Hello, splinter-folks. I hope you all are doing well.
Today, I will share a battle from a few seasons earlier from the Gold Leagues in which I faced off against a player with an equal monster level and a well-thought-out deck. Of course, the better strategist won.
Without further ado, let's begin.
Battle Conditions
The mana cap is 43 and there are 2 summoners to choose from: Nature and Death.
Battle Rules:-
- Rise Of The Commons: You can only summoner rare and common units.
- Tis But Scratches: All units have cripple(-1 HP to target's max health after a successful hit; does not affect monsters with immunity).
- Counterspell: All units have the magic effect ability(returns 50% of magic damage back to the caster, rounded up).
Keeping the huge mana cap in mind, I was sure to have a battle where tanky monsters would be in play and I also had to use the best monsters in my arsenal. All those requirements were met by the death summoner, in addition to the debuffs the monster level is quite high and worthy to be in the gold leagues.
Battle Details
Let's start from my side:
Summoner: Thaddius Brood(Ability: Decrease in HP and Magic Damage for all enemy units).(Level 5)
Tank: Cursed Windeku(Ability: Thorns, Self-heal).
Melee Attackers: Arachne Thug(Ability: Reach, Trample), Silent Sha-vi(Ability: Sneak, Cripple).
Ranged Attackers: Queen Of Crows(Ability: Close Range), Dhampir Stalker(Ability: True Strike, Deathblow).
Magic Attacker: Venari Bonesmith(Ability: Life Leech, Poison).
My strategy was to have high damage from the front while slowly chipping at the back of his deck. That way, should he use ranged attackers or healers at the back, they would be taken care of. My deck had a tank that could self-heal, that way, it was sure to survive at least a few rounds, and with the Stalker huge damage was guaranteed. I also picked up monsters with high HP so that they could take the brunt of the enemy monsters for more rounds.
My overall damage per round is 18 damage(including thorns) with 3 healing. Adding up the poison damage, it comes to 20 damage per round.
Now for the opposition:
Summoner: Obsidian(Ability: Increase in magic damage by 1 for all ally monsters.)(Level 4)
Tank: Mycelic Infantry(Ability: Shield).
Magic Attacker: Mycelic Splispawn(Ability: Taunt, Forcefield), Regal Peryton(Ability: Flying), Goblin Psychic(Ability: Tank heal, affliction).
Melee Attacker: Venari Scout(Ability: Opportunity).
Ranged Attacker: Goblin Tower(Ability: Blast).
His strategy was to divide the incoming damage and direct it toward 2 monsters, the tank and Splipspawn. He had a healer in the back of the deck and a blast attacker at the end of the deck. He used a fast magic attacker, probably the fastest unit in the game, and paired it with an opportunity attacker.
His overall damage per round is 9 with 2 healing. Adding in the damage boost from the summoner and the blast damage, it comes to 14 damage per round.
Major Events
My tank and his Splipspawn, another tanky monster, were the first two monsters to go after one another moments after the round started.
After half the round passed, his actual tank fell leaving his monsters with lower HP to fend for themselves.
In the final third of the round, my Bonesmith fell making it a 4 v 4.
In the first moments of the round, my Thug fell and he got the advantage with a 4 v 3. However, his overall HP was significantly lower than mine.
Before half the round passed, his fast magic attacker fell and thus his monsters started to fall like flies.
At the start of the round, Goblin Tower was brought down thanks to my Sha-vi. My Queen was falling hard as well.
His Scout fell after half the round passed leaving his tank-healer.
And, at the end of the round, his only monster bit the dust.
Results
I expected him to use a death summoner as well since it would be an effective summoner in the Gold Leagues. That is why I chose Bonesmith as my magic attacker and not Magi of Chaos since it had the lowest magic damage therefore its base damage cannot be further reduced; only its HP would be reduced. Moreover, it had a poison effect on its target monster. That way, the overall damage would be greater than it would be with that mage.
Finally, all of that planning was realized once the battle had started and somehow we were evenly matched. The key area for his demise was that his overall HP was lower than mine. Over time, with high HP and high overall damage per round(DPR), I got the victory.