Hi everyone. Have you used Grandmaster Rathe yet? If so, let me know how you like it and which ruleset you think it's good! I'm sure we still haven't discovered the full potential of Rathe.
Today, I'm going to share some battles and talk about how good players are using Grandmaster Rathe in the champion league and which monsters are good to use with Rathe.
Before we get into the battles, I want to talk about monsters that are used very frequently with Rathe.
Frequently used monsters with Rathe
- Shieldbearer
This card is the go-to tank card in life. It has taunt, shield and return fire. It has been very good against physical damage. Now with Rathe's void armor, it has more protection against magic attacks.
Rathe adds +1 armor. So it has 17 hit points without any resurrect.
1 resurrect: 25 hit points
2 resurrect: 32 hit points
It can be a lot more if we have repair and thinking that the last 1 armor can take a big hit point. It should take around 2 turns or more to take shieldbearer down with 2 resurrect most of the time.
2.Adelade Brightwing
The reason why this card is great with Rathe is
- Resurrect
- Repair
- Swiftness
Rathe adds 1 armor to all the friendly monsters and make all the armors void armor. Repairing the void armor is good because 1 void armor can take any type of attack including magic once. 1 armor can take one extra attack.
When a monster is resurrected, it has the full armor and 1 health. Since it is void armor, that means resurrect can add a lot more hit points right away.
Magic monsters in life are often slow. Adding 1 speed helps.
3.High Priest Darius
Another resurrect monster with good magic attack with blast.
4.Djinn Renova
When we have a lot of magic attackers, it's good to think about magic reflect. So it's a good idea to add a monster with strengthen and triage so
that magic attackers can survive longer even against a magic reflect.
5.Billa the Radiant
4 magic damage with life leech is very strong. It gains 2 hp every turn. It has stun and it can be very helpful.
Now, let's dive into the battles that shows the power of Rathe!
Example Battles
99 mana, Broken Arrows
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_c36e7005f8b181c30c1c421c9a0fd666
I see both mrosen94, and imp0stor in champion league. mrosen94 is not Yabapmatt. I believe imp0stor is the main developer of the archmage bots. Anyways, I think they are both good long term players.
The rathe team was struggling with Almo cambio, 7 speed with phase and magic reflect. However, they managed to take down Almo cambio while the shieldbearer still stands.
It took full 3 rounds before they lose the shieldbearer. After almo cambio is gone, it didn't take much for the Rathe team to kill the rest of the monsters.
99 mana, Equal Opportunity
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_eb8bade6ff7b791c0b3dc83a32c28ad0
This is a really interesting battle because gnarkada19 and jrvacation are both excellent players who are constantly on the champion leaderboard, also because Rathe vs Kitty kraken magic.
Kitty team is so much faster than Rathe team but it was not a big deal because Rathe team is a lot more resiliant, 1 void armor takes one whole attack.
60 mana, Supersneak
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_86e7132208658417eb318a4bc70beb56
vettev is another excellent player that I often see on the champion leaderboard.
Grandmaster Rathe is very good against melee as well because Shieldbearer has shield and can tank melee attacks so well. Even if the opponent come with magic, it can tank fine.
It took 2.5 turns before shieldbearer dies. Until that point, Rathe team took 2 giant monsters. A lot of the monsters in the Kitty team is weak against magic except Robo dragon knight, so it's not so hard to get through the rest of the monsters.
58 mana Heal Out, Armor up
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_0aca0fdf9257946094f6af043078ea75
Star-shroud was the No.1 on the champion leaderboard last season. I often see PTREKKK on the LB as well.
This is an interesting battle because they have a similar set up. The biggest difference is the summoner. Both got 2 resurrects. Resurrects are good in heal out ruleset because resurrect is a form of healing but it is not banned by the ruleset.
The ruleset, armor up also adds 2 extra armors.
In this match, shieldbearer had 9 armor! 19 hit points + 10 + 10 = 39 hit points! with 2 resurrect. star-shroud team never even managed to take down the shieldbearer with void armor and 2 resurrect.
Rathe Meta
The winning pattern of Rathe is currently its resiliancy against melee damage and magic damage with often 2 resurrects. Also, it is slow but it has high magic damage. In rulesets where magic attacks are strong, this kind of Rath set up is very competitive.
It is also good to note that Rathe magic resurrect team can win against Kitty in the right context.
I see the 5 monsters that I showed before the example battles over and over again. If you have Rathe and don't have one of those monsters, it's worth considering purchasing or renting.
Weak points of Rathe meta
The losing pattern of Rathe is when the opponent has a lot of void or/and magic reflect. When you use Rathe, you probably want to have 2 resurrect so that it takes the most advantage of void armor.
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_f90806bdeb4fbf54f832e99267936638
Another pattern is when the target's speed is so fast that magic monsters can't hit the target.
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=c57c25b829808c444f7564d136f12dcb73454696
I hope you learned something new from this post. Let me know about your experience with Rathe and feel free to share battle links!
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