This week's Splinterlands Challenge of the Week was to showcase Beatrix Ironhand from the Earth Splinter.

Unfortunately I don't have Miss Ironhand (I assume she's not married) up to an optimum, let alone Max level, so I present here an alt-battle, it's a nice one for all of you regularly defeated by Maxed Yodins, although I had to rely on another maxed legendary summoner to do so:

The battle below features a win against Yodin, in which I deliberately aimed to defend against the standard snipe-blast attack.

The Rule Set and Line Up

• Mana cap 26
• No melee monsters, which limits Yodin's tank options
• Enrage - of much reduced consequence due to melee attack not being affected.

I was fully expecting Yodin from my opponent (his battle history showed 4 Yodins in a row) so I based my team on defending that - possibly the Kitty was the only option and water to give me triage.

Summoner - The Kitty.... - I thought the higher speed might be of special use to elicit a few misses from the anticipated ranged attacks too, along with the obvious utility from the heal.

• Lorn A as tank - a reliable choice for mid mana battles, almost a necessity when you have 26 mana and 7 are already spent on a summoner.
• Kelp Initiate - high health and triage for only 2 mana!
• Mermaid Healer - Strengthen and cleanse, one of my favourite cards
• Pirate archer - another decent low mana card, and a bit of cheek - one blast attack to my opponent's 4.
• Naga Windmaster - I don't play him much, but I thought Headwinds to counter than plus one that comes from Yodin. And also poison given that I'm doing such low damage.
• The crustacean - for heal and shields. (Not sure why his buffs aren't showing up on the screen capture?!?

Did my strategy work?

Beautifully, to see it in action click here!

• Round 1 - We trade blows with no losses, my Initiate is healed back up to 9 health by the end of round one and Lord A back up to full too - double heal and triage welcome.
• Round 2 - His giant is taking a battering... and my single blast is working on his Creeping Ooze
• Round 3 - Despite my low attack, and with an assist from Poison, I take out his Giant and Ooze, now he's one attack card down as the Highland Archer becomes tank.
• Round 4 - I take out his Highland Archer, an enraged Kelp Initiate from blast gets 12 speed and elicits a miss from the Centaur
• Round 5 - I take out his Spark Pixies and the same pattern as in round 4 elicits another miss on the Initiate. I also take out his Imp or whatever it is.
• Round 6 - it's all over! My opponent has one ranged card in first position.

Lessons learned - If you can't hit it, you can't blast its neighbours!

Well my opponent didn't quite have a maxed deck, almost, just like me, so I'd say he's a genuine peer in terms of his collection, and it was VERY NICE to find a way around this maxed Yodin WITHOUT using another maxed Yodin.

I kind of accidentally stumbled on a strategy whereby blast on Lord A also hitting the Kelp Initiate enraged him with minimal damaged, upped his speed to 12 and then resulted in misses, nullifying my opponent's snipe attack.

However it's a dangerous game to play, pre-empting what your opponent is going to play, as if they play something different, it means your cards become much less affective.

When you get it right, it's great - and in this case the double triage and double heal up front worked out beautifully.

HOWEVER, had my opponent played more healing or triage cards himself I probably would have been screwed because then I wouldn't be doing enough damage - my deck had very low damage, a trade-off for getting double triage and double heal in.

I also think this victory is more my opponent's loss - they may have built a deck too reliant on Melee monsters - had there been a Cerberus or Pit Ogre up front this battle could have been over and in his favour, much more quickly.

Maybe he just doesn't have the no attack monsters to fill that TANK gap when Melee is ruled out? And so maybe I just got lucky!

At the end of the day, the best defence against Yodin might still be to just play another Yodin and hope for the best!

If you don't yet play Splinterlands, why not give it a go?

Anyone using my referral link will receive a free rare card!