This week's Share Your Battle challenge features Scavo Firebolt! Scavo Firebolt is from a splinter that I love to use, Fire, though happens to be a card that I don't use particularly often, due to the Fire splinter's emphasis on melee - at least with our Chaos Legion summoner, Tarsa. However, as I will be showing today, Scavo Firebolt can slot right in to a melee lineup anyway!
Scavo Firebolt is fairly cost efficient for a ranged attacker. At level 1, for just 4 mana you get a solid 2 ranged damage and 2 speed, paired with a relatively beefy (for a ranged monster) 4 health. While Scavo Firebolt fits in perfectly with Yodin for a ranged attacking strategy, it also works well as a serviceable attacker to put additional pressure on the front line 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 an ideal ruleset because Fire has some great lineups around a medium mana cap, and 30 mana is a perfect spot for it. The Unprotected ruleset ensures that our monsters will be able to directly hit the enemy's health without having to worry about armor - this is great for my gameplan because I am planning on using some indirect damage to try and hit some of the weaker opposing monsters.
As I mentioned at the start, I'll be going with a team heavy on melee attackers for this battle. Tarsa is great because her dual buffs increase the amount of damage my monsters are putting out, and also make them a little more durable. One extra health point may not seem like a lot, but in battle it can make a big difference!
For my front line I brought the duo of Living Lava and Radiated Brute. Living Lava will lose its armor because of the ruleset but will be extra durable thanks to Shield. On top of that, the longer it lives the more it can dish out a heavy 3 (and with Tarsa it becomes 4) damage per turn. Radiated Brute has a fair amount of bulk, and will be able to Reach over Living Lava to attack the front monster. It doesn't hit quite as hard, but also gets the Tarsa buff. My plan was for this duo to be able to survive for a decent amount of time while putting heavy pressure on my opponent's front line.
I packed some indirect damage into the middle of my lineup. Serpentine Spy's Opportunity allows it to attack whichever opposing monster is the weakest, and Tenyii Striker can chip away at my opponent's back monster. My hope was that they would be able to knock out something important on the other side. On top of that, these were both melee monsters and would get both buffs from Tarsa.
I rounded my team out with some more damage. Our guest star of the week, Scavo Firebolt, provided a cost effective 2 damage, and would be able to help Living Lava and Radiated Brute attack whichever monster happened to be at the front. Goblin Fireballer was mostly filler, and was there to shield the rest of my lineup from attacks to the back. If my opponent didn't bring any Sneak-y damage it could also contribute some ranged damage.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am hopeful - my opponent has also brought a melee lineup, and it looks as though mine will have a slight advantage. Our lines actually look very similar, but my Serpentine Spy will have the speed advantage, and my Scavo Firebolt ranged damage is much less fragile than their Fire Elemental. With that said, my opponent did bring slightly more of a buffer at the front than I did, so we'll have to see how the battle plays out.
The first round of battle goes just as expected - my Serpentine Spy is able to strike first and knock out the opposing Serpentine Spy. I am also able to take out the the enemy Radiated Scorcher, but it is able to buy some valuable time for my opponent's front line, and my frontline situation is beginning to look a little questionable as my Living Lava is at a significant health disadvantage. I also lose my Goblin Fireballer, but I had already been expecting that to happen.
One more round and things are beginning to look better, but only marginally. My Serpentine Spy is able to go to work with Opportunity and the enemy Fire Elemental bites the dust. My Tenyii Striker with Sneak has also nearly finished off the opposing Tenyii Striker. Scavo Firebolt is looking good in the back and is pumping out a workmanlike 2 damage per turn. While my indirect and ranged damage is looking great, my front line is slowly losing the battle - my Living Lava is taken down and Radiated Brute is looking a little fragile. It's going to be a close one!
Another round and the board situation improved dramatically for me - by round 4 the battle was just about over. All that was left on my opponent's side was a weakened Radiated Brute, while I still had a full health Tenyii Sttriker flanked by Serpentine Spy and Scavo Firebolt. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
My strategy of applying heavy damage to the frontline tanks while picking off weak mid and back line monsters worked out, though it was most certainly not an easy battle. Luckily I was able to take out some important monsters on my opponent's side quickly, and my lineup was able to pull off the win.
Scavo Firebolt did a great job of standing strong at the back and pumping out ranged damage. 2 ranged damage for 4 mana is a bargain, and having such an affordable monster allows you to spend more mana on the rest of your lineup. While Scavo Firebolt is not a card that I have been using much recently, after giving it a try during this battle challenge I like it a lot more, and I think I could see it finding its way into more of my battles moving forward.
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: Network Effects - An look into network effects, and how we can can apply them to Splinterlands.
Supply-ze Attack - Using Supply Runner in Battle! - Last week's battle challenge, featuring Supply Runner!
Splinterlands Economics: Anchoring - An introduction to anchoring, and how we can 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.