Embracing the Blast - a risky strategy

in voilk •  7 days ago

    This is part of the Splinterlands Community Engagement Challenge

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    Prologue

    As mentioned in my previous post about combining Explosive Weaponry with Execution, that ruleset is not one of my favorites - yet. I'm starting to collect some strategies on them (mostly because I previously lost against them) and hence improve my outcomes step by step.

    In this article, I will use the explosion ruleset to boost a Gladiator card - this is a riskier approach than using shield-units, but it can pay off very nicely.

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    The Card - Quora Towershead

    Quora is an Epic-Gladiator card, nature splinter. She is one of the most used Gladiators, due to her dual attack of magic and melee, and her capability to heal herself - combined with high health.

    As you can see, she has Heal form the beginning, and gets immunity on level 3, and Dispell at level 5 - a very hard card to beat, since she can take away the bloodlust-bonus from other gladiators with Dispell. But even at level one, she's a force to fear.

    In this match, she'll have two martyr-cards behind her - nature's own martyr, the Fungus Flinger, and the neutral martyr, Venari Marksrat. When a Martyr dies, it gives +1 on all stats to the monsters to its sides.

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    Set-Up

    We're in a Novice-League Tournament, level cap is 1. We have 22 Mana to our disposal, and the rules are give Blast, Enrage and Corrosive Ward to all units.

    My Opponent goes for the Reflection-Shield option, placing Corsair Bosun behind the Halfling. Then a buffer-monster, after that the Wolf with Charge, the Harpy as Opportunity monster (Opportunity and Blast are a great combination!), and Dax Paragon as cheap magic monster at the end. With Lux Vega, he has a very powerful and somewhat rare summoner - not a newbie I'm battling here.

    My set-up is short. The Helios Matriarch allows me to summon a Gladiator, and gives +1 Speed - I prefer her over Lobb, the Nature-Gladiator-Summoner, who gives -1 Speed because -1 doesn't have an effect on monsters with 1 speed.

    As tank I use Quora, as described. Then I have the Marksrat and the Flinger. The idea: Quora gets attacked, the blast kills the Martyrs, Quora gets the boost that makes it more likely for her to get more kills and more boosts.

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    Round 1

    The biggest challenge to overcome is Bosun - it's the strongest monster. Quora attacks first, triggering the Halfling's Enrage. The Halfling then does 3 damage on Quora, triggering her Enrage and killing the Marksrat with the 2 damage Explosion - and Quora gets her Boost. Now, since she is enraged, the boost is not only +1 on everything, but rounded up to 2 extra melee and 2 extra speed.

    Next to attack is Bosun (thankfully, without Max Pruitt and Shield attack...), dealing 4 damage to Quora, and 2 to the Fungus Flinger - since the Flinger also got a boost, he doesn't die just yet, but with the next attack by Dax Paragon. Quora now has: 6 Melee damage, 4 magic damage, 9 speed and 5 health left. The Wolf misses, the Harpy hits.

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    Round 2

    Doesn't look good for me now, does it? Just wait...

    Quora is first to go. She heals herself by 4 LP, and kills the Halfling, getting another +1 bonus on everything, leaving her with 9 health - and 11 speed, thanks to enrage. That leads to ALL melee attacks missing her.

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    Round 3

    Looking better now! Can you predict the next round?

    Quora heals herself up to 12 LP, without loosing her enrage - which is good. She hits the Corsair with magic damage, and kills the Gargoyle behind it, gaining bloodlust. Unfortunately, her strongest attack just hits the shields. The corsair actually hits with enraged 6 damage.

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    Round 4

    Quora gets a double-kill with her magic attack, and since the harpy lost her armor due to corrosive ward, she gets hit by the melee attack. In the 5th Round, it's just whiping the floor. Quora even gets back to full health. Her end-stats are 10+10 damage, 12 Speed and 19 health - without being enraged. Nothing you want to meet.

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    Conclusion

    I liked this strategy a lot, though it was a close call in the beginning. But the high-speed with enrage and the opponent's focus on melee monsters made it easier for me. A good counter would've been using Max Pruitt and giving the Corsair Piercing damage and Armor Stroke, a very powerful combination even against Tofu. But I guess the limited Mana had the opponent refrain from that.

    On Explosive Weaponry, I now always have to decide between martyrs and reflection shield. Both are valid, and it depends on the Splinters available if I go risk-on, or risk-off.

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    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 :-)

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