Splinterlands Battle Mage Secrets - Maneuvers

Hey!

Welcome to another Splinterlands Battle Mage Secrets post, this time featuring the “Maneuvers” rule.

Maneuvers

When the Maneuvers rule is in effect, all Monsters get the Reach ability, which allows them to use their Melee attack, if they have one, to attack from the second position.

This rule is certainly a great advantage for many Melee cards, but especially those which happen to have one of those mixed attacks, since you don’t need to force them to be in the first position, which makes them much more vulnerable to attacks. Because that is how it works with the most offensives Melee cards; they are great to cause damage, but they don’t last long enough, since their defense is quite poor, making you use some sort of diversion, such as a card with Taunt. One example would be using the Mycelic Slipspawn in last position, to protect Grund, who has a very strong Double Strike effect, but doesn’t have any kind of protection against damage, so he’s quite exposed.

Considering this last aspect, those Melee Monsters that you should use are those with a very strong Melee damage, who probably have mixed attacks or a Double Strike effect, or a combination of both. Remember to boost your Melee damage, if possible.

Now defensive wise, of course, you should consider using a Monster or Summoner who’s able to de-buff Melee attacks as well as a tank with the Shield ability, or plenty of Armor, which you can Repair.

Battle

Ruleset

Lineup & Analysis

This battle was done during a Brawl, in which I was the host, so Quora Towershead was banned. For the fray, we could only use Gold Foil cards from the Chaos and Rebellion sets, with a Silver level cap. Now, the battle itself had plenty of Mana to spare, all Splinters besides Fire and Water were allowed and the only rule in effect was Maneuvers.

Because of the high requirements, at least high for me, the variety of cards I have are not that wide, so I wasn’t very sure what strategy to follow. Fortunately for me, I have a Gold Foil Katrelba, so I picked the Earth Splinter, which allows me to summon her.

• As a Summoner, Lobb Lowland. Even though the Brawl, already allows you to summon a Gladius, without a special Summoner, I decided to use his Speed de-buffing perk, over Obsidian’s Magic buff.
• The Mycelic Infantry, as a tank, to protect my front line from very probable physical attacks.
• Then, taking advantage from the Maneuvers rule, Grund, attacking from the second position with his Double Strike ability.
• In third position, the Goblin Psychic, acting as a Healer and as a card that prevents healing too.
• Then Katrelba, my Gladius. As always, very strong card, that can decimate an entire team, attacking with Bloodlust the enemy backline.
• In fifth place, Regal Peryton. A very evasive Monster to prevent possible Sneak attackers, an enemy Katrelba maybe.
• At last, to further protect the front line, the Mycelic Slipspawn with its Taunt effect.

Battle Link

Well, I lost… I don’t think I assembled a bad lineup, since it was quite logical, with a strong tank, being watch over by a healer, and with some pressure being taken away by a Monster with Taunt. On top of that, there were two very strong cards dealing heavy damage, Grund and Katrelba.

So, I believe that my team was defeated because of three
reasons:

• Higher Speed/evasion from my opponent.
• I had a team delivering a lot of damage, but my opponent’s power was even higher.
• My opponent placed Arkemis the Bear, which granted his entire team an extra layer of protection in the form of two pieces of extra Armor.

The combination of that Armor and the higher Speed, made my team work much harder, especially considering that most of my attacks came from Melee Monsters. I should also mention his Summoner Sthispa, who grants Phase (ability to dodge Magical attacks), and made my Goblin miss an attack, delaying the death of the Drybone Barbarian.

This is it, thank you for reading!

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