Introduction

Hey all, this is my fourth post in the Splinterlands community and I hope you guys would read my posts and give feedback. I am a new Splinterlands player and have been playing for around 2.5 months right now. As of now, I am in gold league 3 and the highest I have been to is diamond 3. All my cards are level 2 or below with a couple of level 3 commons. I hope you will enjoy this post and battle on!

Topic

So today, I will be focusing on the Equalizer ruleset. This is a new ruleset in which both player's card health are based on the maximum health of either player's cards. This is where most people are confused. IF YOUR OPPONENT HAS HIGHER HEALTH CARDS, YOUR CARDS WILL HAVE THE SAME HEALTH AS THEIR HIGHEST HEALTH CARD. It works the other way around too. This is why you need to think about whether you want to put all squishy cards and pray for your opponent to have tanky cards.

Battle Strategy

To illustrate my point, I will be explaining my choices of cards for a very recent battle of mine involving the equalizer ruleset:

These were the ruleset for my battle. 22 mana isn't very high but it is better than very low mana battles. This allows me to put in 1 or 2 heavy cards and a couple of glass cannons. I also have to take into consideration the reverse speed ruleset. Slower monsters have higher chance of dodge AND they get to go first! (I was playing bobcatg, a delegated account from @Byzantinist! Very cool guy and an avid Splinterlands player.)
Here was the battleground:

I have to admit, his cards looked imitating and his average card level was higher than mine but there were some major flaws in his line-up:
1st: He spent way too much mana on the goblin mech when he should've spread his mana out. This caused his other cards to be weaker than it should have been.
2nd: His summoner did not give any buffs to his units. When you are choosing your summoner, make sure it buffs as many of your monsters as possible! That can win a battle!
3rd: His placement wasn't the best. I'd admit, it could be a lot worse but he should put his crustacean king near the back since it can heal as many monsters as possible. Putting it second reduces it to a temporary meatshield instead of letting it heal the other monsters that are better suited to be tanks, like furious

Now let's see the battle outcome:

Immediately during round two, just like I predicted, his crustacean king had no other job except to be a meathshield. Better placement would've gave him a better chance at winning.

Quick round 7 finish with none of my monsters dead. Lord A was suppose to be a secondary tank but it turned out I didn't need him :P

Summary

Levels and rarity don't matter if you have a bad strategy and bad setup! This is what I love about Splinterlands! Though some may call it pay to win, there are many strategical aspects to it. With the proper strategy, you can bring down a higher ranking opponent!