Preparation:
When preparing for a battle I always look at the rulesets first. This time there was only 1 rule: SUPER SNEAK. This ruleset gives every monster the sneak ability, what means that u can play a lot of melee monsters in your lineup. So I expected my oponnent to do the same.
For melee battles I love the water splinter. It has fast monsters and melee buffs. So I naturally gravitated towards Kelya Frendul. Then it was time to assemble a team that would perform well in this ruleset.
1st position:
In the first position I always look for a tank that can take a few hits. But because I expected a lot of melee attackers, I had less worry about the first position being taken out. The only thing I also took in considiration was that my opponent could go for a magic play. Because of that reason I chose Djinn Oshannus as my first position monster. As a kind of insurance u could say, a Djinn Insurance.
2nd Position:
For the second positions I came to a card that is one of the best support cards for water. River Hellondale gives all your melee monsters +1 attack and he also can ressurect the first monster that perishes on the battlefield. This would be a great choice for this ruleset. Gives my team attack power, while also supports the defense with the ressurect.
3rd Position:
The third position I wanted to give to a support monster. 1 that can support the defenses of my line up. Think about abilities like: repair, triage, tank heal, or protection. I saw my little friend Angelic Manderin who has the traige ability. He would be a good candidate to increase our defences.
4th Position:
Now it was time to send some melee monsters into battle! Water has lots of great options. Then I saw my old friend sitting in the corner. He called me over and asked me a question. "Do you know what is better than the inspire ability"? I said "tell me". And he replied "2 times the inspire ability"!
My old friend Demented Shark convinced me, so I assigned him to the fourth position.
5th Position:
Because I expected that my opponent would also play melee monsters, I wanted to use a monster with the demoralise ability. Demoralise gives the opponent's monsters a -1 melee debuff. Because I lack choices in monsters with that ability I chose the Disintegrator
6th Position
The final position should be a tanky monster with lots of armour. This way if he gets taken out first, River Hellondale will be able to ressurect him with all the armor. There is 1 fast, healthy, armoured melee monster that I love to use. It's Diemon Shark. High armour and fast speed make this card a melee beast. He is able to put out lots of damage when he is enraged and also dodge attacks with his high speed.
The Battle:
Once on the battlefield I noticed my oponnent had a strong first position tank in the Sea Monster. The Sea Monster is a tank with the heal ability. A great choice since he probably expected lots of melee attacks in the back, not in the front. The Giant Squid and Deeplurker are both good melee attackers so a good choice.He also choose to buff his melee attackers with the Demented Shark. He had a strong sneak attacker with 5 attack, the Sand Worm. He chose to put Djinn Oshannus in the back, that is also not a bad choice, because of the high health and speed.
The First Round:
In the first round my team performed exactly as planned. Diemon Shark took a lot of hits, that took away all of his armour. He did manage to dodge 1 attack, that was huge, because the Sandworm hit 5 damage against 2 armour.
We were very succesful in damaging his backline tank. That shouldn't hold out for much longer. A nice little detail here is, because of the super sneak ruleset, the opportunity ability of Deeplurker is overuled. That is good news for River Hellondale.
The Second Round:
In the second round we defeated Dinn Oshannus as expected. The enemy main tank Sea Monster was still relatively healthy. At least our first 3 monsters were slowly wearing him down.
Diemon Shark got enarged after the first hit, but sadly after that he didn't manage to dodge any attacks and he fainted. River Hellondale came to the rescue and revived his fallen companion. Now the angry shark was back with full armour ready to kick some ass again! He tanked another attack from the Sand Worm That was an unlikely hit, but the I guess the golden worm was on point today.
The Third Round:
In the third round our loyal Diemon Shark was able to dodge some attacks! That was necessary to keep him alive. Our Angelic Manderin got his first heal in on our backline. We managed to get rid of the Sand Worm which was a great relief for the team. The enemy Sea Monster did barely manage to survive, so I expected him to fall in the next round.
The Fourth Round:
In the fourth round our opponent managed to take Diemon Shark off the battlefield. He did a great job at keeping the enemy at bay, so I was okay with it. Now Disintegrator had to fill in the gap and take the backline hits. Finally River Hellondale took a final shot at Sea Monster. So no more self heals on the enemy front. It is starting to look like we have this one in the bag!
The Final Rounds:
In the final two rounds of the battle the enemy deperately tried to at least, take out 1 more of our forces. But we held on strong. Djinn Oshannus kept holding the frontline steady and it was too late for Deeplurker to do any big damage to our backline. GG!
Want to watch the battle in real time? Click on this link:https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_4043714193bed58f07a8e5de5e2ebc23&ref=eijffelbridge
Final Thoughts:
Did my stategy work?
I would definitely say yes! Everything worked out just as I planned! The only thing I was concerned about when submitting this team was, that I maybe should have switched Angelic Manderin with River Hellondale. In the end it didn't matter that much.
Why do you like River Hellondale?
I like River because of the support abilities. The inspire really ramps up the attack of an melee focused team. Really helpful in a lot of situations. The resurrection can be huge when it happens to a monster with a lot of armor, like the Diemon Shark
That's it for today. I hope u guys liked my share your battle post! Let me know what you think about the battle in the comments.
Link to join splinterlands: https://splinterlands.com?ref=eijffelbridge