Hello, Splinter fans!

I'm sure you have heard about the unfortunate news about Splinterlands layoffs by now. I was about to write a post about the topic but thought there was nothing meaningful I could add to the discussion. Instead, I decided to do a battle analysis of this quite interesting match.

So let's get to it!

Entering The Arena

This 33-mana battle had two rulesets:

Armored Up - all monsters receive an additional +2 to their armour.

Heavy hitters - all monsters receive the Knock Out ability

I was up against a Death Splinter team with Thaddius Brood as a summoner and his gang of melee, ranged, and magic monsters.

- Cursed Windeku is always a nasty tank unit especially if you happen to have lots of melee units.

- Riftwing could also become a nuisance if it manages to grow its health and end up in the tank position since it could be hard to hit because of its      Flying ability.

- Magi Necrosi cannot be targeted directly because of his Camouflage ability. He is also able to snipe some of my back-line troops.

- Other enemy units are Venari Bonesmith, Ravehood Warden, and Silent Sha-Vi.

Now let's take a closer look at my units.

My Team

ETERNAN BRUTE is the first Souldbound monster I've managed to upgrade to level 3. I often wonder is just luck what summoners we get pull from chests or is there something more to it? For example, my Lobb Lowland is still on level 1 waiting for that one card...

Yet, if I had to choose which one I'd like to be the one on level 3, I would still say Eternan Brute. The -2 armour debuff is pretty awesome when you are sure the opponent is counting on the safety of their armour, in these cases where the Armored Up ruleset is in play.

Besides that, Eternan Brute allows me to choose one Gladiator unit and that is when all the fun begins, right?

Another Soulbound card, FEROX DEFENDER has quickly become my number one Fire Splinter tank unit replacing the Living Lava.

He is an excellent choice against teams with melee and/or ranged units as he has plenty of armour(5) and enough health(7) underneath.

His Protect ability will not only add up to his own armour but will also provide to the whole squad making him an easy choice over Living Lava.

If I could find a better option for the first spot in the future, I would still consider using Ferox Defender on my team - perhaps as the last monster against the enemy Sneak monsters.

RADIATED BRUTE is a good option if I want to put some pressure on the opponent tank unit as she will use her Reach ability to attack the tank.

Other than that, Radiated Brute is an "ok" monster with 2 melee attack points, 2 speed and 6 hitpoints. A much more lethal unit for the same spot would be Chimney Wallstop but since I'm allowed to take only one Gladiator unit into this battle, Brute will now have to cover for him as I have some other plans...

TENYII STRIKER is something like an all-around guy to me when I'm putting up a Fire Splinter team. His stats are almost identical to Radiated Brute's stats but he is slightly faster and will use his Sneak ability to target the last monster of the enemy team.

This ability allows me to hide him somewhere in the middle or place him in the back as he has enough health to take a hit or two. Because of that same reason, Tenyii Striker can also operate for a while in front if he is played in that situation.

ORELLA ABADON is the reason I left Chimney Wallstop out of my team. He is an extremely lethal melee monster who will also attack the last monster using Sneak.

While costing only 2 mana points, his other stats are at 3 and in addition to Sneak, it's the Bloodlust that really makes him tick.

Because of the Armored Up -ruleset and Ferox Defenders Protect, Orella Abadon should be well protected. Also, when Eternan Brute deducts 2 armour points from opponent monsters, this guy will hopefully get an early opportunity to trigger his Bloodlust.

Well, this is kind of embarrassing... I was meant to choose Uraeus, another Sneak monster, for this spot but during the first attack, I noticed that VENARI MARKSRATS was in fact there.

This might not actually be a bad thing since it is the monster with the least(together with Orella) so the enemy units with Opportunity ability should either target him or Orella. I don't know how it's actually decided which monster they attack if two or more have the same amount of health but I do hope they target Marksrat so that his Martyr ability would trigger.

In normal circumstances I would have put the Rat in this spot but since it was an accident, here stands the ANTOID PLATOON.

This card has relatively good defensive stats for a unit costing only 4 mana points and my idea here was to also use its Shield ability to take the edge off the opponent's Sneak monsters.

The Battle

To find out did my strategy worked, you can watch the battle HERE or/and continue reading my battle report below!

ROUND 1

Magi Nocrosi was the fastest unit on the battlefield and yes, he managed to hit Venari Marksrat! I have rarely been so happy about losing a monster! Magi has a magic attack strength of 2 but since their summoner debuff deducted the health of my units, it was game over for Rat.

ROUND 2

Orella Abadon was already strong thanks to the boost by Martyr ability but now he got even stronger after killing the opponent Silent Sha-Vi. Meanwhile, our tank unit was shaking a bit and losing health and armour.

ROUND 3

The third round began with Orella destroying Ravenhood Warden who was already tender after Tenyii Striker's attack. Still, the opponent was strong as they managed to take down Ferox Defender. His replacement, Radiated Brute quickly followed him to death.

ROUND 4

It was now Tenyii Striker's turn to hold the first position and win some time for Orella to do his thing and Orella did. Venari Bonesmith was now out and soon was the feared Cursed Windeku too.

ROUNDS 5 - 7

It took two whole rounds for Orella to clear the overgrown Riftwing until we could finally meet Magi Necrosi face-to-face. At this point, Orella Abadon was so fast and strong that it left absolutely no chance for Magi and the game was over.

Conclusion

While writing this post and analyzing the battle I just realised something, the opponent Magi Necrosi was forced to attack my Venari Marksrat because the Snipe makes him target enemy Monsters with Ranged, Magic, or no attack that are not in the first position. Because the Rat was the only unit that wasn't a melee one, he was also the only target for the Snipe monster.

To be honest, I haven't actually realised how to use this for my benefit until now. If will be using a full melee squad and be sure my opponent will use Snipe, I might place a Martyr unit like Venari Marksrat in the middle to make two monsters benefit from his death. A new strategy for my books!

Thank you for reading!

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Also Playing:

- Wombat Dungeon Master
- Terracore
- Rising Star
- Army of Crypto

Disclaimers:

Thumbnail background image made with Canva
Other pictures are screenshots from Splinterlands