Hello there.
In our guild, our members sometimes share replays of their battles that are interesting, funny, cool, or all of it together. I usually watch these and give comments about what I think about the battle. I don't know about the average player, but I like watching the SPL battles. I don't skip them, unless I know I will lose, or if it's sure to be a fatigue win/loss. I even watch tournament battles that happened a few hours ago.
This habit of mine ends up consuming a lot of time, so I spend more time on SPL as I would like. But I don't really mind it. Watching SPL battles is calming, and I can critique on my team compositions and improve it.
I usually play in Bronze or Silver league. I switched to Modern Bronze in ranked, while I still take the Silver Frays in our Guild Brawls. As for tournaments, I try to join all tournaments I can that are 'freerolls'. A lot of the SPL tournaments have SPS rewards that can give back the entry fee if not a lot of players join. I even join Gold and Diamond tournaments if I can. I don't usually win there, but there are some occasions where I get more SPS in return when I do well.
Apart from the rewards, I also join these tournaments to see how I fare. Since I don't expect to win, this is the time where I try out unorthodox teams and strategies that I usually wouldn't use elsewhere. I also get new strategies from my opponents. In the battles that I do win, I take note of these teams, and I use them more frequently in my other battles.
This leads me to my post today. I looked at my tournaments history and searched for interesting battles where I was able to win a difficult battle. I want to showcase some of my battles where the underdog wins. This isn't to promote not leveling up cards, in fact my experience shows leveled up cards is a big contributor to winning. The player with the higher level cards usually win. But in these battles I also want to show that strategy is also important, and can sometimes come out on top. I find it exhilarating when it does, and I want to share it with you.
This also goes hand in hand with my theme of trying to cater my posts to weaker/newer players. While some of my cards are not starter/reward cards, a lot of them are easy and cheap to rent.
Without further ado, let's get into the battle.
The Ruleset
This was a tournament battle, so it was a Gold battle with Weak Magic, Holy Protection, and Close Range Rulesets. A 35 mana battle is on the normal amount for Gold battles. Only Fire and Life elements are available, and I can think of a lot of different strategies for each summoner so I will try to counter as much as I can.
For Fire, Jacek is a possible summoner, and a lot of Range monsters are possible. They will have high speed, they can use Close Range to their advantage, the Pierce can deal with the armor, and they can use their Blast monsters, and spread the damage and remove the Divine Shield. For Life, Ilthain is a good summoner to use. Life and Fire have a lot of strong Range monsters, and it can counter a lot of that damage. The Speed increase is also good. The Venari Crystalsmith healing can be a good sustain, and Adelade can repair the armor, which is even more effective with Weak Magic.
The Lineup
For me, against the lineups I mentioned above, I needed to go with a Marisol team if I have any hope of winning. There's going to be a lot of physical damage, and armor can block magic attacks. A lot of attacks can come down to speed difference, and Marisol's stats fit perfectly there. I then opted with a tanky front monster with good HP and speed [after enrage], and added a lot of backline support. I have martyr to increase Marisol's stats even further, a Tank Heal, and a Repair to keep Marisol alive longer, and hopefully get more bloodlust stacks.
The Battle
The Matchup
As soon as the summoner banner showed, I remembered how my heart dropped, and lost any hope of winning. Lux Vega is a really strong summoner, and a level 3 one means they can use a lot of strong monsters. Luckily, when I saw their team, they were not using a max Gold team. A lot of their monsters are Silver level, so there is still a chance of winning, but only just a little. They went with a Range team, with a very fast Exploding Rats front, and a taunt monster in the second position. The good thing is that I wasted their Headwinds, while delaying the killing of their martyr monster.
End of Round 1
We're off to a horrible start. Of my 4 monsters that are able to attack, only the Marksrat was able to hit its target. The good thing is that my Tank Heal and Repair are doing work, and keeping me in the game. The Chaos Agent taking the Sinash attack and buying more time is currently very important.
End of Round 2
We finally hit some of our attacks, but their team is still very healthy, and my Front and Back monster might die next round. Hopefully Marisol can get the kill and start increasing its speed, so I can hit more of my attacks.
End of Round 3
Initially I thought it was good that the Drybone Barbarian took Sinash's attack. Next round she should target my Chaos Agent. But when Marisol killed the Exploding Rats, and got the bloodlust stack, it also triggered the Redemption ability. I don't usually face the Exploding Rats with Redemption, so that is a big bummer for my plans. Not only did it kill the Chaos Agent, it also removed all the Divine Shield on my monsters. It is a really good strategy during the Holy Protection ruleset.
End of Round 4
This is where Marisol having high stats comes into play. While the Tank Heal and Repair are doing a lot of the carrying right now, We need Marisol to tank more hits, and deal more damage. I still have a little more time before Marisol starts attacking my front monster.
End of Round 5
My Scavo Hireling died, but I breathed a sigh of relief when my Venari Crystalsmith missed its attack. Normally you want to hit all the attacks possible, but if it was able to hit its attack and Marisol lost a Bloodlust stack, that would be really bad.
End of Round 6
I feel like my opponent's double redemption really countered my strategy. The second redemption removed my backline's remaining armor, as well as the armor from Bloodlust from killing it. The good thing is that Marisol is really getting a lot of speed, and is almost the fastest monster on the field.
End of Round 7
At this point I was starting to feel confident, but I remembered that we also have a Close Range ruleset. They can still attack, and I have a lot of HP, Armor, and Divine Shield to go through. The Martyr giving my Venari Crystalsmith the Armor really helps a lot in keeping it alive for a few more turns.
End of Round 8
Looking at the board again, I think I should now win easily. My Marisol will get another stack, and my Venari can still heal it for one more turn. I don't think they have enough damage to kill my Marisol now. I will be skipping some of the rounds since I expect them to miss a few attacks, and it will be a while before Marisol can go through their Divine Shield, Armor, and HP.
End of the Battle
I will have to say that I was surprised when I won that battle. Looking at it from the start it seems like I shouldn't have enough time to get my Marisol going. Their Redemptions also took out a lot of my Divine Shield and Armor. I took a look at Splintertools, and the battle prediction was swinging a lot. It was as close as 49:51 favoring them, to as high as 30:70 win chance. I think the deciding factor was how I focused my attacks, while Sinash was attack my backline and split their damage.
The Result
Conclusion
In tournaments where there are additional limitations on top of the Rulesets and banned elements, I try to make it a point to look at the possible teams and imagine them fighting against one another. I will then choose a team which I think can win against them. For this specific battle, my opponent used a team composition that I was slightly ready for. I think my they had the better team, and I was very lucky to win. This Marisol team is one of my go to teams. I have won a good amount of battles with it, and performances like these in higher tournaments really feel rewarding.