Prelude
Hi all, good day to all of you. It's time again for Community Engagement Challenge. For today, the challenge will be a little tougher for people like whom do not have a big card collection. But nevertheless, I will do my best to do a good post to share with the community on the topic designated for this week's challenge. Today we will talk about tactics summoners.
Tactics Summoners? What Are They? Who Are They?
With the arrival of Rebellion set, a new kind of summoners have taken the field with the ability to make changes to the whole battle after selection. So whenever such summoners are being fielded, a tactics selection screen will appear after lineup had been selected.
So above gives the whole collection of available Tactics summoners whom come with a whole deal of buffs, debuffs, abilities or even stats. Many of which when deployed correctly can make a seemingly impossible match a walk in the park.
When To Use Them?
These summoners because of their ability to alter game outcomes, will come at higher mana than most usual summoners.
So key considerations will be:
- Mana cap of match
- Ruleset of match
- Compatibility of buff/debuff/stat boost or ability on selected card after tactics applied with ruleset.
- Team benefit must be considered, one outstanding card with support from rest of team might not win you the game.
For me, this will be the 3 most basic consideration as we do not want to end up having the boost not compatible or end up compromising the selection of the lineup. To choose such summoners, you must ensure it give you the biggest value to win the match.
So remember, after consideration the above in your lineup selection, it's time deploy the tactics. Do pay attention to the number below the tactic selection, it tells us how many cards can get the tactics activated on the. Some of them have different numbers for different option so do take note of them.
Ambush Round
This is where cards that have ambush do their thing by striking first. It is important to predict if there will be ambush coming your way. Imagine you pick a card to be buffed but destroyed during ambush round, then it is a super big concern. So do go with a balanced team and do not put all your eggs in one basket. With ambush becoming more and more prevalent, prepare your lineup to either withstand it or let martyr cards sacrifice right at the start. Other options include things like choosing battle tactic summoner that also have global boost.
Buff and Debuffs
Now that we know how to handle the ambush round, next is to know what do we want to do with the tactics on buffing or debuffing. Let's discuss a little.
When playing a melee only match, it makes loads of sense to use Eternal Tofu, the new Mylor Crowling in modern. It has a global thorns and give triage and scavenge to 1 other card. In heavy melee match, the additional triage can do you a super big favour.
There are so many ways to play, Lorkus give magic buff but also give affliction which is fantastic against those folks whom heals forever. Otherwise, the other pair for Lorkus is crazy
where you can give fury and faster knock out those taunt cards to reach the other cards your opponent fielded.
Avina the Wolf when running a combo with Drybone Barbarian is awesome too as it can easily smash any frontline and clear path to backline to grab a victory.
Be it buff or debuff, the key is to see what in your lineup can gain you the most by giving it the buff/debuff/ability. In 5 mana group, Nomos is something that most magic attackers do not want to see. With Nomos and Tusk The Wide, it makes a very good combi to weaken any form of magic attack.
Counters
More and more tactics summoners are seen since they are able to change battle outcomes.
In today's context, I see the following summoners very often.
5 mana group:
Underboss Fabino
Avina
Akane
7 mana group:
Eternal Tofu
Elias
Lorkus
And I will be showing snippets from a battle that I had in the past where I went head to head with Akane, which is not the easiest opponent to handle.
Reference Battle
Battle Link: https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_ef69509b6be8edcd1bec9d202dea684d
Ruleset: Melee Mayhem
Mana Limit: 36
This is a match where a strong lineup is further enhanced by Akane whom gave Agor Longtail and Halfing Refugee additional boost by giving them ambush. Handling a double attacker and another big hitter right before the game start is no easy fare. If I didn't prepare a good tank with nice speed in Oshannus, I probably been fried big time at the end of the ambush phase.
First counter: Good tank to withstand ambush
Coastal Sentry was in charge of doing damage dealing together with Nerissa, they hit hard and clear off opponent cards fast.
2nd counter: Withstand the first blow and return the favour with our own hard hitting cards.
With this 2 counters in place, we manage to overturn the advantage from my opponent where they had 2 big cards striking at ambush phase. Though not easy, it is still possible to win against tactic summoner when you predict and field a good lineup.
Wrap Up
Tactics summoners are really strong and they add some much possibilities and unknowns to make it tough for opponents to guess their strategy. We should capitalize on them and learn how to manoeuvre them well so that we can gain substantial advantage to handle tough rulesets or even use the debuff to help take down tough cards in opponent lineup that can prevent you from winning. How many tactics summoner do you have right now? Share with me in the comments and see you on the battlefield!
I am currently part of PIZZA, an active gaming and creative arts crypto community on the HIVE blockchain and part of PIZZA guild. Popular cryto games such as SPLINTERLANDS, RISING STAR and HASHKINGS are actively discussed in this community.
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Till my next battle sharing, take care, stay safe and happy battling!
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