Thanks for checking out my #Splinterlands Battle of the Day #BOTD for your reading and watching enjoyment. All hail the #ageofthebattlemage!
BATTLE LINK -- January 15, 2025 -- Day 15 of 365 vs. @instamental
Welcome to a special double edition of BOTD, coming to you from the recent Fight Pit Diamond Series Gold Foil event. For this SPSDAO tournament cycle, the Fight Pit series allows Alpha, Beta, and Chaos Legion card sets. BOTD 15 is from Day 1 competition and to stay consistent, BOTD 16 is from Day 2 of the same event. Both battles feature the same card, the Chaos Legion legendary Water summoner -- Possibilus.
In the first battle against my formidable tournament rival @instamental, we had 34 mana and three rulesets: Blood and Sunder, Target Practice, and Counterspell. Three elements were available for selection: Life, Water, and Dragon.
My opponent also chose the Water element, but decided on Kelya as summoner to leverage her speed and armor boost. It is always a bit tricky for Possibilus to match up against Kelya since the Kelya team will typically have a speed advantage that lets its similar monsters attack first. They pressed their speed advantage with a speedy sneak play using Pelacor Bandit and Uraeus and a powerful opportunity play with Kulu Mastermind and Deeplurker.
Despite the snipe rule, all my attacking threats were melee monsters, which makes sense considering Possibilus' main advantage is the trample it gives to all melee monsters and the reach it gives to a strong melee attacker in the 2nd position. The middle three spots in my lineup cost a combined 1 mana and served as a distraction for my opponent's snipe and opportunity attacks.
My attack force took great advantage of the trample and reach abilities from Possibilus. Obviously, one of the main reasons to run Possibilus in the first place is to allow the somewhat fragile Coastal Sentry to use its potent double-striking 5 melee damage from 2nd position. Sentry dealt blow after blow to my opponent's tank, and even got to trample for damage once.
The biggest benefactors of Possibilis' trample are opportunity monsters, like Kulu Mastermind, who will attack the lowest health monster on the battlefield. This increases the likelihood that the opportunity attacker will be able to kill the monster enabling another trample attack. Also, the attack is typically directed somewhere in the middle of an opponent's lineup, often making the trample attack even more potent against an unsuspecting monster in the backline.
Kulu Mastermind did exactly what I needed it to in this battle (and it had nothing to do with weapon training like my opponent did with his Baakjira). With its shield ability, it held up well against the sneak attack from my opponent. With its opportunity and enrage abilities, it demolished my opponent from the inside out, triggering trample three times in five rounds of battle. Truly a mastermind, Kulu is a cold-blooded killer with Possibilus.
BATTLE LINK -- January 16, 2025 -- Day 16 of 365 vs. @zagorlord
My second BOTD, from Day 2 of the same Fight Pit Diamond event, came against the fearless leader of my Shield of Glory guild, @zagorlord. The 38-mana battle had three rulesets: Melee Mayhem, Tis but Scratches, and Even Stevens. With all six elements available, I'm curious why Zagorlord would choose Earth's conscript summoner Lobb with slow over Dragon's conscript summoner Helios with swiftness if the goal was to get a Gladiator into the lineup.
Both summoners give an important speed boost (and swiftness is marginally better than slow), plus Helios has the added benefit of allowing Dragon and Earth monsters to be selected. Maybe Zagor doesn't have a max Helios is my only consideration.
Whatever the reason, Zagorlord built his lineup around the powerful epic Gladiator, Quora Towershead, one of the most powerful monsters in the Splinterlands. Way to show off that 2 BCX Level 3 Gold Foil with the important immunity ability Zagorlord (I'm not at all jealous).
In the Melee Mayhem battle, Quora can leverage its dual attack from any spot in the lineup. This gives her more chances to get those crucial kills to trigger its bloodlust ability. If Zagorlord had opted for Helios and the Dragon element, he could have also gotten the even-costed martyr monster Vruz into the lineup to help power up Quora even more.
In contrast to Zagorlord's Earth strategy, I turned back to my featured card of the tournament, Chaos Legion legendary Water summoner, Possibilus. With the Malee Mayhem rule, its reach ability is unnecessary, but its trample ability is even more potent. Since more melee attackers will have the chance to attack from the backline, there is a higher likelihood for melee attackers to trample through.
Familiar Possibilus teammate, Coastal Sentry, is back in my lineup with its double-striking 5 melee attack. Along with Sentry are Diemonshark, a formidable tank with retaliate to strike back at opposing melee attackers, and Deeplurker, a useful opportunity monster with demoralize and poison. Each of these three monsters had the chance to inflict a trample attack over this short battle, which ended with Diemonshark's first attack of Round 2.
Zagorlord's tank, Venari Knifer, wasn't making anyone miss with its marginally higher speed and its thorns + amplify combo didn't put much of a dent in the health of my melee attackers. Quora barely had any time to get set up and was a sitting duck for my concentrated attack. Sorry Zagor, better luck next time!
All things being said, it was another successful Pit Fight tournament for me, finishing in the Top 4 of the Diamond League Gold Foil event. Big thanks once again to @fatjimmy, who politicked for this event series that pairs two Splinterlands cards sets together randomly each tournament cycle. I really enjoy all the new strategy and synergies when the format is limited to two random sets. Long live the Fight Pit tournaments!
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@treycrypto
Proud member of the YGG Brawlers alliance within @yggspl-official
Proud member of my original guild,
@shaelien
now YGG 420 Fam and on Hive as @the420syndicate.
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