This week's Battle Mage Secrets challenge features the What Doesn't Kill You ruleset! What Doesn't Kill You may be a rule that you enjoy if you like a good old fashioned slugfest, or if you like to get a little angry. That's right, in battles with What Doesn't Kill You, there is quite a bit of Enrage - so you may end up with a fight that's a little madder and louder than you would see normally.
As I just mentioned, all the monsters in What Doesn't Kill You battles receive Enrage. This means that if a monster has taken damage, then they will have a boosted melee attack and speed (a 50% boost, to be exact). The primary monsters that benefit from this are the bulky monsters that can take a a hit or two and still be standing - after all, you want them to be able to stick around to take advantage of those boosted stats after getting damaged, instead of being instantly killed. Melee monsters gwwt multiple benefits from Enrage, since they benefit from both additional speed AND attack - other monsters will merely get the extra speed.
And while it doesn't come into play in today's battle, it is also worth mentioning the tricky case of monsters with Cripple - while they don't benefit themselves from What Doesn't Kill You, they CAN help to deny an Enrage bonus from an enemy monster since a monster which is damaged and then later has its health reduced is still considered "undamaged" if its current health is equal to its maximum.
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. First up is What Doesn't Kill You, which is our featured ruleset today and gives monsters Enrage. To go along with it we also have Super Sneak and Taking Sides, which will give all melee monsters Sneak, and also make all neutral splinter monsters ineligible for selection. We also have a medium mana cap of 28, and 3 splinters to choose from. Oh! And I should also mention - this battle was from a Gold Foil tournament, which means that card selection is a bit more limited than it would be normally.
When I saw these rules, the first thing that jumped out to me was that between What Doesn't Kill You and Super Sneak, melee monsters are very likely to be used in this battle. The second thought occurred to me was that there was an incredibly powerful melee monster in the Earth splinter that I could potentially use in this battle. We'll get to that monster in a second, but for now let's just say that this meant using Lobb Lowland as our summoner. Lobb has a generally useful speed debuff to the opposing team, and also allows us to use a Gladius card in our lineup.
The melee monster I had in mind was the very first one I put in my lineup - Quora Towershead. Quora is stupidly powerful, and I had the good fortune to have pulled a gold foil copy out of one of my Gladius cases. Her combination of Bloodlust and Heal results in a durable monster that can quickly snowball if she gets a kill or two. And with dual melee and magic attacks, that happens fairly often! In the first spot Quora won't be able to take advantage of Super Sneak this battle, but instead she can serve as my front line tank as well as deal heavy damage to whatever unfortunate monster in at the front of the enemy team.
What's better than a tanky monster with healing? Why, a tanky monster with double healing! Goblin Psychic was in my second spot as support for Quora. With the combination of Goblin Psychic's Tank Heal and Quora's own Heal ability, this meant that Quora would be recovering an impressive 8 health per turn. Oh, and that's not to forget that Goblin Psychic is also contributing to my team's damage output with 2 magic damage per turn.
With a fairly robust monster combination at the front, I dedicated the rest of my mana towards making my team difficult to attack from that back - let us not forget, this is also a Super Sneak battle! Mycelic Morphoid's Thorns ability could deal a bit of damage to an enemy melee attacker, and Regal Peryton is a relatively difficult target to hit with its 6 speed and Flying.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am not entirely sure how the battle is going to play out. I certainly like the matchup at the front - Quora against Mycelic Infantry is likely to end favorably for me in a vacuum. But the back is another story - the enemy Venari Knifer is going to win the Sneak damage battle, and my opponent has brought their own Goblin Psychic for front line healing. This battle is going to come down to whether Quora can get a Bloodlust buff or two off before my back line gets knocked out of the fight.
The first couple of rounds go (as predicted) rather poorly for my team. By the start of round 3, I have lost my Mycelic Morphoid and Regal Peryton, and even my Goblin Psychic has taken damage. There is a bright spot though - the attacks have lined up properly for me, and Quora is poised to take down my opponent's Mycelic Infantry and earn her first Bloodlust buff.
One more round and things are looking up. Quora has gained not just one, but TWO buffs from Bloodlust. She has also taken quite a bit of damage, but thanks to her speed advantage (thanks, Enrage!) she'll be able to recover out of harm's way well before any enemy attacks get the chance to land.
By the start of round 5 the battle was just about over. Quora was sitting three Bloodlust buffs, which combined with What Doesn't Kill You's Enrage meant that she was hitting for 5 magic and 8 melee damage per turn and had an eye-popping 9 speed. As you can tell from the battlefield situation, the enemy monsters didn't stand a chance. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
In this battle my Quora strategy ended up taking the victory. But it was actually closer than it seemed - my opponent's monsters got awfully close to knocking Quora out of the fight before she started snowballing with her Bloodlust buffs, and if that had happened then it would have been a quick and forgettable loss. Instead, Quora got the kills she wanted and ended up (kind of) singlehandedly sweeping through the enemy lineup.
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:
Queen of the Brawl - Battling with Back to Basics! - A Splinterlands battle analysis, featuring Back to Basics!
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.