This week's Battle Mage Secrets challenge features the Lost Legendaries ruleset! Llama Kron battles getting you down? Tired of losing to those other stupidly expensive cards and want to give the cheaper ones their opportunity to shine? This just might be the ruleset for you!
As you may be able to tell from the name, battles with Lost Legendaries don't allow you to bring any legendary monsters into battle. Commons, Rares, and Epics only! Do note that legendary summoners are still allowed - that actually is a bit relevant to today's battle. There aren't really whole categories of cards that are winners or losers in Lost Legendaries battles, aside from the legendary monsters which are unable to be used. Instead, you tend to see a battle with a slightly lower power level, with fewer of the big splashy monsters since those are often legendary cards.
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. Of course, we have the Lost Legendaries rule - no legendaries allowed! We also have Taking Sides, which makes all neutral monsters ineligible for this battle. To go along with the rules, we have a somewhat high mana cap of 43, and 3 splinters (including dragon) to choose from.
In Lost Legendaries battles, monsters tend to be a little on the simpler side because many of the splashier cards are legendary. This means that summoner abilities are particularly important in Lost Legendaries, because that is one place where you can gain access to some of the more powerful abilities. Notably, Lost Legendaries eliminates legendary monsters, but does allow you to select legendary SUMMONERS. My summoner of choice for this battle was Yodin Zaku. Yodin is an incredibly powerful summoner, packing ranged damage and health buffs, along with the Blast ability.
I started my team with my tank and secondary tank. I wanted to use monsters with as much bulk as possible, so I went with Forgotten One and Molten Ash Golem. Forgotten One is an excellent tank with 5 armor and 9 health. On top of that, Forgotten One hits hard with its (at level 2) 4 melee damage and 2 speed. Molten Ash Golem doesn't hit quite as hard, but 10 health is plenty, and its Close Range ability allows it to attack even from the front position.
With a couple of tanks at the front, it was time to add some damage. My next selections were Lava Launcher and Blood Maker. Both of these are solid ranged attackers who can take advantage of Yodin's summoner buffs. Lava Launcher also has a whole lot of armor, and Close Range in case it gets stuck in the front. And Blood Maker's Scattershot ability gives it the potential to get double Blast damage off, if it manages to hit the middle of the enemy lineup.
I finished off my team with Ash Mirage. Ash Mirage is a fair ranged attacker, and very importantly has the Headwinds ability. This debuffs enemy ranged attacks, and gives my team an advantage in the case of a ranged attacker mirror match.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am not sure what to think. On one hand, my opponent has selected a team which is heavy on ranged attackers, which means that my Ash Mirage will be very helpful in the fight. On the other hand, the enemy lineup has some very formidable monsters, including Corsair Bosun with its Reflection Shield ability that will negate some of Yodin's Blast damage.
The battle begins, and in the first couple of rounds things are not looking so good for my team. My Forgotten One goes down, and my Molten Ash Golem takes heavy damage. On the bright side, the enemy Corsair Bosun gets pushed to the front position, where its Reflection Shield ability becomes minimized since it will be attacked directly.
Over the next two rounds both teams exchange heavy blows. At this point we are down to just a handful of monsters left on the field, and my team seems to have just barely put itself in a winning position - Ash Mirage is poised to get off the first attack of the next round, killing off my opponent's 2 monsters at the front, and trapping their last ranged attacker in the first position where it will be unable to attack.
It actually ended up taking quite a few more rounds to finish off the enemy monsters. But with absolutely no damage output on the other side of the battlefield, it was just a matter of time until my team took the victory. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
This battle ended up being an incredibly close one - my Blood Maker had just a single point of health remaining at the end. If it had fallen, then my Ash Mirage would have been unable to attack at all, and I most likely would have lost the game. Instead, my team was just barely able to finish off the enemy monsters thanks to the combination of Yodin's abilities and Ash Mirage's ranged attack debuffs. And that is one of the fun things about Lost Legendaries battles - with slightly less powerful monsters in play, you may often see closer, more exciting games!
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:
State of the Game - Battling with Super Sneak! - A Splinterlands battle analysis, featuring Super Sneak!
Splinterlands Economics: Causation - A look at causation, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
Splinterlands Economics: Ceteris Paribus - An introduction to the concept of Ceteris Paribus, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
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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.