This is for the @splinterlands Social Media Challenge:
https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@splinterlands/splinterlands-social-media-challenge-srivsw
Prologue
A couple of weeks ago, I got beaten up by a Drybone Raider in the "Melee Mayhem" Ruleset - it was a maxed copy, and in that Ruleset it was 4 attacks, all of them quite powerful as the first removes all armor. I have used that combination since then as well, with quite a bit of success - and today I took it to another stage, creating a monster with 6 attacks per round, able to deal a total of 24 damage points.
The Protagonists
Drybone Raider
The Drybone Raider is a Chaos Legion Soulbound, so there are no new ones printed anymore - it's quite rare for that reason, and usually comes at a high prize.
It was dual attack with melee and ranged, and double attack from level one. It gains Shatter at level two, and cripple at level three. The downsides of this awesome card is his relatively low resistance - but it does have some armor. It's definitely not a tank.
Elias Max Pruitt
I've talked about this card very often, it's one of my favorites and has awesome use-cases - especially in combination with Corsair Bosun against Tofu-Teams.
EMP provides +1 Melee and +1 Armor to all units, and either Repair and Cleanse, or Armor Strike and Piercing to one unit. I usually go for the latter, since EMP already gives the bonus on Armor (so every unit can do at least 1 armor damage) and
The Battle - Click here for battle link
Novice League Modern Tournament, 42 Mana, Melee Mayhem, 1 Gladiator may be used per team, and Magic Reflect for all. Only Life and Death are available.
So, I went all in on the Drybone Raider. My tank is Arkemis, since he gives +2 Armor to all my units, and has a nice health. Since it's Melee Mayhem and Magic Reflect, I anticipated a lot of non-magic-damage and put the Mana Warden in second position, giving Shield to Arkemis and making him more resistant - and at the same time, the warden deals a nice amount of damage.
Then the Protagonist - the Drybone Raider. This card gets the Piercing and the Armor strike. Since it has Double Attack, that means - 2x Armor Strike, 2x Ranged Attack, 2x Melee Attack.
I used Sola Ranjell as a healer (ignoring the Magic Reflect, which is usually a little stupid, but I got lucky here) for Arkemis - with Shield and Tank heal, Arkemis should survive enough to give the Raider the time to go all berserker on the enemy team.
At the rear - the explorer for extra +2 Armor, and that means extra +4 attack points.
I honestly was a bit scared to find Tofu in the enemy team, but the preview didn't show any signs on Legendary Rebellion Summoners, so I took the gamble - Ilthain is a great summoner, but not really for this ruleset. If it wasn't for EMP being available for me, I'd have gone with the Astral Entity. But okay. Chaos Knight as a tank (shield), Skyspire Leopard in second position, Drybone Barbarian third. Jard Scar as a strong Bloodlust monster was one of my ideas, too - imagine him with Shield attack and piercing! - but I wanted to try my DR. Venari Crystalsmith as healer, and the Pegasus to destroy armor to even the way for Jared to gain some bloodlust points.
Round 1
Let's go!
There it is! My beauty! My Creation! 2x the following: 8 damage armor strike, 3 damage melee, and 1 range damage (which unfortunately goes first and reduced the armor, due to Return Fire from Ilthain). But one step at a time.
Arkemis gets quickly beaten up and down to 3 health, but Sola fixes that at least a little. The first round of attacks by the Raider brings down the Chaos Knight, and the second the Leopard - it would even have done damage to the Barbarian, but the Return Fire prevented that due to reducing armor. But both the Warden and Arkemis beat up the Barbarian, which ends the round at 3 LP.
Round 2
Looking good so far!
Barbarian gets Arkemis down to 3 LP, and in the end, Jared gets the kill and with that the bloodlust. The Barbarian is enraged, and has 5 LP after healing and Sola's attack. Time for the Raider! The Return fire reduces the armor to 5, so the armor strike kills the barbarian. Funny enough, on the second round of strikes against Jared, the Raider misses the Ranged-Shot and hence doesn't get reduced armor, getting Jared out of the way with the armor strike, too.
Round 3 is only beating up the flying horse, whose only damage action is the reflection of damage - total Ghandi style. Doesn't save it, though.
Conclusion
I'm so happy to have been able to use this combo that has been in my mind for a while! Only at Novice League, but hey, gotta start somewhere.
It's impressive how fast the Raider terminates the enemy monsters. If you look at their line-up, it doesn't seem like they're going down almost completely within 2 rounds.
I wonder how it works out in higher leagues? Although, then it's a lot more likely to encounter Tofu, and that makes the whole strategy go down the drain as the armor goes away quickly, and so does the LP which are not high to begin with.
Also, in higher levels, it might not be as necessary since the Raider gets shatter - so the piercing doesn't really matter too much anymore. Still, with a lot of extra armor, the armor strike can do the difference.
Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it at least as much as I enjoyed writing :-D If you have any comments or feedback - please let me know! And don't forget to leave your own posts for me to curate. Thank you very much!
If you don't play the game yet, you can use my referral: Click here for referral :-)
Posted Using INLEO