Hello fellow TCG enthusiasts!

This week's battle challenge covers Wood Nymph which is one of my favorite cards from the alpha/beta series. Before Chaos Legion was released she was an absolute staple card and filled the heal gap that the earth splinter had for spellbook players.

If this is the first you are hearing of the Splinterlands 'Share Your Battle!' challenge, check out the official rules and guidelines in this post. Now lets get into this week's challenge.

Card Overview - Wood Nymph

Edition: REWARD (Alpha/Beta)
Rarity: COMMON
Element: EARTH
Attack: MAGIC
Abilities: Tank Heal/Strengthen at level 6

As previously mentioned, Wood Nymph was largely used as a mid line tank healer and historically was a must have card. These days newer players largely have switched to using Goblin Psychic as it is a slightly more expensive albeit stronger card serving the same healer/damage support role.

Official Lore

A peculiar new bud appeared at the tips of the highest branches of the Elder Tree. The animals living in the tree watched as the strange buds grew, and in a matter of days, burst open. From each bud zoomed forth a tiny sprite. These Wood Nymphs quickly scattered around Anumün in a frenzy of mischief.

Personally, I like the newer style of lore that is being done with CL cards compared to this older style. If you take a look at the lore for Wood Nymph vs the newer water nymph, the vast difference in story telling is evident. I'd love to see the SPL team rework or add to the older cards one day.

Battle Link

Context: Regular Ranked match in Gold 3.
Ruleset as follows:

The combination of high mana 50+ and equalizer always makes for an interesting battle. Generally most high mana cards are quite powerful and have high health. However, some high mana cards actually have lower health to compensate for significantly powerful utility or abilities. This means that if you can focus on playing high mana cards with lower health you can actually end up with over-powered cards in terms of mana cost by letting your opponent increase your card's health.

Although not shown in this battle one of my favorite cards to play in this ruleset is Serpent of Eld. His only weakness really is lowish health (for a frontline tank) so boosting that makes his massive speed advantage a significant stall mechanic.

Battlefield:

Analysis:

When I first saw the field I was honestly expecting a loss. My opponent had clearly dropped some money on their deck and leveled most all of their cards which gave them raw power far beyond mine. That said, my opponent opted to play 3 front line tank cards which meant that I only had 4 cards hitting me each round. This was almost a perfect storm for me, in a good way, as I opted to gamble and go for a double healer comp using the new Chaos Legion summoner Obsidian.

Using Obsidian my choice in damage was clearly magic which also turned out to be a good call as the first two tanks were both designed to counter melee/ranged with flight/armor. Further reduction of damage by my stall tank disintegrator gave me the capability to absorb all the damage and come back to a full heal.

As noted in the ruleset description, I went with the strategy of not actually maximizing my mana use but focusing on utility with the gamble of my opponent playing high health cards. As planned poor Abcor threw out multiple dragon cards falling right into my trap.

The only real threat at this point, and also a blessing actually, was Chaos Dragon getting a lucky kill with scattershot. As there was almost no focus fire (on my tank or backline) I was allowed to slowly chipped away at my opponents health until victory

This is a perfect example of how a player utilizing knowledge of rulesets and card utility can win out against card levels. My comp was easily worth less than $50 and in fact used mostly free cards while my opponents comp was likely over $500.

Disclaimers

Splinterlands images owned by Splinterlands. All other images and content owned by me unless otherwise noted.

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