Welcome to my Splinterlands weekly battle challenge. This week we have Angelic Mandarin as our main theme. It is a rare Rarity Monster from Chaos Legion Edition. 2 months go I posted a battle challenge about Crustacean King, in that post there was Angelic Mandarin performed very well. You guys can check it here:
Battle Challenge : Crustacean King - Angelic Mandarin
Angelic Mandarin is a strong monster for sure, this frog has decent Health, decent speed and two very usefull abilities, Triage and Silence. The only weakness it has is it's attack damage. Technically we can't expect it to kill any opponent. Overall it is still a great choie.
The big question is... Is this frog useful in lower league? This is hard to answer, because in lower league, Angelic doesn't have any ability and it's just a mere archer with 1 damage. It won't be able to compete with swimhunter (2 damage) and medhampir (leech ability). The good news is that both have 4 mana requirement, so there will be a spot for Angelic Mandarin where mana very crucial or on Odd Ones Out ruleset.
Battle Preparation
This was the chosen ruleset for this battle challenge:
- WEAK MAGIC ~ Magic attacks hit Armor before reducing Health.
- 25 MANA
This was an interesting choice.
- 25 Mana. I was quite confused whether to stick on 6 monsters team or use 4-5 strong monsters. My goal was using DeepLurker, one of the of Chaos Legion Water Element monster which I believed ridiculously strong.
- Weak Magic ruleset made me want to use Diemonshark as the tank. With its high HP and Armor, the front wall should be formidable. I though I could focus the rest on attack, no need healer. On the other side, I might have to avoid trying to kill opponent from front side. Sneak or opportunity attack should be my priority.
So here was my line up that I could come up with:
| Position | Card | Ability | Plan and Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summoner | +1 Speed, +1 Armor | Standar Modern Format Water Summoner, one of the best too | |
| Main Tank | Trample | I needed those 6 armor and 8 Health point that fish had. During weak magic ruleset, it was one of the toughest tank to beat. | |
| Second | none | This was a filler monster, if my main tank died, my Deeplurker would still have 1-2 turns to kill its target before it sat on tank position | |
| Third | Sneak | This was my main attacker. My whole team was build to protect him in the middle | |
| Fourth | Sneak | This was my second attacker. It's goal was to wound any backline monster, later Deeplurker would do the finishing move | |
| The Last | none | Our Main theme this week. I put him behind as the backline wall |
I felt like I was building an awkward team just to show that Angelic Mandarin was not a bad one.
HERE COMES THE BATTLE!!!
If you want to see the battle directly, you can see it directly here:
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_c919a120f5efb268cd6450cf4a6a53ad
It's a Bronze League Modern Rank Battle of Water vs Water, both of us using max Bronze Level cap. I was using my Scholar Account from Metanomy. This should be an interesting battle, because both using different tactic.
Round 1
- The game started as both party buffing their monsters.
- My opponent came with 2 magic damage and 3 sneak melee damage.
- My team had 1 range damage and a scattered 7 melee damage.
- This could be a long fight, however I felt I had won this because they used sneak attacks which my Angelic Mandarin would take on the damage.
- We exchanged damages and my combined attack of Uraeus+Deep Lurker managed to take down their backline wall hardy stonefish.
Round 2
- What a boring round, nobody died here.
Round 3
- Finally they managed to kill my Angelic Mandarin, but in return my team took down their uraeus
Round 4
- This time I took down their Scavo Hireling, things began to look disadvantageous for my opponent
Due the battle was progresing slow, I sped forward the process
Round 5-6
Round 7-8-9
Round 10-11
Finally after a long boring fight, my team won
Battle Discussion
This turned out to be long boring battle, to be honest my team was badly built but they still managed to win the battle because my opponent was completely countered:
- My opponent buffed up their front wall, Oshannuss + Merdalii Guardian, however my team used a sneak uraeus and an opportunist Deep Lurker. Technically their defense did not work well
- They attack failed too. During Weak Magic ruleset, Diemonshark became a very thick meat wall, you could not kill this fish using magic anymore. They back up plan, a sneak duo, failed because they bumped to Angelic mandarin 6 health point.
- I was kind of feeling that this battle had became a contest of who have the worse tactic. However it proved that Angelic Mandarin still could work well in lower league.
Thank you for visiting my weekly battle challenge, don't forget to leave your comments and feedback below. There are credits in this post for these people:
- splinterlands : for holding weekly battle challenge events
- carrieallen : for ultimate markdown tutorial
- kyo-gaming : for wonderful divider art