In the spirit of the new weekly Battle Mage Secrets challenges, I would like to take a look at a Splinterlands battle with a particular focus on a ruleset. Our ruleset today is one that you may enjoy if you are a fan of long range combat. In fact, you can't even get in the door to today's battle unless you are packing something that can hit from far away. Today, we will be taking a look at a battle with the Going the Distance ruleset!
Battles with Going the Distance only allow the use of monsters with ranged attacks. Only have melee, magic, or no attack at all? Well, you're out of luck for this fight. While this is clearly a win for ranged attackers and a loss for non-ranged ones, there are also other slightly less obvious winners and losers. Monsters with dual attacks are extra useful in Going the Distance, since those are the only way you can get melee or magic damage into the fight. Several abilities also shine in battles heavy on ranged damage - Return Fire, Headwinds, and Protect are just a few that come to mind.
If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!
First up: the ruleset. As you can see, there is only a single ruleset. But is is a very impactful one! With Going the Distance in play, only monsters with ranged attacks are eligible to be selected, narrowing our options considerably. On the bright side, we do have plenty of mana to work with, as well as 4 different splinters to choose from.
Thanks to Going the Distance, we know that every monster on the battlefield will have a ranged attack. This makes Lir Deepswimmer an excellent choice for this battle. Lir's collection of summoner abilities buffing armor, giving all of our monsters Return Fire, and inflicting Blind on the enemy team is amazing against teams using a ranged attacking strategy. And with the rulesets in this battle we know that is exactly what will be happening!
I started my team with my tank and secondary tank. Of course, due to Going the Distance those "tanks" look slightly different from most battles. Wave Brood and Angelic Mandarin are both bulky for ranged attackers, which is exactly what I want from my front line tanks. Wave Brood even has Close Range, allowing it to attack from the front position. And let us not forget - both of these monsters will also be receiving some extra armor and Return Fire from Lir Deepswimmer.
Up next were a pair of solid ranged attackers. Kulu Swimhunter doesn't bring any standout attributes to the table, but packs a very respectable amount of stats for just 4 mana. Swamp Spitter is incredibly useful in this ruleset and with our summoner - we know that our opponent will be attacking with physical damage and all our monsters will have armor thanks to Lir, so Swamp Spitter has a very good chance of being able to do some serious Repairing.
We'll finish off our lineup with some more ranged damage - as if we had a choice! Axemaster is the hardest hitter in this lineup, hitting twice per turn for 2 damage a pop. Gargoya Devil pairs Flying and Close Range with some respectable ranged attacker stats. My hope was for these two to be able to sit at the back for the whole battle and never end up anywhere near the front, while pitching in as much damage as possible.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I feel pretty good about my chances - my opponent's team has significantly higher levels, as well as a few potentially annoying abilities. But my summoenr abilities should give my team a huge leg up in this battle, and my team's focus on a frontal assault should limit the impact of my opponent's Martyr and Triage monsters.
The battle begins, and my team's powerful combination of summoner abilities soon begin to pay off. By the start of the third round my Wave Brood is still standing strong at the front, while my attackers have already made significant progress and taken down the front two enemy monsters.
Another round in and the opposing team is on the brink of collapse. With two heavily damaged monsters in the front two positions thanks to my monster's attacks and Return Fire, things are looking great for my team.
By the start of round 5 the battle was all but over. The enemy Angelic Mandarin was unable to attack from the first position, which meant that it was a sitting duck. On the other side of the field, my team had not lost a single monster! And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
This battle showcased the power of having the right cards to counter a one dimensional strategy. Lir Deepswimmer is very close to being a hard counter to ranged attackers, and it certainly showed in this fight as my team was able to pull off a nearly flawless victory. Going the Distance battles may not have much strategic depth, but they certainly reward you for having the right cards and playing them at the right time.
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:
Never Tell Me The Odds - Battling with Even Stevens! - A Splinterlands battle analysis, featuring Even Stevens!
Splinterlands Economics: Causation - A look at causation, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
Splinterlands Economics: Ceteris Paribus - An introduction to the concept of Ceteris Paribus, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
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All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.