Hi Splinterlanders, I hope this post finds you well. Today I want to talk about Runis & Co.
During the last few months several supermonsters and supersummoners came out, that somewhat reignited my beginner fears as a Splinterlander for a while. Their overwhelming powers and abilities were unbeatable for an intermediate battle mage like me. Moreover, their price made them unattainable for a small fry investor like me. I was not impressed with these superpowered savages coming to dictate power relations in the game. Strangely enough, I haven't come across many of them in Gold League, so I guess they are predominantly hanging out in Diamond and Champion. Anyway, in this post I’d like to go back and work out why I don't like Runis & Co, more precisely, why I hate them to be perfectly honest.
Life before Runis and other nasty creatures
I am not a veteran player, my battle career spans less than 18 months. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there for those magnificent Beta cards, when they first came out. Leveling these guys up was never an option for me, but I have been renting them since day one. I don’t know why, but I just cannot let go of them and move to Modern League, like so many players did (although I have noticed lately, that more players are coming back to Wild League).
When I was a novice player, I followed the advice of content creators on Youtube and made Mylor Crowling the central actor in my Bronze strategy. Like the typical beginner experience of a lot of new players, I couldn’t wrap my head around the earthquake ruleset (and of course the poison ruleset) and most abilities were simply overwhelming. Mylor helped me grow in confidence as a player and I started paying more attention to monsters in the green deck, got a liking to neutral cards and I slowly improved my game.
Once I fought my way yelling and screaming out of Bronze League, without knowing what to do for several weeks and slowly but eventually grinding my way out of the pit, I met Yodin. I was in awe! This guy was just too much. His trial by fire was a hurdle I thought I could not overcome. The Llama and that silly cat annoyed the hell out of me too but I understood that the only way to get past the real grand master was to pay attention to him. Yodin hardened me and forced me to develop my playing skills. I was never overly upset when he beat me and I grew to seriously respect him. I studied my battles against him and worked on anti-Yodin strategies. When I began to defeat him from time to time, I knew I was on the right path. Yodin is one of my heroes in the game and I bow my head when he and his team win against me. I can’t say the same for some of his counterparts and other big shot monsters.
Enter Supersummoners and Supermonsters
I was amazed at how much Waka was priced when he first appeared. I had no idea how to beat his poison attacks and have loathed him ever since. I lost most fights against him and didn’t bother watching them. Nowadays, I beat him every now and then and celebrate these victories. I still don’t have a strategy against him and rather choose to ignore him.
Then came Lux Vega. I felt the same way about her, overpowering and overpriced. I didn’t like the idea of a neutral summoner at such a high price. Like with Waka, I don’t bother with working out a specific strategy. I prefer to rely simply on putting together a strong team and seeing how I go. I cherish those few moments when I come out winning against her.
So when Runis came out, they took the cake. I started seriously disliking what was going on in the game and was actually close to quitting Splinterlands. I stuck with it though and the fact that battles against Runis are few and far between, I calmed down again. I haven’t changed my attitude towards these supermonsters yet love it when I beat the crap out of them.
How to kill supermonsters
I am not really the type of player who closely monitors the last 5 battles of my opponent but it does help to prepare that way, especially with these obnoxious candidates lurking around. Sometimes, I can anticipate them coming but most of the time they catch me unaware.
I have three battles that I want to show you today. In most cases I don't know what summoners I was going to face, except for Vera as an obvious neutral pick, so my analyses are generally postmortem. Let’s look at what it was that beat them.
Battling Waka Spiritblade
In this battle the rulesets are wands out and target practice with a mana cap of 33:
I wasn’t prepared to encounter Waka but I made sure to field a void armour monster in first position. I then filled the rest of the team with life leech monsters and snipers. It didn’t look good during the first round but then my luck changed with several well directed snipe attacks and life leech worked well during the second round. Djinn Muirat held his position well and I was able to scrape in a win. This battle shows, that a worthwhile strategy against Waka is to use snipers. It was a ruleset but I had 2 snipers there to start with anyway. Bringing a stun monster like the revealer is also a good idea, because Waka cannot spit poison when his monster is not able to shoot. I was fortunate to win this battle against a level 3 Waka and enjoyed watching him sink!
Battling Lux Vega
In this battle I anticipated Lux, because it was obvious from the 5 most recent battles of my opponent, that he had a neutral summoner. There are three rulesets: explosive weaponry, broken arrows and weak magic. The mana cap is 27:
My strongest deck is the purple deck, so I went for Thaddius Brood. In an explosive weaponry ruleset, I automatically play defensive with a taunt and reflection shield. With 10 mana left, I wanted to fill the last 4 spots with at least 2 stealth monsters to spread the explosions. I put in 2 fast shooters and a poison to try and outrun Lux, which actually worked out quite well. I had a good start with Coeurl Lurker collecting 2 misses to begin with and again 2 in round 2. This basically tipped the scales immediately. I find dodge a very effective weapon against any opponent, including Lux Vega. In this battle, I concentrated on the explosive weaponry and not on my arch enemy herself.
Battling Runi
Runis are unpredictable, but not as mighty as they seem. They can be a formidable enemy but also easy pickings at times. In this battle I had to deal with both Lux Vega and a Runi in one battle. Winning it is why I am writing this post. I immensely enjoyed burning 2 of these savages in one go. Again, I was able to anticipate the possibility of Lux entering but I had no idea there was a Runi to follow. In this battle there are three rulesets: fire and forget, aimless and even stevens. The mana cap is 41:
Again I went for my strongest deck and fielded an all magic team. I piled in abilities, like heal, silence, stun, snipe and poison to give it my best shot to wipe out a Lux gang. I also made sure I had the fastest possible line-up to counter Lux’s speed buff. My magic line-up was meant to outmanoeuvre shield. I was anxious to see how this would work, especially as there was a Runi lurking around and one of those new weapons trainers.
I was fortunate to wipe out the weapons trainer in the first round and landed an important stun. The Runi wasted one of my monsters immediately. Round 2 was even, the Runi got himself another scalp but round 3 did most of the damage to my opponent. The Runi lasted till round 5, rebirthed but departed again soon after. I think I had a good dose of luck in this battle, greatly aided by the aimless ruleset. I relished the demise of my favourite hate monster.
Why do I hate Runis & co?
Well, actually I don’t hate them, I just have no respect for them and I think this is the secret when facing them. I concentrate on putting together well balanced teams and exploiting the benefits or dangers/limits provided by the rulesets. All three battles I have studied today show that going out into the field confidently can give you a competitive edge. Of course, luck plays a role and sometimes I also have the impression that opponents playing these cards are focused too much on their primary weapon and tend to neglect the rest of their line-ups. I guess this would be a different story in Diamond League and above, but for now I just love to hate Runis & Co and finding ways to make them turn to dust.
