Hi everyone welcome back to my weekly Splinterlands Post. As usual on Sunday I make a routine Splinterlands post as my participation in Splinterlands Social Media Challenge in Hive Blockchain.

Today topic, I will share you about how I build my deck not based on the ruleset, but more like anticipating my opponent's META. I am sharing one of the battle from a recent tournament which is Gladiator Open Tournament Gold. You need to do KYC to be eligible for this one. ok back to the battle...

What team will you make if you have these rulesets? Ok let's play a guessing game here, I can think some of easy meta which can exploit these rulesets:

Make a team consisted of Giant Hitters such as Desert Dragon and Diemonshark, all of them will do the melee from behind. This would be less likely to happen due to 34 Mana.
Make a team full of hard hitters, buff them using one or two inspire ability. This one make sense.
Make a team of Mylor. Wait their melee monsters to die first due to thorn.

There are other meta too we can generate, both the less likely to happen are:

Make a anti magic team... Mostlikely opponents use magic. I might, because it will be unpredictable.
Melee Mayhem = defense using big tanks and tank heal. Rather than focusing on increasing damage, using affliction might hurt more.
Most people would think about high health, big Melee damage, healing and buff during this kind of rulesets... Speed? mostly forgotten

Let's see how this battle in detailed below:

~CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE FOR SEEING THE FULL BATTLE REPLAY~

Yap I won, no way I am sharing a battle which I lose 🤣🤣 . I played with a team of full magician, fast pacey mages. Ofcouse my opponent lost not because my team better, but its more like they did not expect to meet this kind of team in these rulesets. Ok let see how the line up was set

Position	Ability	Plan and Strategy
Summoner	+1 Magic Damage, +1 Speed, +1 Health	I picked him because he was the strongest magic oriented summoner. It's a debate whether to go with Valnamor or Alric, regarding the mana cap was not big anyway
Main Tank	Void, Phase, Forcefield	He was the best anti mage tank, however he was picked not an anti mage tank. I needed his forcefield, my opponent might came with ridiculous melee damage, he would be the best to hold off all those attack
Second	Affliction, Oppress	This was the key monster in this battle. He had good health, perfect for second position. Second he had good magic damage, perfect for damage dealer. And last, his affliction ability, I needed that to shut down opponent tank heal ability.
Third	Protect, Dispel	I needed her protect ability, 2 armor might be a life saver here
Fourth	Blast, Swiftness, Silence	I would love to say he was the best mage in Water Element. Fast, High damage with blast, Swiftness ability to push up everyone speed and a silence ability. All in one package.
Fifth	tank heal, repair	She was the sole support in this team, I hoped she could keep everyone live longer.
Last	none	A bait and a meat wall, nothing more.

ROUND 1

The battle started with both party buffed up their team and debuffed opponent's team.. so many buffs and debuff we could see there
My opponent came with 18 Melee damage, 1 range damage, and 2 magic damage. combined all they became 20 damage per round.
My team had a total 14 magic damage. A simple whole mage squad.
Luckily my Venari Wavesmith managed to kill their Spinback Turtle before any of them made their moves. However River Hellondale resurrected the turtle.
Their Isgard Vorst killed my Torrent Fiend.. It's became 5 vs 6 now.
Before the round ended, Captain Ghost made his move killing the Turtle again. Now its back to 5 vs 5

ROUND 2

It's 5 vs 5 however I was very worry seeing that Isgard Vorst. I realized that I misplaced my Venari Wavesmith.

Now Isgard Vorst really became a Disaster

ROUND 3

Round 3 started with 2 vs 5 condition, my side looked very petty...

ROUND 4

Now its 2 vs 4. My team depended alot on Oshannus, his Forcefield and Void were our lifeline.

ROUND 5 AND SO ON

Ok that's the end. My team needed 10 turns to win this battle. I never guesed this turned out to be a long battle, but I guesed it right about Djinn Oshannus and Captain Ghost. Both would carry the team to victory. Good Game.

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CLOSURE AND DISCUSSION

KEY WINNING POINTS

There were none special about my team, except I brought Valnamor, one of the strongest Summoner in Water Element. So why did my team win anyway?

Both of Us made a Grave Mistake

Ok let's start from me. I should not put Venari Wavesmith in the middle, should have put her behind. They had Possibillus, which made their team all had trample ability, so any of them could ran a Stampede. The existence of Possibillus was not on my estimation.

Their grave mistake was using River Hellondale. They did not expect I would be using a forcefield ability, because Oshannus was a Magician. Who would use a mage if you have a Melee Mayhem Ruleset and Stampede Ruleset?

My Team Was Focused, His Team Was Not.

If they used Isgard Vorst, they should bring Deeplurker or Seaweed too, making it a whole Opportunist Stampeding team. Instead of it, he chose to bring Hellondale to increase their Melee using 2 Inspire Abilities, which backfired to them due to Oshannus forcefield ability

His Team Completely Countered

Ok let's sum them all

Melee Mayhem = put massive melee -> Consumed by Oshannus Forcefield
Bring high health tanks + Healer -> Canceled by Affliction from Captain Ghost
Use Protect from Crustacean King -> Armor could not protect magic damage
Speed wise, they los

Overall it's fun if we managed to anticipate our opponent meta, using a team that did not have to be great, but good enough to counter them. Ok that's all for today post. Have fun with your battles!!