This week's Share Your Battle challenge features Djinn Inferni, which is an excellent magic attacker for the fire splinter. Unfortunately I am still on vacation this week (I'll be back next week!) and picked out a battle to share in advance, so I won't be showing off the Djinn today. Instead, I will be showcasing a ranged lineup featuring a pair of neutral monsters in Gargoya Devil and Xenith archer, along with some good old fashioned Fire monsters!
If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!
Here is the ruleset for our battle. This is a fairly normal medium mana cap ruleset - most of the splinters are allowed, with a 42 mana cap. The Rise of the Commons ruleset is notable, as it will limit the monsters we have available to bring into battle.
With plenty of mana to play with and no rulesets which will have a huge impact on the battle, Yodin Zaku is a great summoner choice. Yes, he is borderline overpowered. Yes, I am very much looking forward to him rotating out of Modern whenever Rebellion comes out. Yes, I'm going to use him anyway in the meantime! Yodin is particularly helpful with Rise of the Commons, as many of the common and rare monsters have less abilities to play with - that makes the blast and bonus stats from Yodin that much more useful!
For my primary tank I went with a monster that I don't usually use very often - Charlok Minotaur. Charlok Minotaur is fairly tanky with 9 health, and hits extra hard with a whooping 4 melee attack. His speed is on the low side at just 2, but with True Strike he is guaranteed to hit. Molten Ash Golem is a solid secondary tank on a Yodin team. With 10 health and Close Range to be able to attack even out of the front spot, Molten Ash Golem is great in that slot 2 position.
After picking out my tanks, my goal was to fit as much ranged damage into the back of my lineup as I could. One of our co-guest stars of the week, Gargoya Devil was my selection for the 3rd position. Gargoya Devil hits hard, has a bit of evasion with Flying, and can even attack from the front in a pinch thanks to Close Range. Ash Mirage was my next choice. With sky-high speed and 2 ranged damage, Ash Mirage is a solid attacker. And that Headwinds ability will be a huge help if my opponent decides to use ranged attackers.
Blood Maker is another great cost-effective ranged attacker. Scattershot is sometimes a bad ability because it makes attacks unpredictable. However, when combined with Yodin, Scattershot gives you the chance to hit the middle of the enemy lineup which would maximize Blast damage and even maybe knock out some of the weaker monsters early on in the fight. Our other co-guest star of the week, Xenith Archer, anchored my team. Xenith Archer is a bargain at just 2 mana for a ranged attacker. Every bit of damage helps!
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am cautiously optimistic - my opponent has positioned a Taunt monster at the back end of their lineup. This means that my ranged attackers may have an opportunity to kill some of the weaker monsters at the back with Blast damage. On the other hand, a lineup of boosted magic attackers can quickly tear through my front line...we'll have to see how it turns out.
In the first round of battle my ranged attackers are able to deal heavy damage to my opponent's back line. In a single turn my team is able to take out the Regal Peryton and do some serious work on the enemy Goblin Psychic and Mycelic Slipspawn. Things are looking pretty good!
One more round and the battle was nearly over - my monsters are able to take out the bulk of my opponent's team and leave just a single monster standing. The enemy Centauri Mage made a valiant effort with Return Fire, but wasn't able to hold up to the focused fire from my lineup of ranged attackers boosted by Yodin. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
My strategy for this battle worked out just fine - my team of ranged attackers were able to take out my opponent's lineup with a combination of direct attacks and Blast damage in a relatively quick fight. As I mentioned at the start, neutral monsters can be used in a wide variety of teams. Gargoya Devil and Xenith Archer both fit into this one just fine, and made valuable contributions to my team's damage output over the course of this battle. Both of them see regular play in my ranked battles, and have certainly earned their spot in the rotation!
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:
Splinterlands Economics: Exchange Rates - An overview of the concept of exchange rates, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
Share Your Battle Challenge - Using Dragons in Battle! - Last week's battle challenge, featuring the Dragon splinter!
Splinterlands Economics: Government - An overview of the role of government in economics, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
Thinking about giving Splinterlands a try but haven't signed up yet? Feel free to use my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=bteim, and be sure to reach out to me if you have any questions!
All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.