This weeks Battle Mage Challenge is about the Back to Basics rule.
Splinterlands tells us the following about the Back to Basics rule:
Units lose all abilities.
Summoner effects are still active (IE: Yodin Zaku).
Back to Basics means that all abilities except those provided by Summoners are removed. This means that in general the matches are extremely straightforward and involve placing your units in the armor that the highest damage, most fragile, units will be in the back, and the lowest damage/tankiest units are in the front.
Depending on the rule combination, there can be other considerations aswell, but in general this is the strategy to follow for Back to Basics matches.
Magic attack is the go-to attack type in this mode. This is because magic units can attack from both range and the frontline position, in contrast to the other two attack types.
For this reason, we want to make summoner choices that add or remove magic damage. This can be achieved directly by +- magic stat summoners, the summoners that provide Void, and Grandmaster Rathe who gives Void Armor.
Incompatible Rules
Back to Basics is incompatible with Fog of War, Healed Out, Heavy Hitters, Stampede and Ferocity.
Desirable Abilities
Monsters have no abilities in this ruleset, so there is no abilities to look for on monster cards. Summoners abilities are in play an in general any ability granted by a summoner is very valuable in this rule.
Advantaged Summoners
These four summoners grant very powerful abilities to their monsters, and are great for the Back to Basics rule. The untamed summoners are now Wild only, so Immortalis is clearly the choice for Modern ranked play. His Void and Shatter are definitely great abilities for the Back to Basics rule.
Desirable Monsters
In general, Back to Basics favors magic attack monsters because they are able to attack from range and from the frontline position. In addition to that, it is important to place a beefy tank monster up front.
Disadvantaged Monsters
Melee monsters, and in particular those that have Sneak, Opportunity and Reach, are at a major disadvantage here. They are generally given poorer stats than melee monsters without abilities that allow them to attack from anywhere. Since all abilities are removed in this mode, the lost stats make them pretty useless.
My Battle : Back to Basics battle
My battle had the following configuration: Wild Diamond league. 43 mana, rules: Back to Basics, Even Stevens, Armored Up. Splinters: Death, Water, Dragon, Earth, Fire.
We have a Back to Basics match where we are further encouraged to play magic attackers due to the Armored Up rule. For this reason I default to using Immortalis, as he provides great protection against magic, and even gives Shatter to remove that bonus armor if I want to go for a melee or ranged attacker.
My Lineup
My lineup consists of the largest tank I could find in my set of available cards, followed by the strongest magic attackers ordered in a way that I thought would give the most damage output over the coarse of the battle. I ended up including a Xenith Archer in my backline because I had two leftover mana. Because of the Shatter, it is likely to be effective even if this match features the Armored Up rule.
Opponent's Lineup
My opponent went for Bortus along with a double tank setup and then a set of magic attackers. Bortus' -1 magic is good for the Back to Basics rule, but we will see if its strong enough to combat Immortalis.
Battle progress and Result
Back to Basics matches are very simple since there are few, if any, abilities in play. Fortunately for me, my opponent had placed a Diemonshark in front. The reason that this is good is that it is a unit that relies on its armor to tank hits. In my case, my fastest unit is a magic attacker, and it has Shatter since I played Immortalis. So its armor is gone from the first strike, and my Terraceous Grunt and Xenith Archer can deal damage directly to its health. Round one proceeds with my Terraceous Grunt soaking up a lot of magic damage with his quite bulky health pool, strongly aided by Void. My units are able to take down the Diemonshark, and begin dealing with the beefy Baakjira.
When we get to round 2, the state of the game is like this:
In round two, I lose my Terraceous Grunt, but I am also able to take down the Baakjira. My next unit in line to tank is the Goblin Psychic, and my Opponent has Djinn Oshannus. Again, Void gives me great protection against his all-magic lineup.
In round three, my Goblin Psychic dies, and Lord Thalanor takes on the tank role. I am almost able to take down the Djinn Oshannus, but he lives to round 4 with 1 health.
In Round 4, both Djinn Oshannus and River Nymph dies, while my Lord Thalanor is now the one left standing with one health.
Finally, round 5 and 6 are easy enough to see that will go my way.
As expected, the Back to Basics match is all about the magic damage and ways to reduce it, along with potentially a non-magic tank and perhaps a single ranged unit in the back. While Bortus is a decent choice for Back to Basics matches, he can hardly compete with Immortalis.
Alternative lineups
Yodin Zaku
Valnamor
Immortalis (ranged based)
Thaddius Brood
I hope you found this post interesting. If you did, you might also enjoy my other content.
Battle mage challenges
Battle Mage Challenge: Armored Up
Battle Mage Challenge: Aimless
Battle Mage Challenge: Aim True
Battle Mage Challenge: Rise of the Commons
Battle Mage Challenge: Weak Magic
Battle Mage Challenge: Up to Eleven
Battle Mage Challenge: Up Close & Personal
Battle Mage Challenge: Unprotected
Battle Mage Challenge: Target Practice
Battle Mage Challenge: Taking Sides
Battle Mage Challenge: Super Sneak
If you would like to see more of this content, please let me know, like and share the post. Also, if you have not yet started playing Splinterlands, you can join and support me and the same time with the following link
Best of luck in Splinterlands!
Kalkulus