Splinterlands: Battle Mage Secret Fire & Regret!

I like reading the weekly battle challenges and strategies that people post as many times it gives me new insights which I start using myself.

I also wanted to share my strategies and which worked, which were disastrous but somehow I ended procrastinating on these posts as I will get caught with writing about some other topics.

Finally I decided to write about the ongoing weekly challenge- “Fire & Regret”. Next I was faced with another challenge that compared to other battle conditions Fire & Regret is not so common. I usually play 9-10 battles everyday but none of the games appeared with this game condition. I decided to get a bit stubborn and decided to keep playing till a Fire & Regret battle showed up. On the 15th attempt I was finally able to play a battle with this condition.

I have played so many battles in Splinterlands that now my team assembly is almost on auto pilot mode, I don’t have to think much as I have memorised the good cards I have and which are better suited for given fight conditions. This game however made me think a lot as there were multiple conditions and I did not have a decent team to send to battle. In this post I will share what were the risks I took between choosing a good summoner Vs choosing good monsters and more importantly if that risk paid off or not.

Battle Conditions!

I know instinctively that Fire & Regret means your archers get punished so you need to take them out from team consideration and focus on monsters that have defence against Melee and Magic. Summoner also plays a key role if he can enhance your magic or reduce the magic of opponents.

When I saw the additional conditions on top of Fire & Regret I was a bit confused as having Back to Basics meant my monsters will have no ability to protect them from magic attack and the third condition was no Melee monsters which really limited my choices. On top of this all Earth and Death elements were ruled out. Death would have been preferred options as then I would used Thaddius Brood as Summoner to reduce enemies magic or with Earth I would have used Obsidian as summoner to increase my magic attack. Now I decided to go with Water element as here I had some decent monsters to fight but I was wondering how effective they will be after losing all abilities under Back to Basics condition.

I was clear that I was going to place Baakjira and Djinn Oshannus as they have high health score and take a good amount of beatin. Their void is really effective but it will not be available due to Back to Basics condition.

Now came the critical decision of picking the summoner. I usually pick Kelya Frendul as he is levelled up and helps me pick levelled up monsters but I wanted to use Bortus as he would reduce enemy magic attack. The dilemma was that Bortus was at level 1. It would mean all my monsters would lose their level. I still decided to go with it as I felt under such conditions reducing enemy magic will be more important than having levelled up monsters.

Opponent Teams are Lined up!

The moment the fight starts and the fighting teams are lined up against each other the first thing I noticed was that not only had the opponent picked Water element even his 2 key monsters were Baakjira and Djinn Oshannus. I don’t like such coincidences as it leaves a lot to luck like who will throw the first punch. Then I noticed the opponent had a legendary summoner but I didn’t give up hope as he was not giving any advantage against magic.

Round 1 - Teams are Even

I had a better summoner but the opponent had a legendary summoner and some better monsters but the fight started on an even note thanks to Bortus reducing their magic.

Round 2 - Battle is Head to Head

In round 2 it is still not easy to pick a winner as both have Baakjira at the front and his legendary summoner had given a +2 health boost to his players so they can absorb more beating

Round 3 - I Gain an Edge

With the start of Round 3 I start to get an edge over the opponent due to the fact that he has placed 2 archers who are getting hit by Fire & Regret rule. He is clearly taking more of a beating than me at this stage

Round 6 - At Victory Point

After round 4 I start getting a clear advantage due to the 3 magic attack of Nerissa which is clearing the flank of the opponent at a good speed.

At the end I feel the deciding factor was having Nerissa in my team whose magic attack was not reduced by the opponent summoner.

The main takeaway for me from this fight was that sometimes it is better to pick a summoner who gives an advantage as per the rules rather than picking the one which is levelled up. I took a big risk by picking a level 1 Bortus than a level 6 Kelya Frendul, but the level 1 Bortus got the job done.

Cheers,

Sam