Hello! It's me again with a Splinterlands post after quite a bit of a break from writing about it and this time I wanted to talk about something a little different than usual. Instead of opinion pieces, or simply saying what I think is a good buy, I would like to present to you a guide on playing around Opportunity. It is one of the most powerful abilities in the entire game, as these units simply target whatever the lowest health enemy is.

I think that also some of the Opportunity units are simply a little overstatted - this works for Dragon Jumper, Serpentine Spy, as well as Deeplurker. All of them feel extremely powerful and can win games quite easily. I believe, however, that there is a clear weakness here - and I don't even mean spreading your damage. When expecting opportunity, there are many ways to counter it quite heavily, delaying or even rendering Opportunity units completely useless. Here's ways that I found to be good to counter the ability:

Unit Positioning

This is the most obvious and easiest way to play around Opportunity and likely the most essential if you want to outplay these Deeplurkers and Serpentine Spies. The way the ability works is that it chooses the unit that has the lowest health and then attacks it, regardless of its position - it can be 1st, 2nd, last or any other. Furthermore, if there is more than 1 unit with the same health number, the one closer to the first position will be targetted.

This knowledge can be used to destroy your opponent's plans through using low health "throwaway" units to redirect the Opportunity monsters away from crucial targets. This can be further reinforced by using a low health unit with abilities such as Dodge or Flying. Because teams in general won't use more than 1 or 2 Opportunity units, missing could waste so much of their time to be the difference between a victory and defeat.

Another way positioning can help is by ensuring that the Opportunity monster does NOT target the first monster. Spreading your opponent damage is a powerful tool against them and this is the only way you are able to do so except Taunt. What I like to do is put my Opportunity bait in 3rd or 4th position - to ensure it does not get hit by Sneak, but also does not get into first position too fast.

Armor and Divine Shield

If you are trying to delay Opportunity from doing a lot of damage fast and wreaking havoc in your backline, this is yet another way to stall it out. Keep in mind that the best way to really counter it is by combining the points in this post! Armor and Divine Shield both mean you will be able to tank an extra hit on each of your monsters.

I especially like to use summoners for this purpose - Tyrus Palladium, Kelya Frendul, Drake of Arnak all provide you with a point of Armor, while Lorna Shine grants Divine Shield to all of your monsters. This is great because it means no matter what units you play, they will always be able to tank two shots - including Furious Chicken and all the Fiends!

That said, there are also many units that do this on their own - Frost Lion and Marrow's Ghost are pretty good, Frozen Knight even has Shield, while Enchanted Defender also packs Thorns. Combining some of these (except the Defender of course) with Mylor can be an even more devastating combo for some of the most potent Opportunity monsters.

Taunt and More

The last big way to deal with Opportunity is by using Taunt. Redirecting this damage can be huge, especially considering that Taunts are generally quite bulky - health in the double digits or a considerable amount of armor at least. This means that they are meant to be damage sponges and especially if you can afford to give them some healing or armor repair, it could completely defeat the purpose of playing an Opportunity monster. That said, make sure to watch out - sometimes redirecting the Opportunity monster into a Taunt could be a double-edged sword.

There are also multiple little tricks that can make Opportunity worse even without going through the trouble of adding a Fiend to the team or using Taunt. First of all, if you're expecting only one Opportunity monster, Repair could render them absolutely useless. Another thing to think of is using cards like Water Elemental as Opportunity baits - if you believe the opponent is more likely to play that than Sneak.

Few things to note about Opportunity - Snipe and Sneak take priority over it. This means that you do not have to worry about Opportunity from melee monsters if Super Sneak is the ruleset. It is crazy powerful when combined with Blast, so be wary especially during a ruleset where all monsters get that ability.

Closing Words

Opportunity is extremely powerful, but it is definitely counterable - especially if you can half-expect your opponent to use it. Usually ways to counter it are not that intrusive and do not particularly ruin your team if there is no monster with that ability on the enemy team. Because of that, many ways to counter it - especially positioning - are simply a good habit to have anyway.

All images are screenshots from Splinterlands.