Hello dear Splinterlands community! Today we have another Battle Mage Secrets Challenge and I would like to contribute once again. This week, the ruleset in focus is Going The Distance.
Going the Distance
Only units with ranged attacks may be used.
Going The Distance allows you to only use range monsters. Both melee and magic monsters are not allowed, which poses one main problem: range monsters can normally not shoot from the first position, unless they have the Close Range ability, which not many monsters have. It is therefore crucial to use a deck, that has monsters with this ability. For me that always means the Fire Deck, when it is available.
There is also a Close Range monster in the Dragon Deck, which is useful and Quix the Devious as summoner will also take 1 range from the enemy. In the Neutral Deck, there is also Gargoya Devil with the Close Range ability. Another point is to use a monster with Headwinds, which will cause an additional 15% miss ration from enemy range attack.
The feature battle for this week's challenge keeps all these factors in mind and my priority, as most of you know, is also to always maximize my team's speed.
Here we have a high mana battle with the Fire and Dragon Decks available, which gives me the opportunity to show you how successful your team can be, when you follow the above guidelines for the Going The Distance ruleset.
Rulesets: Going the Distance, Holy Protection and Unprotected
Mana cap: 58
Splinters: red, white, purple and gold
Here is the team I put together:
I went for the Dragon Deck as Quix the Devious is not only the best summoner in the game, he is also my only Dragon summoner at max level. Looking through my battle logs, Quix features about 30-40% of the time and his success rate is great!
Molten Ash Golem is often in first position in my Fire teams. He is here today for his Close Range ability, among others, and his high health. In games with the Going the Distance ruleset, it is absolutely essential to place Close Range in at least the first two positions.
Here is a good Dragon monster with Close Range: Zyvax Vuul (Whoever gave him his name needs his head read)! He also has Recharge, which allows him to shoot with 9 range (!) every second turn, making him a super dangerous enemy.
Lava Launcher is one of the beefiest tanks in the game with high stats, the Close Range ability and Stun. Although he costs a lot of mana, he always brings results and is well affordable in high mana games.
Ash Mirage is here because he has Headwinds. He is also fast and will therefore strike early.
Supply Runner is here to do some range damage. He will also speed up the team with the Swiftness ability.
And finally comes Countess Sinash. With a shitload of abilities and 4 range attack, she is indispensible in high mana games and well protected by Camouflage.
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 with three enemy monsters shooting first, meaning that my speed considerations were not optimal. Molten Ash Golem took a pounding. There also was a Martyr in the enemy first position, who went first, giving the tank behind him a stats buff. By the way, the enemy team did not have a single monster with Close Range leaving me shaking my head. Yet my opponent fielded mostly maxed monsters and even the dumbest bot would not have picked a team like this for a Going The Distance ruleset. Maybe I missed something?
The rest of the round was uneventful and Molten Ash Golem survived at the frontline to see another round.
Molten Ash Golem took his leave at the beginning of Round 2, which was to be expected. The enemy tank then perished quickly, leaving only unprotected rangers on the enemy team and the battle was basically already won. Vuul devoured a dragon monster with one hit, leaving three silly looking sitting ducks for my little darlings to feast on.
Round 3 was boring. The game was already over.
yawn... So here we have it. When you have the Going the Distance ruleset, you are well advised to field some Close Range monsters, otherwise you will lose dismally and make a fool of yourself, like my opponent did in this battle. He obviously didn't wear his reading glasses to check the rulesets, I can think of no other explanation.
Other factors to take into consideration are speed, Headwinds and Backfire, which affect range enemy attacks. I did have a stroke of luck in the battle, when a high speed enemy monster with Backfire was toasted as soon it moved to the first position.
Zyvax Vuul
The Hero of The Day Award goes to Zyvax Vuul for his rare appearance. He is migrating to Alaska where he will change his name...
Take care, polarbears!
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.
