This weeks Battle Mage Challenge is about the Reverse Speed rule.

Splinterlands tells us the following about the Reverse Speed rule:

Units with lower speeds will attack before units with higher speeds. Attack Accuracy based on speed will also be reversed.

    Units with the Bloodlust ability will increase speed after killing a unit.
    Avoid using Slow as this will help your opponent.

Units with lower speed attack first. Not only is the effect of speed reversed but so is the priority of attack type, rarity and card level. So the attack order algorithm becomes:

Lowest speed attack first.
   For monsters of equal speeds: Melee attack first, then ranged, then magic.
      For monsters of equal speed and same attack type: Lower rarity attack first.
         For monsters of equal speed, attack type and rarity: Lower level attacks first.
            For monsters of equal speed, attack type, rarity and level: Random order.

Attack order is one of the most important factors for deciding match outcome. In the current meta, speed is king, and therefore Reverse Speed makes for completely different matches than normal.

Incompatible Rules

Reverse Speed is compatible with all other rules.

Undesirable Abilities

( Swiftness, Slow )

Since Reverse Speed favor slower attack speeds, the two abilities that usually provide a speed advantage are now negative abilities.

Disadvantaged Summoners

These are all the summoners that provide increased speed to your team, or slow the opponent's team.

Disadvantaged Monsters

My Battle : Reverse Speed Battle

My battle had the following configuration. Modern Diamond League, 35 Mana. Rules: Reverse Speed, Odd Ones Out, and Ferocity. Life, Water and Dragon available.

Tough to know what to pick here. The ruleset doesn't really favor any particular splinter or provide much guidance to which attack types to favor. Usually, magic is pretty good in reverse speed, but the most commonly used magic monsters for these splinters are relatively high speed.

My lineup

I went for a Possibilus setup with most mana spend on the two frontline units. I went for double Demoralize since I know there are good sneak units available in Odd Ones Out. My other units were supportive monsters, with Tank Heal, Repair, Triage and Silence.

Opponent's lineup

My opponent also went for a water build with double Repair, but with Aquatus instead of Possibilus. They also went for a double sneak build, but with Pelacor Bandit being a high speed unit, that is not ideas for this setup, and it does not play well into my double Demoralize. All in all, I dont think this setup is particularly strong for this battle.

Battle progress and Result

I feel pretty good about this battle going into it. We both have support based teams, but they have split their damage among several targets, while all my damage is going to the fronline unit. In addition, I have a Retaliate unit frontline, which should be able to deal some extra damage. The Backfire that Aquatus provides does not have much of a chance to trigger here, since I mostly have the same or lower speed than his units

In round one, the melee frontlines start of by dealing their damage. I get lucky with the Retaliate, and it triggers twice. Then the Repair units do their work and recover some armor for both teams. Sadly for me, Uraeus applies Poison to my Swamp Spitter, and the Angelic Mandarin misses its his, and takes return damage from Backfire.

Round two is relatively unevenful. The units attack and land their hits, except for Uraeus who misses the Swamp Spitter this time.

Round 3 proceeds much the same as in Round 2, but this time the Uraeus lands its hit while the Pelacor Bandit misses. These rounds are proceeding in my favor since the enemys Legionnaire Alvar keeps getting lower and lower.

In round 4, Alvar is a one health. Since the Disintegrator has the speed advantage, it attacks and proceeds to Trample onto the Junker. Next, my Alvar finishes the Junker, and Trample lets him delete the Chaos Agent too. So now half my opponent's team is gone, and its looking very good for me. Together, my Swamp Spitter and Angelic Mandarin take down the Pelacor Bandit, while my Swamp Spitter keeps tanking the Sneak hits before being healed back up by Triage.

Now, there is no chance that I can lose this match any longer. It still takes two rounds to end the game because of the armor on both remaining units.

In round 6, the final blows are delivered, and I can secure a victory in this tournament!

Alternate lineups

Quix the Devious

Grandmaster Rathe

Byzantine Kitty

Bortus

Lir Deepswimmer

I hope you found this post interesting. If you did, you might also enjoy my other content.

Battle mage challenges

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Best of luck in Splinterlands!
Kalkulus

Battle Mage Challenge: Reverse Speed. Strategy, My Battle and Alternative Lineups