This week's Battle Mage Secrets challenge features the Taking Sides ruleset! Taking Sides is a fairly straightforward ruleset - in Taking Sides battles, no neutral monsters are allowed. That's it, no abilities added or removed, or additional damage getting applied over the course of the battle. However, as you often see in Splinterlands games, removing some element of the game (such as, say, a category of monsters) will oftentimes give other monsters their chance to shine.
In Taking Sides, the winners and losers are pretty clear. Neutral monsters are all big losers since they are completely removed from the battle. This is actually a bit of an annoyance to me, since in an effort to focus on cost efficiency, I have invested heavily in my neutral monsters - in these battles, all of that investment is useless! On the other hand, every monster that belongs to a splinter faces less competition to be selected, and have a greater chance of seeing some play. This turns the normal order of things on its head, since under normal circumstances neutral monsters can be played in every game and it is the monsters belonging to a splinter that may be eliminated based on your summoner choice.
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!
Here are the rules for our battle. Naturally, we have Taking Sides, which makes neutral monsters ineligible for this battle. To go along with it we also have Super Sneak and Odd Ones Out, which will give all melee monsters the Sneak ability, and require every monster used in this fight to have an odd mana cost. The combination of Taking Sides and Odd Ones Out is interesting, as together they disqualify many monsters commonly used in play - for this fight we are going to have to empty the metaphorical benches! Finally, we have a medium high-ish mana cap of 36, and 3 splinters to choose from.
Looking at the splinters and my available summoners, Earth or Life are our best options. In this particular battle, Earth is likely to work better for us, since many of the powerful Life cards have an even mana cost and are therefore ineligible due to Odd Ones Out. So we'll go with Obsidian for our summoner choice. Obsidian is a solid summoner who will buff all of our magic attackers - and who doesn't love extra damage?
Pelacor Mercenary and Mycelic Slipspawn led off the lineup as my tank and secondary tank. Both of them have plenty of bulk, and Mycelic Slipspawn's Taunt ability means that it will attract any Sneak-y melee attacks, not to mention any ranged or magic monsters that our opponent may choose to bring into battle.
Up next were Fungus Flinger and Regal Peryton. Fungus Flinger pairs a modest attack with the very useful Martyr ability - whenever it leaves the battle, it will give my surrounding monsters a boost! Regal Peryton is an all-around champ - respectable magic attack, decent durability, and a sky-high 6 speed (not to mention Flying!).
We'll round out our team with as much damage as we can fit in. Venari Seedsmith and Djinn Biljka both have a good amount of damage. Venari Seedsmith has the potential to gain bulk over the course of the battle, while Djinn Biljka benefits from Obsidian's summoner buff, in addition to being able to bypass Sneak attacks thanks to its Camouflage ability.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am not sure what to think - my opponent has selected a potent team of melee attackers, which can benefit well from the Super Sneak ruleset. My lineup appears to have a modest bulk advantage, but the enemy monsters will be hitting rather hard, and it is a little unclear to me which team will be able to win the race and prevail.
In the first round of battle my monsters are able strike first. My lineup knocks out the enemy Pelacor Mercenary in short order, while my Mycelic Slipspawn takes heavy damage but is able to shield the rest of my team from harm.
One more round and the battlefield is beginning to clear up. The opposing Nectar Queen looms large on the enemy team, but my team has plenty of bulk and damage remaining.
By the beginning of round 4 the battle is all but decided. While that Nectar Queen is poised to take down my Fungus Flinger, there is no dodging the magic attacks from the rest of my team that will knock it out of the battle and seal my victory. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
My strategy for this battle worked out perfectly. While my opponent choose a well rounded team of monsters that worked well with the Super Sneak ruleset, my combination of bulky monsters and Obsidian-boosted magic attackers were more than they could handle. In an absence of neutral splinter monsters, a selection of Earth splinter cards were able to show off their stuff and bring home the win.
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:
Rebellion Sale Plans and Goals - My plans and goals as we approach the Rebellion release!
Shields Up - Battling with Super Sneak! - A Splinterlands battle analysis, featuring the Super Sneak ruleset!
Investing in a Changing Meta - Rebellion is Coming! - A few things to keep in mind as the Rebellion release approaches!
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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.