Battlemage Secrets: Equalizer

Greeting Battlemages!


The ruleset: Equalizer

Under the equalizer ruleset, all units have the same health, based on the highest health of the monster on the battlefield.

Under this ruleset, you would want to saturate the lineup as much as possible: even low mana monsters will go a long way with high Health!
As a consequence also, Life Leech and healing are very powerful. You would want to maximize the use of all that Health, be it with Heal, Tank Heal or Triage.
My splinters of choice to use with Equalizer are:

  • Earth: with Obsidian, Goblin Psychic, and plenty of low mana magic monsters
  • Death: with Life Sapper, Venari Bonesmith, particularly good in low mana matches
  • Life: with General Sloan and the duo Pelacor Arbalest with Venari Cristalsmith is particularly powerful

That's the usual setup, but we all know that the tricks of Splinterlands often forces us to adapt our strategy!


The battle

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sm_9bU67wSrD9PgUb1Z4XoN&ref=engilhramn

The battle is actually a Brawl, played with Modern Novice fray. It is opened to Fire, Life and Health. The mana cap is 29 and the rulesets are:

  • Earthquake: non-flying monsters take 2 melee damages every turn
  • Armored Up: all mmonsters have an additionnal 2 Armor
  • and of course Equalizer

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The lineup

And that Earthquake changes it all! Can't go the usual way, have to improvise!
I feel like the Earthquake kind of negate the Equalizer, because of the damage dealt every turn, so I had to come up with a new strategy.
So Flying monsters with low Health? Ever-Hungry Skull of course! Let's go Death!

Summoner: Thaddius Brood, the -1 to ennemy Health already gives a little edge

First position: Pelacor Deceiver, a very cost effective flying tank
Second position: Ever Hungry Skull, second tank heavily armored!
Third position: Venari Marksrat, if I can't put only flying monsters, at least its death will bring something
Fourth position: Witch of Warwick, Life Leech and Bloodlust, that might be interesting
Last position: Gargoya Devil, for the Close Up finish if need be

The idea was to absorb damages with the two tanks, make use of the Life Leech of the Witch to gain more time and finish with the Gargoya.

The opponent chose a Life team under Franz Rufmane.
True that Life have great flying monsters, such as Pelacor Conjurer, Flying Harpie and War Pegasus. A Gargoya Devil is in second position, the gladius card used is the ranged Ajax Lightfoot and a Soul Fiend closes the lineup.

Round 1

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Not much happened during the first round. We both focus on attacking the frontline. The Flying Harpie has indeed the Opportunity ability, but in Equalizer ruleset it usually goes front.

Round 2

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Both our tanks have fallen, mine first, but my monsters are so slow I could slip in more damages by the end of the round.

Round 3

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Ah! The huge Armor of Ever Hungry Skull! Scattered by the War Pegasus! There goes the advantage I was counting on!

Round 4

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The two secondary tanks have fallen too. I'm left with only one flying monster against two. It doesn't look good and I see myself losing.

Round 5

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And Ajax Lightfoot gets a kill and Bloodlust! Really not looking good, but at least the Witch of Warwick can benefit from Martyr and will now leech 2 points of Health every turn, compensating the loss due to the Earthquake.

Round 6

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The Witch went down to 1 point of Health! Hopefully it was her turn to attack and triggered Life Leech and Bloodlust from killing the Flying Harpie.
Even nicer, she gained 1 Armor, just enough to take the Earthquake damages!

Round 7

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The Witch surviving the assault was the turning point of the match. For just 1 Health. Now Ajax won't last long, and War Pegasus doesn't have Close Range, so my Gargoya Devil should be able to close the match by himself.
But there's not even need to! Thanks to her Life Leech, the Witch of Warwick proudly stood till the end, with still pretty decent Health. Not bad while taking 2 damages every turn!

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Takeaway

I was right in my intuition that Earthquake somehow negated Equalizer. So I didn't looked to play 6 monsters but went for average cost and utility, even if I played 1 monster less.

The biggest mistake of my opponent was to place Gargoya Devil in second position. With its Close Range, he wants to be last here. I prefer a War Pegasus in first position with a Gargoya Devil behind, not attacking but only serving as punching ball, than the contrary. At the opposite, the Fiend in last position was just useless.

That being said, see you on the Battlefield!



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