit more difficult. I think that fire death and Earth all have great cards that could be used and benefit from explosive weaponry. There's still some good options and I think it would be an even split between water life depending on if you went with opportunity attacks, or kept in Katie's snipe magic attack.
Summoner POSSIBILUS THE WISE
Decided to go with an overwhelming mailing attack hoping to get a lot of splash damage to reduce monsters health that will allow trample to be triggered and get bonus attacksFirst Position DIEMONSHARK
High armor and health plus speed needs it should attack first and might be missed a few times. Biggest concern is no protection against magicSecond Position VENARI MARKSRAT
Since they'll be a lot of splash damage, I might as well give both cards a boost to the stats and see if we can't turn things in my favor
Third Position COASTAL SENTRY
If I'm going to give a card reach, then coastal century is my primary choice. Double strike with three to four melee damage and trample means it could really get on a rollFourth Position VENTAR KINJO
Reflection Shield here to help protect my healer as much as possible. Likely not going to make a difference but I figured it was a decent ideaFifth Position MERDAALI GUARDIAN
Trying to heal either demon shark or coastal century if I get the opportunity.Sixth Position TORRENT FIEND
Had another spot open so I put it up just for a sneak attack target. Unfortunately there isn't much in terms of sneak protection but since fire is not available then it's likely to not be as big of an issue
Opponent Lineup & Match Play
- Summoner HELIOS MATRIARCH
Interesting to the voice to go with dragon. Also gives them access to Gladius cards and an additional speed so it's always a decent option - VENARI MARKSRAT
This card gets put everywhere in anywhere that we expect it to provide the most benefit from the Martyr boost - DJINN OSHANNUS
Dangerous card to get boosted from martyr. If the speed starts to get too high it'll become almost unhittable and could be really troublesome to take out - TORRENT FIEND
Looks like an attempt to place it here to soak up one of the splash damage tax and allow Larissa a chance to keep itself - LARISSA KERATO
Great card, and one that I don't have yet. A double striking magic attack card with bloodlust and now splash damage means it could really start to build up its stats and become overpowered to the point that it wins the marriage - RIVER HELLONDALE
Sneaky play here, playing that resurrect to give a double boost to Djinn Oshannus - CHAOS AGENT
Similar to myself, it looks like it's just a rear sneak attack protection.
Round 1
Round one starts off and the additional health I got for my seminar is actually making an impact and allowing a couple cards to stick around longer than I would have expected. I do suffer the first knockout of Markscrat. Luckily it gives a boost to both demon shark and coastal century. Additional speed is critical. Ending round one that's the only card lost
Round 2
Around 2:00 is about to get crazy. Additional speed I picked up from martyr weighs heavily in my favor and I now have two cards second second and third in the order. Demon shark knocks out their Markscrat. Since I have trample it follows up an additional attack on Djinn Oshannus before the murder boost is applied and that attack triggers splash damage to knock out torrent fiend. Luckily for me Markscrat kids resurrected and the next attack comes from coastal century. The splash damage which hits every single time brings Djinn Oshannus down to three health before the trample from the second knockout of Markscrat. The trample is enough to knock out Djinn, and bring the health and Larissa down to two. The second attack knocks Larissa out and remove the armor from River hellondale. That knockout triggers yet another trample which knocks out River Hellondale and the splash damage takes out Chaos agent.
Because of the extra damage done by explosive weaponry, and the travel effect coastal century attacked a total of four times knocking out pretty much their entire team. That was a 16 melee damage done on a primary attacks and eight splash damage done from explosive weaponry. It went from looking like I was thinking of a hard time hitting Djinn Oshannus to wiping them off and getting a picture very early.
LESSONS LEARNED - STRAGEGY FOR NEXT TIME
Explosive Damage always hits - not matter the speed.
My first take away is that the explosive weaponry splash damage always hits the adjacent monsters. Doesn't matter how fast they are, if the attack hits the first monster then the splash damage always hurts the second monsters. Sometimes that can hurt you as it did in this case for my opponent where I was able to deal significant damage to the second tank current prior to getting boosted the moving to the frontTrample Triggers before Martyr
Another key factor here is that trample appears to trigger prior to Martyr boost if I had it reversed, and Martyr was applied first then the additional speed might make my trample attack mess. Something to consider especially when you're playing cards that have bloodluster boost the trample will take effect priorDon't underestimate reflection shield
If my opponent had used reflection Shield somewhere in the lineup, I think they could have really protected themselves a bit more. It would have been available to hold on to their armor and not lose it on the splash damage, or lose their health from splash. While it doesn't always work it does provide some huge benefits
