17 Mana Battle: How did I lose this?

In today's blog, I need to proudly wear the 'LOSER' badge. In one of my recent attempts at winning at a ranked battle on Splinterlands, I found myself cheering when a 17 mana ruleset presented itself. In these battles, I know exactly which cards to push. The 7 mana Scarred Llama Mage and the 10 Mana Kron the Undying. In a nutshell, it gives me an unbeatbale team! Except, when they lose.

To begin, let's try and figure out why this combo is so mighty!!

And the only way to understand this duo, is by evaluating them together - the reason for this is that is where there strength is. You see, Scarred Llama Mage has the LAST MAN STANDING SKILL, and the +2 Health. When this is applied to Kron The Undying, his stats POP! He will move to 12 health, before 'Last Man Standing' takes him to 18 health. This will then pair with his only HEAL ability, and will allow him to heal for +6 health EVERY round. In a 17 mana battle, the probability is that your opponent will not have the depth in his line-up to be able to take your health. Sure, occassionally someone will play a 'magic-hit-armour' skill, and use an armour restoring account to frustrate the battle - but after twenty rounds the fatigue will allow you to win the battle - as those strategies usually rely on another account to try and deal the damage. In a 17 mana battle, it's difficult to see where that damage is coming from.

Let's have a look at the battle, and see how the match plays out. The ENRAGE skill is at play in this one, but in truth, I would have lost without it being there!

On opening the battle, I can see my opponent has a pretty sure strategy. He will do 8 damage each round, and with an ENRAGE activated, he'll hit even harder. My Kron will use LAST STAND to gain the speed advantage, and - that's where my troubles start, because it will give me opponent a significant advantage being ENRAGED. That said, there was an opportunity for my opponent to do something even more special in this battle - if he'd played TARSA that would have made him even more formidable (+10 damage raw, to +8). I rather liked this strategy of his.

And then, it's over. I hit my opponent's MAGNOR in the first hit of the battle, this boosted his attack to +8 melee, and speed to +5. This meant he hit me for +8 damage, and his Tenyii Striker backed up with a further +3 for +11 total. Then, because MAGNOR had the speed advantage now, he got the first hit in Round 2 for a further +8 - to win the battle in a matter of 4 hits only!

Evaluation:
Well, that battle shocked me. But, my opponent did an amazing job - you see, he was able to play the ruleset, and that got him the win. It made me wonder, how would I do without ENRAGE in this battle?

Round 1: Do 5 damage (drop Magnor to 9), take 8 damage (drops me to 10).
Round 2: Do 5 damage (drop Magnor to 4), health 6, take 8 damage (drops me to 8).
Round 3: Kill Magnor, take 3 damage, heal 6 - develop to 11 damage
--Win the battle in Round 5. A very different outcome.

So there you go, the ENRAGE skill made the difference, and a massive difference it was! The truth is, I would normally doubt this 17 mana strategy can be beaten, but this battle just goes to show how wrong I was. I continued to play through the day with Llama/Kron, and I won most of the time - but it goes to show, nothing in Splinterlands should be taken for granted.

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