BATTLE MAGE SECRETS Weekly Challenge Featuring EARTHQUAKE By affliction

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Hello Fellow Hivers!
This is @affliction back again with a new Splinterlands post. And this week we are covering one featuring the rule set EARTHQUAKE
If you are not sure what Splinterlands is, make sure to give this articles a read and at the end you will find some information to get started with the game.

ABOUT THE RULE SET:

Non-flying Monsters take 2 Melee damage at the end of each round.

If you guys have been reading my articles on Splinterlands, you must have noticed how I always strongly believe that rule sets are what makes Splinterlands battles interesting. Rule sets forces us players to choose the counter cards and place them strategically.
When it comes to the Earthquake rule set, there are two ways to create your line ups.

• Play offensive with monsters having Snare ability.
• Play defensive with monsters having Flying ability.

I usually go with the defensive style when playing battles featuring Earthquake as I do not own many monsters with Snare.
For our today's battle, we will be talking about a Gold League battle from the Modern format and talk about our line ups and strategies for the rule set as we add slight twist to our defensive line up.

BATTLE RULES :

• Mana Cap : 26
• Rule sets :

Lost Legendaries: Legendary Monsters may not be used in battles.
Earthquake: Non-flying Monsters take 2 Melee damage at the end of each round.
Aim True: Attacks always hit their target.

• Available Splinters :
  Water
  Earth
  Life

THE LINE UP :

Position	Card	Mana	Level	Description
Summoner		4	6	Our choice of summoner for the battle was a level 6 Obsidian, the Chaos Legion earth summoner that heavily favors magic line ups. I tend to play earth around Obsidian quite a lot when it comes to the Earthquake rule set, specially in low-mid mana matches, for high mana we of course have Dragon.
Position 1		1	3	In the first position, we are playing a level 3 gold foil Mycelic Morphoid. Though the 1 mana card is being used to protect our tank, the Thorns ability makes it more than a mere meat shield. And for the base stats, the card is having 1 melee damage, 1 speed and 2 hp.
Position 2		7	8	In the second position, we are playing a level 8 Pelacor Mercenary, our main tank for the battle with 3 melee damage, 4 speed, 1 armor and 10 hp. The card also has very useful abilities like Flying which is instrumental for this week's rule set and Heal which is an OP ability in any rule set.
Position 3		3	1	Next, in the third position, we decided to play one of the new soulbound cards, a level 1 Fungus Flinger with 1 archery damage, 1 speed and 2 hp.It might seem odd with these stats why I decided to play the card, right? Well, the answer lies in the ability the card has called Martyr that will buff up the stats of our Pelacor Mercenary and the next card we will be playing.
Position 4		5	6	In the next position, to get the most out of our previous card's ability, we are playing our primary damage dealer, a level 6 Regal Peryton with 2 magic damage, 6 speed and 8 hp along with the Flying ability which fits in just perfectly.
Position 5		5	6	In the fifth position, we decided to play another reward card, a level 6 Venari Seedsmith with 3 archery damage, 3 speed and 4 hp along with the abilities of Scavenger and Poison.
Position 6		1	3	In the last position of our line up, with the last mana remaining, we are playing a level 3 gold foil Chaos Agent, the Chaos Legion neutral card with 2 speed and 2 hp. Though the card does not have any attack, the Dodge ability makes it the perfect Sneak protector in most battles, but unfortunately the Dodge is void in this battle because of Aim True.

THE OPPONENT LINE UP :

Position	Card	Mana	Level	Description
Summoner		4	5	The opponent decided to play a level 5 Kelya Fendul as the summoner which happens to be one of the most popular summoners from he Chaos Legion set for the wide range of OP monsters available in the water splinter. Moreover, the +1 armor to all allies works perfectly in this battle as that adds more sustainability against Earthquake.
Position 1		8	5	For the tank, the obvious choice for the battle was a level 5 Diemonshark with it's 3 melee damage, 4 speed, 6 armor and 9 hp alongside Trample and Enrage.
Position 2		3	5	In the second position, the opponent decided to play a level 5 Angelic Mandarin, the Chaos Legion water card with 2 archery, 3 speed and 6 hp as the base stats. The card's Triage ability makes it a very useful card in most of the battles.
Position 3		3	5	Next, in the third position, the opponent is playing another support card from the Chaos Legion set, a level 5 Merdaali Guardian. Though the card has no attacking ability whatsoever, the Tank Heal and Repair abilities are what makes the card super useful.
Position 4		3	6	In the fourth position, the opponent is playing the only Flying monster which happens to be a level 6 Pelacor Bandit with 2 melee damage, 5 speed and 4 hp. Apart from Flying, the ard also has the ability of Sneak which makes it even more useful.
Position 5		2	4	In the fifth spot, we are facing a level 4 Igor Darkspear with 2 ranged damage, 3 speed and 4 hp. For mere 2 mana, apart from the mentioned stats, the also offers Stun ability to make it one lethal low mana card.
Position 6		3	4	In the sixth and last spot, we are facing another Sneak monster. This one is the neutral Reward card, Uraeus that comes with 2 melee damage, 3 speed, 1 armor and 3 hp. Apart from Sneak, the card also comes with the deadly ability of Poison.

THE HIGHLIGHTS :

• Round 1:

In the first round we seem to be on the back foot as our Mycelic Morphoid was eliminated by the Diemonshark and the Chaos Agent was taken out by the Pelacor Bandit. Having said that, these were all expected casualties. Lets see what the next round has in store for us.

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• Round 2:

Round two starts off with Earthquake dealing damage to all non-flying monsters and as per the plan our Fungus Flinger was a victim of this boosting the stats of our Pelacor Mercenary and Regal Peryton.
Later, in the round we see our Pelacor Mercenary in action taking out the Diemonshark. However, we were in the back foot again as we loose our Venari Seedsmith to a killing blow by the Uraeus.

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• Round 3:

In this round, Regal Peryton comes to the action as it takes out the Angelic Mandarin which happens to be the only casualty of the round.

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• Round 4:

The fourth round starts with the elimination of the Igor Darkspear with the damage by Earthquake.
Regal Peryton also bags it's second kill as it took out the Merdaali Guardian and both teams were down to last two monsters each.

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• Round 5:

Regal Peryton gets it's third kill of the battle by taking out the Pelacor Bandit followed by Pelacor Mercenary dealing a killing blow to Uraeus to get us the deserved victory.

THE BATTLE LINK : Interested to watch the full battle ? You can watch it here

STRATEGY:
We went with a out of the box strategy for the battle to get the most out of the Earthquake rule set in particular. In the battle, we went with two monsters with Flying ability and we placed the Fungus Flinger in between the two so that their stats can be boosted further because of Martyr once the Fungus Flinger dies. Though in the first round we were being dominated, in the second round we see the our plan in action and making a strong comeback dominating the remaining of the battle.

MVP:

Card	Kills	Contribution
	3	Regal Peryton proved to be the MVP of the battle showing total domination with 3 kills as it's stats were boosted to 4 magic damage, 7 speed and 9 hp which is insane and it basically started killing all enemies in 1 blow. It also showed great resistance in the battle thanks to it's decent health pool and more importantly Flying ability helped it to sustain the featured rule set Earthquake.

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