This Splinterlands Social Media challenge post features a battle with the Super Sneak ruleset! Before we get into the battle, a few words about Super Sneak. Super Sneak gives all of the melee monsters in the battle the Sneak ability. This means that any melee monster in a lineup will attack the back monster on the enemy team, other than the front monster which still attacks the opposing front position. As a result, melee monster use and positioning is quite a bit different from what you may see in normal fights. For today's battle in particular, we'll show the importance of predicting how the battle will progress, and placing your monsters in the proper order to account for that.
As you may guess, melee monsters are a big winner in Super Sneak battles. Sneak allows melee monsters to attack from any position in a lineup, rather than just the front. Melee monsters tend to have more stats for their cost, so Super Sneak battles are likely to see more melee attackers than usual since they effectively get a "discount". This leads to the second category of winners - more melee monsters means that anti-melee cards are also great in Super Sneak. Monsters with Shield, Thorns, or other anti-melee abilities could be just what you are looking for in these fights!
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 - of course, we have the Super Sneak rule, which gives every melee monster the Sneak ability. To go along with it we also have Born Again, which grants all monsters Rebirth. Finally, we have a pretty low mana cap of just 13, and can choose between the Fire, Earth, Live, and Dragon splinters.
While we have multiple good options for constructing a strong low mana team, I decided to do with an Earth team for this battle. Obsidian is great in low mana, costing just 4 mana to use in battle. Obsidian also gives us a buff to magic damage, which I plan on taking advantage of with my monsters.
I led off my team with Hill Giant. With mana at a premium, my goal is to be as cost effective as possible. Hill Giant offers plenty of bulk, with 8 health for just 3 mana. 2 melee damage and speed to go along with it is not bad at all either.
Up next was Venari Marksrat. Venari Marksrat has a bit of ranged damage, but the main reason for putting him in the lineup is his Martyr ability. Martyr means that adjacent monsters will gain some stats when the unit with the ability dies, and my plan for this battle was to position Venari Marksrat in a spot where he would be the first monster to get knocked out of the fight. My last monster had Camouflage, so Venari Marksrat is first in line for any Sneak attacks coming from the enemy team.
As I just mentioned, my last monster had Camouflage. Djinn Biljka also packs 2 magic damage and the Void ability, which is great for just 3 mana. My hope was that Venari Marksrat would die twice thanks to Rebirth, giving Djinn Biljka a double Martyr boost and bumping its attack up to 5 once Obsidian's magic buff is added in.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am a little disappointed - with the enemy team's lineup it looks as though I won't be getting full use out of my Martyr ability. While Djinn Bilkja should still get that double buff, my opponent's lineup looks to be dealing more damage to the front of my team, which means that Hill Giant may die before being able to similarly get those double boosted Martyr stats.
The battle doesn't progress particularly quickly, but by the beginning of round 3 things are beginning to fall into place. My Marksrat and Hill Giant have both already died once, and come back thanks to Rebirth. On the other side of the battlefield the enemy Regal Peryton has been knocked out of the battle for good, raking a significant potion of my opponent's damage out of the fight.
One round later and things are looking up - Djinn Bilkja looks well positioned finish off my opponent's Halfling Refugee, which should leave the enemy Marksrat stuck in the first position and unable to attack.
It took quite a couple more rounds, but by start of round 6 the battle was all but over. With the enemy Venari Marksrat standing alone at the front, it was just a matter of time before Djinn Biljka finished it off. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
While I wasn't able to get that elusive double-double Venari Marksrat Martyr buff, the battle overall went as I had hoped. Careful positioning of my monsters resulted in a powerful Djinn Bilkja which was more than strong enough to finish off the enemy team. This battle showed just how important that positioning is - especially with Super Sneak in play!
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:
Plan B - Battling with Deflection Shield! - A Splinterlands battle analysis, featuring Deflection Shield!
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.