Hello dear Splinterlands community! It is time once again for the Battle Mage Secrets Challenge and today the ruleset in focus is Ferocity.
RULESET: Ferocity
All units have the Fury ability.
All units with Fury do double damage to monsters with Taunt.
This ruleset is not terribly exciting. All you have to do is basically make sure that you don't field a Taunt monster in your team. On the other hand, it reminds you to pay attention to your rulesets and not forget what you are preparing for as you put your team together. I must confess, that this happens to me sometimes ;) and this also happened in this battle (silly me!, although my tank had Forcefield, which made up for the mistake a little).
As with most battles, you need to consider the rulesets in combination. When you play in higher leagues, you will mostly get battle with three rulesets. Sometimes they cancel each other out, other times they force you to consider several aspects for one battle. Ferocity is one of those rulesets that don't play a role, when you don't use certain monsters with certain abilities, like Taunt.
While looking for a battle to feature in this week's Challenge, I paid attention to two things: the other rulesets and the team my opponent played. It was just my luck, that the first battle I found in the battle log that had the Ferocity ruleset also had a team where my opponent made the mistake and fielded a Taunt monster. This comes to show, that the first rule when playing a Ferocity is to not forget NOT to use Taunt monsters ;)
The battle we are looking at today is a high mana water war with three rulesets: Ferocity, Earthquake and Poison. Battle with both Earthquake and Poison are quite challenging and because it is a high mana battle, there are lots of options for the team composition.
Rulesets: Ferocity, Earthquake and Poison
Mana cap: 55
Splinters: red, blue, green and purple
Here is the team I put together:
Possibilus, my favourite water summoner is leading the pack. I usually field Coastal Sentry in combination with him, to take advantage of the abilities Reach and Trample. My track record with this combo is quite good and with lots of mana to work with, this is the go.
Oshannus is a great tank to use upfront. He has high health, so he should be able to hold the fort for at least 2 rounds. With Forcefield he also has the added protection against big hitters.
Coastal Sentry is here to be paired with Possibilus, as mentioned. She does not have high health, so Poison is a bother, but the plan is to wipe out the enemy tank in the first round if possible and follow on with a a cleanup in the second round, or so the plan.
Baakjira is the classic anti-everything monster and ideal for the Earthquake/Poison double trouble. He also has Taunt but is far away from first position, there is no Target Practise ruleset and he is grand enough to withstand the odd Snipe attack.
Arkemis The Bear is here for his high health and Protect, two ingredients for a solid strategy against Earthquake and Poison.
Swamp Spitter is another one of those monsters with low health but important abilities. Repair will help against Earthquake but Poison will wipe him out in the third round, as he only has 5 health.
Supply Runner is here to do some range damage. He will also speed up the team with the Swiftness ability.
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:
Round 1 began quickly. Oshannus and Supply Runner went first, followed by a double blow by Coastal Sentry to reduce the enemy tank to 4 health. The enemy nibbled away at Oshannus, who was fortunate to have Forcefield to withstand the onslaught from that silly tree, Ancient Redwood.
Round 2 began with Earthquake and Poison all round. Oshannus was dangerously low on health. Supply Runner wiped out the enemy Taunt and Coastal Sentry wiped out Pelacor Mercenary. Oshannus then took his leave. At the end of the round Queen Mycelia toasted Coastal Sentry, leaving it an even 4 against 4.
Earthquake and Poison took two enemy monsters at the beginning of the round and our team was on the home straight to victory. Supply Runner and Swamp Spitter both did double damaged to the Taunted Runemancer florre.
There was no fourth round after Earthquake and Poison got to Ancient Redwood.
BAAKJIRA
Baakjira did well to weather the storm! The Ferocity ruleset didn't play a great role in the totality of the battle but helped to get rid of the enemy Taunt tank in the backline quickly. The general defence against Earthquake and Poison actually played a greater role for the outcome of the battle. Another factor was an ability that I normally pay very little attention to: Forcefield. It helped Oshannus to live a little longer and because he is the King of Splinterlands, it matters. 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.
