Hello everyone! Pozdrav svima!
This week I'm going to show you how to play when faced Equalizer ruleset.
First of all lets see what this ruleset is all about. How to take advantage of it and what you need to pay attention to.
Buffs and debuffs are done afterward - this impacts base health.
When faced this ruleset keep one thing in mind - don't use high HP monsters, but rather focus on high-damage ones. If you use high HP your opponent's monsters will get that HP also. Also, use as many monsters as possible, full line-up is the way to the win - more targets for enemy to hit.
Tank Heal, Heal and Triage are very valuable abilities in this ruleset, because the higher base HP of a monster is, it will get healed for more.
What I like to do is use monsters with Scavenger and/or Life Leech, so they start the battle with high HP and it only gets higher and higher with every round. There are plenty of monsters with those abilities, I will mention just a couple I use regularly.
| Antoid Platoon | Vulguine | Doctor Blight | Musa Saline |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
| Life Sapper | Stitch Leech | Spirit Druid Grog | Demise Archon Faust |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
But, my favorite approach to this ruleset is it use high Armor monsters which usually have low HP (at least the ones that with lower mana cost), and that way they become awesome tanks. A couple of monsters come to my mind:
| Ever-Hungry Skull | Dumacke Orc | Clockwork Aide |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
Or even better combination is with Void Armor ability, especially if you use a monster with high armor:
| Marrow's Ghost | Chain Spinner | Thanalorian Scion |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
Some of the mentioned monsters I used in the battle I will show you in this post, so make sure you read on.
This is the part of the post where I will show you one of my battles featuring Equalizer ruleset.
I used a combination of monsters with high armor for tanking in the front and other one protecting the back, mixed up with a couple of monsters with Scavenger ability.
If you want you can see the whole battle, play by play, click 👉 HERE 👈
I will try to explain each part of the ruleset, so you get the better understanding what was I thinking when I picked my line-up.
Since we had Weak Magic ruleset, I wanted to make sure my team had some armor on them for that extra hits they can take. Logical choice was Water splinter and Kelya Frendul for that 1 armor and speed. On top of that Water is full of nice mid-mana monsters with great usability.
My opponent had a great idea with Death splinter and Thaddius Brood summoner, used all the right monsters, but forgot one crucial ability - Shatter.
You can see the line-up from both teams in battle screenshot right after this section. I will go through my line-up and explain why was each card picked and put in that spot.
Water splinter Rare summoner that costs 4 mana. He buffs the team with extra Armor and Speed.
+1 Armor to friendly Monsters. +1 Speed to friendly Monsters. This is one the most used summoners in the game. I chose this summoner because I needed extra armor, and speed is always good to have. |
Neutral splinter Common soulbound reward card. Costs 6 mana and has 3 Melee attack and a ton of Armor.
Shield - Reduced damage from Melee and Ranged attacks. Retaliate - When hit with a Melee attack, Monsters with Retaliate have a chance (50%) of attacking their attacker. I picked this Monster as a tank because it really shines in this ruleset. High armor, reduced damage, chance to hit back - what more you need. |
Water splinter Epic card. Costs 3 mana and has 3 Melee attack.
Reach - Melee attack Monsters with the Reach ability may attack from the second position on the team. Reflection Shield - This Monster is immune to all indirect, or reflected damage. That means that it will not take damage from Blast, Thorns, Return Fire, or Magic Reflect. I picked this Monster to deal damage from 2nd position, and because it has Reflection Shield it won't get damage from Thorns.
|
Water splinter Legendary card. Costs 3 mana, has 1 Magic attack.
Scavenger - Gains 1 max health each time any monster dies. Shatter - Target's armor is destroyed when hit by an attack from Monsters with Shatter. Dispel - When this monster hit an enemy, it clears all positive status effects on that enemy. I picked this Monster for the Shatter to break enemy armor, and Scavenger for longevity.
|
Water splinter Legendary card. Costs 7 mana, has 2 Magic attack.
Resurrect - When a friendly Monster dies it is brought back to life with 1 Health. This ability can only trigger once per battle. Inspire - Gives all friendly Monsters +1 Melee attack. Dispel - When this monster hit an enemy, it clears all positive status effects on that enemy. I picked this Monster to buff my Melee attack monsters with additional damage, and resurrects if needed. |
Neutral splinter Epic soulbound reward card. Costs 4 mana, has no attack, but it has 9 armor.
Swiftness - Increases Speed of all friendly Monsters. I picked this Monster for additional Speed and because of the high Armor it is perfect back-line protector. Unfortunately I don't have it leveled to level 4 when it gets Rust ability. That would make my victory even more decisive.
|
Amazing Neutral legendary card. Costs 4 mana, does 2 magic attack and it's simply awesome.
Affliction - 50% chance of applying Affliction (cannot be healed) on the target. Camouflage - This Monster cannot be targeted unless it's in the first position. Poison - Attacks have a chance to apply poison. Scavenger - Gains 1 max health each time any monster dies. I picked this monster because it's one of the best cards in the game, low mana cost and full of great, useful abilities. |
This was quite long battle, with 10 rounds. But it's because we had low damage monsters, so it took a while to kill them all.
Right at the start of first round Musa Saline did what she needed to do - Shattered enemy tank's armor. That opened the door for my team to take it down, while enemy monsters struggled with my tank, even with greater firepower.
If my opponent brought in a Monster with Shatter, it would be a different story.. maybe... 😄
In round two my resurrected tank was still giving headache to enemy attackers, while the rest of my team took down another monster and went on to next one.
Enemy monsters finally killed my tank and started clearing the way into the heart of my team, but my brave Musa Saline said - You shall not pass! - and held off the attackers for a full round, while my guys pecked their way deeper into opponents line-up.
In final 5 rounds it was just a matter of time when enemy last 2 monsters would fall. My Dr.Blight only did 1 MAgic damage per round, but thankfully his Poison speed things up.
You can watch the video of this battle on 3speak.tv.
This was Modern Ranked battle in middle of Gold 1 league during my the last season before the big change in Ranked system. Ah the good old days... 😎
I mentioned few different approaches to this ruleset, so I would like to show an example of couple of them.
This was a battle where we faced similar rulesets like in featured battle, but with different splinters. I wanted to overload my opponent back-line with three Sneak monsters and it payed off.
This was a battle where I faced Equal Opportunity ruleset, so I used Explosive Rats, very high damage Monster, but usually very fragile - except in Equalizer ruleset. Combined it with a couple of awesome Scavenger Monsters and wictory is guaranteed.
Link to the featured battle itself can be found 👉 HERE 👈
If you still haven't tried Splinterlands try it out 👉 HERE 👈
Thank you for your time. 👍
Special thanks to:
@carrieallen for ultimate markdown tutorial.
@kyo-gaming for text dividers used in this post.
@splinterlands for images used in this post and for making this great game.
splintercards.com for ability and ruleset descriptions, as well as card price history.
cooltext.com for cool looking title images.