Hello Splinterlands Summoners! In this edition of Social Media Challenge, let's take a look at a couple of my favorite battles and my consideration in choosing my team. I also share my opinion on new reward cards Nimbledook Explorer and Gallicus.
Less than four days left in the season, I have already reached Gold II from Silver I and collected the rewards chests. I also accumulated over 60k Glints. I think I will use it buy all the batch 1 Minor Chests this time. It will be fun opening 400 chests and hoping for epics and legendaries.
Let's take a deep dive at two of my favorite battles this season. I'll also talk about new reward cards Nimbledook Explorer and Gallicus.
Battle 1: Using Melee Attack in Keep Your Distance Ruleset
In Keep Your Distance ruleset, you cannot summon units with melee attacks. However, there is sort of a loophole wherein you can still use melee attacks: use units with Armored Strike ability. The Armored Strike ability grants a unit to deal melee damage equal to remaining armor.
I like this battle because I finally found a good use for the Nimbledook Explorer.
Nimbledook Explorer is Great at Level 5
The Nimbledook Explorer is a common reward card. It has no attack but it grants armor to all units. At level 5, it will get the Armored Strike ability, giving it something similar to a melee attack as long as she still has armor. I could find much utility for her in the talented Light Splinter deck. There are just a lot better units than her. So in the above ruleset, she may have found her niche.
In this battle where no melee units are allowed. I chose Quix as a summoner and the Light Splinter for units. I'm guessing my opponent will pick magic units and I plan to counter it with the Pelacor Conjurer as a tank. I put the Nimbledook Explorer in second position to do damage once position one gets vacated. In the third position I picked Time Mage. She slows down the opponent while decreasing their armor. In the fourth position I placed my deadliest damage dealer, the Pelacor Arbalest which can do 4 ranged damage per turn. In the fifth I used Venari Crystalsmith who can heal my tank and deal damage at the same time.
My opponent's team is great. He has one of the beefiest tank in the game: Baakjira. It's has 13 health, has Heal and Void which makes it a tough tank. It also buffs his teammates with Strengthen while slowing down the enemy. It's only disadvantage is that it has no attack. This is solved by his Moxian Rebel who has the Weapons Training ability giving Baakjira a magic attack. He has Swamp Spitter in the fourth position to Repair his tank's armor and also deal 3 ranged damage.
My opponent's team hinges on the sustainabilty of his tank. His team does little damage so once his tank is gone the battle will be over. The Pelacor Conjurer did well reflecting magic damage from the opponent while my damage dealers trimmed down Baakjira's health. My Nimbledook explorer shined when she decreased the enemy tank's health by four and once Baakjira was gone, it was a won battle for me.
Battle 2: When to Use Magic Units in Magic Reflect Ruleset
In this battle, the ruleset is Magic Reflect and the available Splinters are Earth and Light. I guessed that my opponent will avoid the Earth Splinter same as me so we will both focus on ranged units.
Since this is somewhat a low mana battle, I cannot use my favorite Light Splinter tanks so I picked Pelacor Conjurer again in the first position. In third, I have the Venari Crystalsmith to heal my tank and in the fourth I have the Pelacor Arbalest which can deal 6 ranged damage in one turn with General Sloan as summoner. In the last position I have Iziar, he deals magic damage but I don't have to worry about Reflect since he has the Void ability meaning he is immune from 1 magic damage. Another great thing about Iziar is he is a great tank since he has 12 health and Void ability. He has the Taunt ability to draw attacks from the enemy. It will divide the enemy attack between him and the Pelacor Conjurer.
My opponent as expected also picked the Light Splinter. However he has some units I don't have like Eleanor Bravefoot, a zero mana card that can deal damage from afar. This is an excellent card since 0 mana cards before only deal melee damage from first position. He also has the Henchling Enforcer, a promo card that halves the attack of whoever it hits. In the last position, he has Gallicus, a legendary reward card.
Why Gallicus is the Worst Legendary Card
Even though he's a legendary card, I'm not that impressed with Gallicus and here's why. He deals only 2 ranged damage and has only 1 speed at max levels. He has no armor and his stats stay the same as he levels up. Sure, he gets additional abilities but this does not make up for his shortcomings. First, he has the Taunt ability which in my opinion is a bad ability for him to have. For a unit with only have one health, no armor and no Void ability, it's guaranteed that he will be gone in two or three hits. Taunt ability is great for beefy units but for a unit with 5 health, no armor and no magic protection, it's a liability.
This battle is rather quick because of high damage output and low health of units involved. My opponent's total damage output per turn was 25 if you add all his attack but the health of his units are only 5 and below. In contrast, my units health are higher. My tank has 7 health and I have Iziar with 12 health with Taunt ability. This gave my damage dealers enough time to reduce his units. True enough, his Gallicus was eliminated with two hits. His tank is not beefy either with only four health and 3 armor. My opponent's units were quickly eliminated by my ranged attackers.
Final Thoughts
Rulesets make Splinterlands unique among other trading card games. Not only do players battle against their opponent, they have to strategize how to take advantage of the ruleset as well. Some rulesets may limit you but if you can find how to turn of certain limiting rulesets to your advantage then the battle can be won before it even begins.
Credits
Cover image from Splinterlands socials.
Other images are from the Splinterlands game.