This week's Community Engagement Challenge allows us to pick a topic to discuss so I'll revisit one of my favorite strategies (when it works ;-)) since Tofu has taken ownership of every Venka play under the sun right now but hey, sometimes (very rarely) Tofu is not available and this is when this strategy can reap benefits again. :)
So, in the core of this favorite strategy of mine are 3 cards - Kei, Venka the Vile and Akane. The point of the whole exercise is to obliterate the enemy frontline as soon as possible (in the Ambush Round even) and then have a decisive advantage all throughout the battle. I use Akane to give Venka and 1 more card the Ambush (this Unit gets to act before the battle begins) ability and I also throw in Kei so there are at least a total of 3 units with Ambush to start the fight. Depending on the Mana amount available to me as well as the Elements, I usually also use one (or more) of the following units:
In the first row I've listed the ones I use most often as the main tank unit. Mantaroth is the best pick for battles with Mana budge exceeding 30 mana. Chaos Rear Guard and Hill Giant are for battles in the 20-25 Mana range, and Pelacor Conjurer is what I default to (if available) in the low mana battles. In the second row, I've listed those I use most often for the additional Speed boost they provide. Since I always want to make sure that after the Ambush stage, I have the opportunity to repeat the attacks of my Ambush units before the opponents has any chance to respond to the pressure I've put on them.
Now that you have some impression of what this strategy involves, let's have a look at a battle I won using it yesterday..
<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>BATTLE<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>
- The line-up of the Battle and the Ruleset:
The ruleset for this battle is Fog of War (all units lose the Sneak, Snipe, and Opportunity abilities), Stampede (Trample will retrigger infinitely as long as the trampling unit keeps killing other units) and Corrosive Fog (when this ruleset is in play, all Units take 1 armor damage and lose 1 maximum armor each round). The mana budget is 16 which is very low so I will have to go with either low-mana Monsters or a couple of bigger ones. The available elements are Fire, Water, Life and Dragon. I've decided to go with the Dragon Element in order to showcase the strategy, of course.
I decided to opt for the Pelacor Conjurer as my 1st line Monster. It is a Flying Monster (which means it has a higher chance to be missed by ranged and melee attacks) and in addition to that it has Spell Reflect which can be amplified by the Amplify ability and the Up To Eleven ruleset that makes it absolutely deadly for Magic Attack Monsters. And on top of that it also starts the battle with the Divine Shield (the first time the Monster takes damage it is ignored) ability. It also gains the Phase (Magic attacks can miss this Monster (using the same hit/miss calculation as for Melee and Ranged attacks)) ability at max level.
The 2nd spot goes to a Monster I use a lot in Little League battles, namely the Naga Assassin. I find that Little League battles often include slower Monsters so its two abilities - Backfire (if an enemy misses this monster with an attack, the attacker takes 2 damage) and Swiftness (all friendly Monsters have increased Speed) could be really key for the ultimate victory in the battle. I have it placed in 2nd spot since if the enemy is using Venka the Vile, she might miraculously miss her due to the high Speed value of the Naga.
In the 3rd spot I've got the Soul Fiend. It is maxed so its role is to provide Swiftness (all friendly Monsters have increased Speed) to the whole team. 0-mana Units such as this one are also really important to provide an extra body on the board, especially in low-mana battles.
Last in the line-up is one of the Rebellion airdrops and the Grim Bardun Smith killer (and all no-attack Monsters in general). She has a new ability - Charge (The Monsters will use Melee Attacks from any position and will target the Enemy Monsters in the first position). Bear in mind that just as other abilities, it is affected by Taunt, so that's one way to keep your GBS, Bakjeera, etc. safe. Her other abilities are Piercing (If Melee or Ranged attack damage is in excess of the target's Armor, the remainder will damage the target's Health), Oppress (Does double damage when attacking an enemy that has no attacks) and Trample (When a Monster with Trample hits and kills its target, it will perform another attack on the next Monster on the enemy Team) (at level 4). She can single-handedly wipe the whole Enemy team in certain situations.
It is time for a quick round by round analysis:
- The Summoner I have chosen, as you already know is Akane. The fact that one of the rulesets is Stampede means that I'm basically obliged to include Venka in my line-up since Venka can literally destroy the whole enemy team before they even know what they hit them. In order to fit both Venka and Akane in 16 mana, I have to use really low mana units for the rest of my line-up. My opponent on the other hand has decided to ignore the Stampede part of the active rulesets and have opted for a standard line-up for this amount of mana. Let's see how this goes.
- After the Ambush round I managed to destroy his Pelacor Conjurer and his 2nd spot unit is on the verge of dying.
- It is still the same round as there is no round 3. Venka dealt with the remaining 3 units of their line-up powered by Stampede after my Naga Assassin took down the enemy Sunkai Harvester.
Well, that was definitely a fun way to showcase one of my favorite strategies right now in the game. Stayed tuned for more fun battles next week.
Over and Out,
Referral