This week's Battle Mage Challenge is about the Holy Protection rule.
Splinterlands has the following to say about this rule:
All units gain the Divine Shield ability which reduces the damage of the first attack received to 0.
- Divine Shield will be re-applied when a unit is Resurrected.
- Blast damage will remove Divine Shield.
Ok, so every unit gains Divine Shield. This has several implications. Firstly, this tells us that it is of enormous value to fill out all six monster slots in our team. Without doing that, we lose out on a lot of survivability. Secondly, scattered damage is very ineffective. Thirdly, any unit with armor now takes at least three melee or ranged hits (disregarding Piercing) before going down. Focused magic damage is therefore a strong strategy in this rule. Blast, like Splinterlands tells us, is good for taking down divine shields. This is because the blast damage is usually not that high, and is therefore not wasteful when hitting a Divine Shield.
Incompatible rules
Holy Protection is compatible with all rules.
Desirable abilities
(Blast, Redemption, Resurrect, Rebirth)
Blast can clear multiple Divine Shields at once without wasting too much damage. Redemption is even better at this, but it requires the Redemption monster to die right away, which can be tricky. Nevertheless, Redemption will often clear a few of them, so its well worth including. Resurrect and Rebirth doubles the value of the rule for one monster, since Divine Shield will be reactivated when a monster is resurrected.
Advantaged summoners
These three have an advantage in this rule because they have provide one of the abilities discussed above. Yodin Zaku probably enjoys this rule the most, since all his units can blast their way through the divine shields. All summoners who provide armor are also slightly at an advantage in this rule.
Disadvantaged summoners
Lorna has no effect in this rule, and is therefore the least attractive summoner to play. Scarred LLama Mage doesn't actually suffer, but since Llama strategies often involve playing a single monster in relatively low mana matches, it doesn't match well with the rule. In Holy Protection, its beneficial to play as many monsters as possible. Finally, Skargore actually wants her units to take damage so that they become enraged. That takes longer in Holy Protection. Again, its not a direct disadvantage, it just doesn't fit well with the play style.
Desirable monsters
Disadvantaged monsters
My Battle: Holy Protection battle
My battle had the following configuration: 49 mana, Modern Diamond league, ruleset: Holy Protection, What Doesn't Kill You, and Close Range. Fire, Earth, Life and Death available.
This is a high-mana game, which generally favors magic setups. Ranged setups are also quite good, especially with the Close Range rule. I'm not particularly concerned about melee-based matchups here, but we cant discount them completely either (mainly concerned about some melee Jacek team, particularly with a Coeurl Lurker tank). What doesn't kill you does make melee teams more attractive, but I don't see people using that rule to its full potential too often.
My lineup
I decided to go for Immortalis due to the high likelyhood of facing magic teams. I put Regal Peryton frontline to shut down any slow-medium speed melee attack frontline+reach combo (when the Peryton enrages its nearly impossible to hit). The rest of the lineup was a pretty standard Immortalis setup. I went for double triage because it fit well with the mana after I had included Mycelic Slipspawn and Runemancer Florre.
Opponent's lineup
My opponent also expected magic, and went for Grandmaster Rathe with a Taunt+ double Triage combo, as well as a Forcefield unit frontline. That would have been great if I had a melee frontline, because with enrage it would certainly go above 5 damage. They also included a Pelacor Arbalest as the main source of damage. Pretty solid lineup, but it wont match well against mine because it is heavily based on magic damage.
Battle Progress and Result
I'm very confident going into this match because I have one major advantage: the affliction that Goblin Psychic provides. Without it, we're just gonna get stuck with full health Taunts and healed/repaired frontlines, and fatigue would decide the game. But since I have affliction, I will be able to take down the Iziar eventually.
I hit the affliction at the end of round 3, and in round 4 we have the following situation:
The Iziar goes down the first time in round 5, is resurrected and dies again in round 7. In round 8 I can start tearing down the rest of the team. In the beginning of round 9 we have reached this state:
And after two hits in round 10 the match is over. A complete domination, all due to that single ability: Affliction.
Alternative teams
Conqueror Jacek
Astral Entity
Lux Vega (life)
Grandmaster Rathe
Final words
I hope you found this post interesting. If you did, you might also enjoy my other content:
Battle mage challenges
Battle Mage Challenge: Healed Out
Battle Mage Challenge: Going the Distance
Battle Mage Challenge: Ferocity
Battle Mage Challenge: Fog of War
Battle Mage Challenge: Fire & Regret
Battle Mage Challenge: Explosive weaponry
Game system analysis
Optimizing Soulbound card farming
A problem with the staked-SPS reward system
Card usage statistics
Card popularity in Modern Bronze League, Summoners, Gladiuses, Souldbound cards
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Best of luck in Splinterlands!
Kalkulus