Against a very defensive lineup
Rulesets: Spreading Fury + Rise of the Commons
Mana Cap: 32
League: Gold III
The following might not be the most exciting battle, but it was full of insights.
It wasn't the first time I encountered that kind of extreme defensive lineup; two monsters without any attack in the front combined with a solid support cast backing them up.
The Baby Unicorn buffed up the HP of the whole team with its Strengthen. Venari Crystalsmith and Divine Healer were there to provide the Double Heal.
The Warrior Of Peace's role was to decrease my Melee monsters' attacks by 1 thanks to its Demoralize ability, while Gelatinous Cube's goal was to Scavenge as much HP as it could before reaching the front.
Just in case, a third tank, the Silvershield Paladin was there to absorb attacks with its Shield if the first two monsters somehow got defeated.
With all those buffs (and debuffs), the Warrior Of Peace had 14 HP and 8 Speed once Enraged, the Gelatinous Cube had 13 HP to start with, and the Silvershield Paladin had 9 HP to be combined with Shield.
My opponent's hope was that I would fully direct my firepower to its frontline, which would have hardly been enough to take down the three tanks one at a time before Round 21, where the Fatigue would have kicked in.
This strategy was purely based on slowly wearing my team down as their attacks were extremely low.
Fortunately, this time around I had for some reason decided to diversity my attacks. The Stitch Leech's Sneak Attack and the Portal Spinner's Scattershot turned out to be the key to this tricky battle.
Portal Spinner, The X Factor
Portal Spinner is often the X Factor in those kinds of games. The randomness of its attacks can be tremendously advantageous or rightly awful. Against very well set strategies, however, its touch of folly can sometimes turn a match in our favor.
Round 8, The Turning Point
When my Shieldbearer was dragged to one single HP at Round 8, Portal Spinner successfully targeted Divine Healer, which was the only (Magic) monster that could attack under the Shieldbearer's armor.
Just after this clutch shot, Stitch Leech took over CrystalSmith at the end of the same round. Without healing anymore, it was just a matter of time before I close the match. This Round 8 ended up to be the turning point.
Links to the Battle
On Mobile:
https://m.splinterlands.io/#/battle/game/process/sl_c37cb00c3d9a371ec89c1ec57d42fbce
On Desktop:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_c37cb00c3d9a371ec89c1ec57d42fbce&ref=tt88
Splintertools (around a 70% rate win):
I hope you’ve enjoyed this battle.
See you in the next one!
Thomas
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Thank you.