Splinterlands Community Engagement Challenge: Ruleset Revelations!

The Community Engagement Challenge this week is ruleset revelations. We are to pick a modifier or a combo of two modifiers that we either love or struggle with and share our favorite strategy to handle the modifier(s) in question. We also have to showcase a battle where the strategy is successfully implemented. So let's have a look at the ruleset I have chosen and the strategy I most often use in the current meta to successfully tackle it.

There are 2 modifiers in this battle - Unprotected (all units have 0 armor and cannot gain armor from Archons or abilities) and Fire & Regret (all Units have Return Fire (returns 50% of ranged damage to attacker, rounded up)). The modifier I am targeting with my strategy is Unprotected. Every time I see Unprotected and Earth and/or Death elements are available I go straight to building my strategy around a single card and that card is - Heloise. Heloise becomes really strong when the enemy units have no armor since at that point there is a lot less potential for mitigation from other abilities such as Divine Shield or Shield. Of course, Heloise's other weak side is her low speed, which causes her to miss often, especially if the opponent has Blind in play paired with units with Dodge. The way I tackle this issue is pairing Heloise with Risqruel Drath. I then use Risqruel to grant Heloise the True Strike ability. This guarantees that Heloise will land every retaliation after her Spite ability gets activated (upon her death). That most often leads to her devastating the enemy line-up fairly easily, and even if there are units still standing the rest of my line-up normally manages to finish them off before the Weary side effects become too strong to overcome. Let's now have a look at my line-up and how the battle progresses.

My Main tank for this battle is Mantoroth. He's a pretty beefy boy with 4 Armor and 11 Health at the cost of 11 Mana which makes him susceptible to Giant Killer (does double damage against targets that cost 10 or more mana). He also has 3 Melee Attack and 2 Speed. In terms of abilities - at max level he has the following ones (in order of appearance): - Shield (reduced damage from Melee and Ranged attacks), ARMORED STRIKE (Any unit with this ability gains an ADDITIONAL Melee attack using its Armor stat. This allows characters to improvise with deadly force, using their gauntlets, shields, helmets, or perhaps physical attributes (spikes, hard shells, etc) as weapons!), True Strike (this Monster's attacks cannot miss), Repair (restores some armor to the friendly Monster whose armor has taken the most damage) , Blast (does additional damage to Monsters adjacent to the target Monster). He is definitely shaping up to be a pretty interesting card, especially with the New Ability - Armored Strike and the fact that he is a Neutral Card, so he can be included in any Element.

In the off-tank spot I have placed Riklauniman Adrin’eth. He's one of my favorite cards, specifically due to his kit of abilities. At level 1 he starts off with 3 Ranged Attack, 2 Melee Attack, 2 Armor, 7 HP and 3 Speed. He has 2 abilities - Kindered Will: Ambush and Charge. At level 2 he gains his most impactful ability - Expose. He also gains an additional point in Speed for a total of 4. At level 3 he gains an additional Ranged Attack point for a total of 4. Finally at level 4 he has the same stats as at level 3 but gains one more impactful ability - Stun. Rik is great at dismantling enemy defensive abilities (by removing them with Expose). He can also team up with loyal companion Pallus to activate the Kindred Will combo for the two of them - Ambush for Rik and True Strike for Pallus.

The 3rd spot is for Fizbo the Fabulous who is a 6-mana Legendary Fire/Earth unit. At level 1 he starts with the following stats: 2 Magic Attack, 2 Speed, 1 Armor and 4 Health and Tank Heal. Even at level 1 I think he's a must-have card since he brings Tank Heal to the Fire time in the Modern Meta. But wait there's more! At level 2 he gains his signature ability (and newly introduced to the game) Shroud of Reflection Shield - At the start of battle, adjacent units gain Reflection Shield. And finally at level 4 - maxed - he gains a additional point in the damage department for a total of 3 Magic Damage.

In the 4th spot I have placed Gramel the Hunger. Gramel is an 11-mana Neutral Legendary of the Fiend bloodline. What's more spectacular about him is that he is the first unit in Splinterlands' history to have a triple attack - he has 1 Magic Attack, 2 Ranged Attack and 1 Melee Attack and level 1. His other stats are 1 Armor, 7 HP and 3 Speed. At level 1 he starts off with 2 abilities - Charge and Scatter Shot. At level 2 his stats remain unchanged, however, he get an extra ability we've already discussed - Bloodline Tribute. Level 3 is the most interesting one. That's because at that level he gains the Shapeshift ability:https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/ghostlybg/48JdGFK2YU7MFLsK4hWzq58oGGHimMaCLJYSUXhy2DmkYo7NuKrrmf2xRKyMMH2Po7.png This essentially means that Gramel is viable choice for all Bloodline Archons apart from all Archons in general as he is a Neutral unit anyway. And more importantly, he gains the specific ability of each Bloodline when played with a Bloodline Archon. At level 3 he also gains an additional Melee point for a total of 2. Finally at level 4 he gains 1 more Magic damage for a total of 2 as well as his final ability - Camouflage. I think Gramel is a very fun card and will be the center of some very entertaining battles for sure.

5th spot is occupied by Mahkah Hemlig. She is a 9-mana Magic Attacker of the Minotaur Bloodline. She is a Legendary Earth Unit. At level 1 she starts off with 4 Magic Attack, 4 Speed, 0 Armor and 3 HP. The ability she starts off with is Opportunity. She is basically a glass cannon at level 1 with her 3 HP and 4 Magic Attack. She could be quite useful even at this point. At level 2 she gains an extra point of Health for a total of 4 and her second ability - Deflect. Now she's a glass cannon with a protection from Magic Reflect. Next at level 3 she gains 1 HP for a total of 5. She also gains her third ability - Scavenger. Now things get more interesting especially if she manages to survive the initial stages of the battle, she has a chance to beef up (pun intended) considerably. Finally at level 4 she has 4 Magic Attack, 4 Speed, 0 Armor and 6 Health. She also gains her final ability - Triage. I think Mahkah Hemlig is starts off as a glass cannon but eventually turns out as a very good backline semi-support Magic Attacker. She definitely could be useful in the new CA meta.

Last in the line-up I have placed my very own mint 41 Heloise the Hollow (yeah I got her at the time the auction was still going for around 1K DEC per copy). She was a max unit out of the box (I say was as there were only 100 copies printed and she's now only obtainable on the secondary market). She has 8 Melee Attack, 7 HP, 3 Speed and the following abilities - Taunt, Opportunity, Spite, Soul Siphon and Last Word. Her Spite ability combined with Soul Siphon is what makes her special. She's a really fun card in general, however, she's also very tricky to play and rarely an auto-win. That's cool cause a card with just 100 copies should never be outrageous OP or even OP.