Hello fellow Splinterlands enthusiasts, it is time for another Battle Mage Secrets Challenge and today we a looking at one of the new rulesets, Fab Four!
RULESET: Fab Four
Up to four Units can be used.
The Fab Four ruleset is one of the new rulesets that were recently introduced to the game. The ruleset restricts you to pick only four monsters for battle. I have been experimenting with this new ruleset to develop an effective strategy. Because you have a limited number of monsters in the team, you also have a limited number of strikes per round. I have worked out, that simply putting your 4 most powerful monsters in the lineup does not cut it. Also, banking on monsters with extra probability hits, like Poison or Retaliate doesn’t work well either.
The best strategy that I have worked out for this ruleset so far, is to increase the number of strikes per round if possibly. So I look for Double Strike monsters first. Then I look for Trample. What classic combo immediately comes to mind? Yes, Possibilus paired with Coastal Sentry! Of course, this is not always possible, but I have a battle here featuring both these little darlings in a Fab Four ruleset. Check out the battle stats, followed by the lineup:
The battle we are looking at today is a water war from my alt account. The rulesets are Fab Four, Target Practice and Ferocity. The mana cap is 41 and all splinters are available except Dragon. The other two rulesets made it difficult to choose but I decided to go with the water team.
I went for the double strike/trample strategy and also chose to bring a no-attack monster to take care of Target Practice. This is the team I put together:
Possibilus the Wise is a great summoner to use for the Fab Four ruleset. He gives all monsters Trample and Reach. It means that every monster in the second position is able to attack and any monster getting a kill will automatically Trample and get another turn. This is the ideal situation when being able to use only a limited number of monsters. With a mana cap of 41, I have a large choice of big hitting monsters to put in the team.
Diemonshark is the ideal tank to use here. He is fast, hits hard and has lots of shield. He is not so strong against magic but otherwise he is a very solid fronliner. Hitting early will hopefully give him a chance to Trample in a later round while he holds the fort.
Coastal Sentry is the main actor in this battle with Double Strike. Coupled with Trample, the plan is to let her hit hard and often to wipe out most of the enemy monsters quickly. She does not have a lot of health but some shield and will be well protected in the second position.
Deep Lurker is a standard inclusion in a Possibilus team. With Opportunity he will attack the weakest enemy monster and give him a chance to trample when wiping out low health monsters. In this battle he will probably not do so in the first round, as there are likely to be high health monsters in the opposing team but hopefully get his chance to toast someone in the second round.
Baakjira is a bit of a gamble here. On the one hand I need attackers but on the other hand, I need to look out for Target Practice, meaning diverting enemy fire towards him while protecting the main attackers. As he has slow, it is an added advantage to use him in the backline. I also don't have to worry about a low health ranger or magic monster being targeted by the enemy.
So now that the team has been put together and the strategy is in place, let's take a look at how this battle plays out:
At the beginning of Round 1, two enemy monster fired first before Diemonshark took his hit. Then came Coastal Sentry with a solid double hit to reduce the enemy tank to 4 health. Deep Lurker fired at the enemy midfield but hit shield. Baajira then took 2 hits but nothing serious.
In Round 2, Baakjira took more damage, Diemonshark continued to soften up the enemy tank and Coastal Sentry got a kill with her first hit, followed by a trample but missed. After getting rid of the opposing tank, there was now an archer in the first enemy position and the outcome of the battle was already certain. Then it was Deep Lurker’s turn. He got a kill and followed up with a swift trample. Nothing else worth mentioning happened in the second round.
In the third and final round, Diemonshark took a good swing at the enemy and then came a triple by Coastal Sentry. She took out the frontline monster with two hits and continued to trample the last monster standing to end the battle victoriously! What a show! Baakjira played his role perfectly and the melee hitters inflicted maximum damage with a total of three tramples! In a Fab Four ruleset, this is what you want to see happen!
COASTAL SENTRY
What a great performance by Coastal Sentry! She inflicted 18 damage and did 2 tramples!
Seeya in the next post, splinterheads!
WHAT IS SPLINTERLANDS?
Splinterlands is an autobattle digital card game on the Hive blockchain. The playing cards are NFTs, therefore they belong to you and you can trade, transfer or delegate them as you please. All you need to move cards and other ingame assets around is a Hive Keychain login. There are three types of battles you can play: ranked battles, brawls and tournaments. Every battle you win brings rewards, including SPS and/or loot chests containing cards, potions, packs and merits. The ingame currency is DEC and the governance token is SPS. For gladiator packs you need to earn merits through brawls and loot chests. Tournaments can bring you stacks of SPS if you play well. There are several third party card markets, including Peakmonsters.com and the best places to learn to play are PeakD and YouTube.
