Splinterlands BATTLE MAGE SECRETS - Featuring Five Alive in Wild!

Featuring Bronze League Summoner and Monsters in Action!

Back with another battle mage secrets post featuring five alive with my bronze Dex battling it out in the wild format. The switch to the wild format has been an interesting one this season with lots of new takeaways. It looks like I might be in the market for a few key older carts that would be highly beneficial as well as digging deeper into the SPs rental market to see what I can do to grow my account. Let's take a look at this five alive battle, how things turned out and what I can do better next time.

CHALLENGE RULES

RULESET: Five Alive

Description: Up to five Units can be used.

Reasons Why I like it

This is one of the new rule sets that I'm still figuring out. The five alive rule set along with the one that limits only four cars available make some of my decision making a bit harder. Sometimes it forces a combination of higher mana cards and it certainly makes it hard to use boosts like martyr, or tank heel as you are reducing your attackers in a trade-off for a healer and with fewer units the impact feels greater.

The Matchup - Where Rules Sets, Splinters and Mana Collide

The Rule Sets

Watch the Match Here

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_a9a2a2052a943bdd5a0bb312f6b30dc8&ref=senstless

MANA: 45

Ruleset: Going the Distance: Only monsters with Ranged attack may be used in battles.
Ruleset: Five Alive: Up to Five Units Can be Used.

SPLINTERS: Water, Earth, Life, Death, Dragon

Initial Rule Set and Mana Gameplay Thoughts

• Rulesets
  Five cards for 45 mana means that they can be an average of nine a piece. I'm not sure it will have too big of an impact since I can basically pick any cards I want minus those 13 to 16 meta cards. Combining this with going to distance makes it difficult as now I can only use aero cards. My options to balance out attack cards as well as some sort of defensive healing is going to be tricky.
• Mana
  Mana isn't really in play here other than I get to pick whatever High man of cards I want as I doubt there are enough cards that are 10 plus that are only arrows.
• Splinters
  Go to splinter for me is going to be life so that I can have return fire and all my monsters. There are great arguments to be made for every other splinter as you can reduce arrow attacks for both death and dragon, give everyone close up on Earth, and water also has the ability to boost arrow attacks. Likely I think it'll be dragon and life with the biggest usage

• Summoner ILTHAIN
  If everyone's forced to be using arrow attacks, then I want to use that return fire to help drag their health down each turn. Nice part is return fire doesn't miss it doesn't factor in speed differential, flying, Dodge or anything else it's a great way to get guaranteed damage every time they attack

• First Position DRYBONE RAIDER
  Almost feels like cheating but it does have arrow attack. Well it's not going to be used in first position a double strike with melee is always great and it does come with three armor to protect its limited seven health

• Second Position COMMANDER GOFF
  Wanted this one's second since it has huge 7 armor and seven health along with a 4-speed and dodge. I'm hoping that they can generate a miss or two. It's a shame to use it as my second card since it is likely my heaviest hitter and most likely to hit. It's an equal trade-off though for the protection it might give me

• Third Position ANACHRON BOLTER
  Since almost every card is going to be arranged aero based, I really wanted to get headwinds in my lineup. This will help bring their attack down and bring the return fire closer to a one-to-one damage ratio

• Fourth Position VENARI CRYSTALSMITH
  If it has both arrows and tank Hill then it's always going to be in no matter the mana cost. Sure I could have one that has higher damage but healing a card and making it live longer to dish out more return fire is more important

• Fifth Position PRISMOLOGIST
  A bit of a gamble if they also played the same summoner but I like having a little splash damage if it can connect. I can start to drain the health on two different cards

Opponent Lineup & Match Play

• Summoner QUIX THE DEVIOUS
  No surprise here, reducing my speed and my aero attacks is a no-brainer.
• QUEEN OF CROWS
  Great tank card, and even better in this format. 11 health is huge plus it has close range so it can attack from the front row
• SUPPLY RUNNER
  Another solid card that I don't play as often as I think I would. Great speed decent health in attack
• FUNIC SKYCLAW
  One of the best dragon range cards. It's got snipe with tremendous speed damage armor and flying overall it is a juggernaut.
• DHAMPIR STALKER
  True strike, who doesn't love a guaranteed hit every single round. It's speed means it's also likely to go in the middle somewhere of the attack
• RAVENHOOD WARDEN
  Well he's probably not being used for attack, the extra armor it provides will help keep everyone on the board longer

Round 1

Round one starts off and right away return fire starts to chip away at that extra armor they got. Outside of that I don't think any attacks for either team missed so it was a pretty straightforward round.

Round 2

I think I got a slight upper hand by the end of round one. Well we're both likely to lose our initial tank cards this round it is still slightly favored towards me. After I get healed by Crystal smith, dry bone raider is able to secure the second knockout of the round and really crippled their team. Having that double strike melee card on the front is critical in these matches

Round 3

Round three starts with a Miss for me, having a flying dragon card with six speed is going to be difficult to hit. I think over half of my attacks missed this round, but they're only doing three damage to drive on radar so it is going to stick around for another round.

Round 4

Ground floor starts off better for me, I get a knockout of sky claw. That pretty much spells the end in this round. This is quickly followed by another knockout of Dhampir stalker and then Raven Warden.

Thoughts - and Chances to Win Again

The two biggest impacts I think we're having dry bone radar in first position for a double strike melee which gives an advantage when most cards are arrow attacks. The second biggest advantage was having returned fire on all of the cards. That return fire is guaranteed damage back to help get through some of the armor before they moved up to first position. Luckily the five alive didn't have too big of an impact since we got lucky with the high mana cost of 45. Things could have been much different if magic and melee cards were added into the mix and things could have been a bit more spicy. I think I'm going to continue to focus on return fire and drive on radar on the doing the distance rule sets, while finding some way to get a healing card in in rulesets that limit how many cards you can use like five alive or lower.

~~@senstless

#sbi-skip