This week's Share Your Battle challenge features Antoid Platoon! When I saw that Antoid Platoon was the card for this week's battle challenge I was pretty excited about it, because Antoid Platoon is a card that I use frequently, and I was very happy to get the opportunity to showcase it in a battle. As you will see here, Antoid Platoon is awafully useful, and mine sees play even when I don't use a Fire summoner!
Antoid Platoon is a melee monster from the Fire splinter. It is a relative bargain - its 1 attack and speed are nothing to write home about, but at level 1 (though do note that I am using a level 3 version today) for just 4 mana you also get 2 armor, 3 health, and VERY importantly, the Shield ability. As it is in the Chaos Legion set, it is a natural pairing with Tarsa and works very well as a low mana cost frontline tank or a buffer in Blast rulesets. In our battle for today though, I will be showing off an alternative summoner pairing that can work just as well in the proper ruleset.
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!
First up: the ruleset. This is actually a ruleset where it is a little unusual to use Antoid Platoon because one of Antoid Platoon's main strengths is being a very good tank for a low mana cost, and what we have here is a sky-high mana cap of 60. However, my opponent's battle history made me think that this would be a good battle to use it. Aim True means that attacks are generally going to hit, so monsters with Shield are extra useful. Rise of the Commons was also very helpful, because I noticed that my opponent would be highly likely to be playing Death. Death does have some magic monsters, but many of them are at the Epic or Legendary rarity, which meant that I was expecting most of my opponent's damage output to be melee or ranged - another point in favor of Shield monsters.
My focus for the day was Dragon, so I was looking to play a Dragon summoner whenever I could. Since I was expecting my opponent to bring some ranged attackers, Quix was a clear choice - it would make all of the opposing ranged monsters hit a little less hard and that -1 speed debuff is always welcome in any battle without the reverse speed ruleset.
I lead off with a pair of tanks - Living Lava is a great tank with tons of durability and a strong attack to boot. It also happens to have Shield, which I was hoping would synergize well with Quix and the other debuffers in my lineup. With Shield, melee and ranged damage of 1 will get reduced to zero, and if I can achieve that then Living Lava can sit at the front all day. Radiated Brute was my off-tank, and would be able to attack from the second position thanks to its Reach.
The middle of my lineup held the main portion of my strategy - double melee debuffs. Molten Ogre and Disintegrator both decrease the enemy's melee attacks, and with two of them they will stack, so that is minus two! Neither of these guys are able to attack from the middle, but my hope was that between all of the debuffs and my monsters with Shield, they wouldn't have to.
I finished off my lineup with another attacker and a sturdy defender. Sand Worm hits extra hard with a whooping 5 melee attack, and thanks to Sneak will be going for the back of my opponent's lineup. And last, but not least, is our guest star of the week - Antoid Platoon! My plan was for Antoid Platoon with its Shield to protect the back, Living Lava (also with Shield) to hold the front, and the rest of my lineup to slowly grind down my opponent's monsters.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I feel pretty good about my chances - my opponent has elected to only bring melee and ranged damage, which plays perfectly into my plans. Even better, they didn't bring any Opportunity damage to hit the middle of my lineup. They did pick a Snipe monster, but my entire team is melee so that doesn't affect my plans at all.
Once the battle begins all of my debuffs kick in and it is quite a sight to see - out of my opponent's entire lineup, only their Sand Worm deals more than a single point of damage. This means that Shield will reduce the bulk of the damage output to zero, while my own Sand Worm, Living Lava, and Radiated Brute are free to go to work.
It isn't a particularly fast battle since only three of my monsters are actually able to hit the enemy lineup, but I am able to make decent progress - by the start of the third round, I have managed to take down half of my opponent's monsters without losing any of my own. The enemy Sand Worm has dealt heavy damage to my Antoid Platoon, but it is still hanging in there!
One more round and the battle is all but over - all that my opponent has left is their Sand Worm, and it is still double debuffed and facing off against my full health Living Lava, not to mention all the rest of my monsters. That's right, I didn't lose a single one. 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 perfectly - it may have been a little cheesy, but I was able to debuff my opponent's lineup low enough that it wasn't able to get through my Shields and win the day. Antoid Platoon did an amazing job in this battle as my back line tank. Its Shield, combined with the debuffs from my other monsters, allowed it to hold off all of my opponent's attacks while the rest of my team slowly picked off the enemy monsters. I am a huge fan of Antoid Platoon, and as you can tell from this battle it has additional utility beyond just participating in low mana cost battles - it has been a staple of my Fire splinter play ever since Chaos Legion came out, and will continue on that way in the future!
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: Rent - An overview of the concept of economic rent, and how we can use it in Splinterlands.
Value at Its Zenith - Using Xenith Archer in Battle! - Last week's battle challenge, featuring Xenith Archer!
Splinterlands Economics: Signaling - An overview of the concept of signaling, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands.
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Any photos used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails and card images borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.