This weeks Battle Mage Challenge is about the Taking Sides rule.

Splinterlands tells us the following about the Taking Sides rule:

No neutral units may be used.

Quite simply, neutral cards are not available in this rule. This makes it harder to double down on specific attack targeting strategies (sneak or opportunity) and also more difficult to set up very strong sustain lineups. The rule favors mixed setups, and often enough, they will tend to target the frontline unit. Apart from that, the other rules of the match will often be more important for deciding the best strategies for the match.

There are 68 neutral cards that are excluded in this rule. Of these, 45 are in the current modern set.

Rarity	Number (total)	Number (modern)
Common	26	16
Rare	16	9
Epic	12	9
Legendary	14	11

Even though Lux Vega is a neutral card, she is still available in the Taking Sides rule.

The excluded cards are:

Incompatible Rules

Taking Sides is compatible with all other rules.

Advantaged Summoners

Dragon summoners have more cards to choose from than the other summoners, and that makes a larger difference in the Taking Sides rule than in other matches.

My Battle : Taking Sides battle

My battle had the following configuration: Wild Diamond league. 32 mana, rules: Taking Sides, Aim True, Reverse Speed. Splinters: Death, Earth, Fire.

Reverse Speed and Aim True are a great combination for the Fire splinter. It has plenty of slow and tanky monsters, and good melee-based summoners. Therefore fire is my preferred choice for this match.

My lineup

Opponent's lineup

Battle progress and Result

Initially, this looks pretty good for me. My tank has Void, which makes it so that it wont take much damage from the three magic attacking units my opponent has. However, the Mycelic infantry is a strong tank, and its Shield will help quite a bit against my attacks. My attacks are entirely predictable and frontline directed, while my opponent has a Scattershot and Opportunity, so their attacks might be directed elsewhere than my tank too.

In round one, my opponent has the speed advantage, and hits away at Tusk. However, he has a very high health pool, and is left standing relatively strong afterwards. The Scattershot hits and applies Poison to my Radiated Scorcher, and then the Venari Scout finishes it off. Afterwards, my ranged backline attacks the Mycelic Infantry, and brings it down to 2 health.

In round 2, my Tusk kills the Mycelic Infantry, and then tanks a bunch of magic attacks. The [Scattershot] hits my Molten Ash Golem, who also gets the Poison. Tusk tanks the hit from the Venari Scout. Finally, my Lava Launcher kills the Venari Scout and the Scavo Firebolt removes the armor from Queen Mycelia.

Now this looks very good for me. Tusk has the speed advantage, and kills Queen Mycelia and then the Protect is gone from the remaining units. Tusk tanks his final two magic attacks, and dies from the second one. The Scattershot hits the Molten Ash Golem again, and then my ranked backline kills both the Goblin Psychic and Acid Shooter.

In the final stages of the match, the Djinn Bilka takes a last desperate attack on the Scavo Chemist, but then the Molten Ash Golem delivers the final strike of the match, securing victory for me. Quite straightforward match, and my Tusk the Wide did a phenomenal job at tanking the opponent's attacks!

Alternative lineups

Yodin Zaku

Mylor Crowling

Tarsa

Immortalis

Astral Entity

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: Taking Sides. Strategy, My Battle and Alternative Lineups