Share Your Battle: Time Mage! Take 2.

It’s time for the time master remastered! It’s time for The Time Mage—Take Two!

This week’s “Share Your Battle” feature is the Time Mage. And I am turning back time myself to offer this second look at this Chaos-Legion, starter-deck, staple card. Boasting the slow ability at level-1, the Time Mage reduces the speed of its opponents whole team which can be a very powerful ability. I said it before, and I'll say it again... In Splinterlands speed matters. He who strikes first kills first, and the dead don’t strike back!

In addition to the aforementioned slow ability, the level-1 Time Mage sports a swift speed of 4, a magical attack of 1 and a 3-health, all for a 4-mana cost. The time mage doesn’t have any armor at level-1 and it never gains any. Speed is its game and it doesn’t weigh itself down with armor.

As shown on the progression chart below, at level-5 the Time Mage becomes that much more powerful by gaining the rust ability which reduces the armor of all its opponents.

We also see that as it levels up, the time mage gains magical-attack strength and health. It occasionally gains speed but then gives it back in favor of increased magical attack power or its second ability. But in the end a fully maxed out Time Mage has a 3-damage magical attack, a speed of five, no armor, four health and the slow and rust abilities.

In my previous battle, the time-bending abilities of the Time Mage didn’t play into the battle as much as I would have liked so I decided to give it another go.

This time around, the match was again played using my “spell book only challenge account.

There was a mana cap of 24, and the rules for the match were weak magic, where magic depletes armor before health, with the earth and water splinters disallowed.

The rules seemed to be advantageous for a light team that often relies heavily on armor.

With the match's rules, I didn’t think my opponent’s previous five matches were very relevant and expected a team tailored to the rules more than to personal splinter preference.

For this match I decided to try to set up an infinite healing loop. Using a taunt card, that must be targeted by enemies, and both an armor healing card and a standard tank-healing card. The hope is that the opponent’s team can be weakened to the point where they can’t do enough damage to overcome my healers. If my opponent is strong enough to bring down my taunt, I lose. But if I can weaken them to the point they can’t do more damage than I can heal, I win.

My choice of summoner boiled down to math. The Time Mage and the three team members I need to set up the healing loop require 8+4+4+3=19 mana. In a 24-mana cap match, that leaves only 5 mana left. So, I could use the 3-, or 4-mana summoner. Using the three gives me Mother Khala with +1 health bonus. Four is General Sloan with +1 ranged attack. With only one ranged attacker, I chose Mother Khala, the extra health, and two mana remaining instead of one.

For my tank, I enlisted the 8-mana cost Shieldbearer. With its taunt ability the Shieldbearer is a key component of my healing loop strategy. All of my opponent’s team members must attack my Shieldbearer, and in turn my support troops who are protected from attack are responsible for healing my tank as much as they can.

In second position I use my two free mana for the flying, opportunistic Celestial Harpy. This card buys me a little more attack power with the chance of chipping away at my opponent’s support members. Still, I consider it my most expendable team member and place it second to absorb the first volleys of blast damage should my opponent employ a blaster.

Taking third position is the star of the show, the Time Mage. As I noted previously, the healing loop strategy sets up a race of sorts. If I reduce my opponent’s team to the point where they can’t do more damage than I can heal, I win. If I can't, I lose. Despite this fact, I have never thought of using the Time Mage on this type of team. Now, I’m not sure why. If there's one card in light’s arsonal that can help you win a race, it’s the Time Mage!

My penultimate team member is the Scavo Hireling. The Hireling represents one half of my healing tandem. And this card has one job and one job only… keep on repairing the armor of my Sheildbearer.

My final team member is the reward card Venari Crystalsmith. The Crystalsmith forms the remainder of my healing tandem. With its tank-healing ability its main responsibility is keeping my Sheildbearer going strong. But, its ranged attack is a nice bonus.

Fire led by Tarsa. I admit that fire is one of the splinters that can give my strategy troubles. If there is one splinter designed to overwhelm an opponent it’s fire! And all that fire power is going to be focused on my tank. Will I be able to lower the heat in time?

Not the standard fire team, and that is going to work to my advantage. In most similar fire teams, the positions of the Radiated Scorcher and the Chaos Agent are reversed, which gives better protection to fire’s Serpentine Spy.

As this team is constituted, my Mage working with my Crystalsmith will take down the Chaos Agent at the start of round one, allowing my Harpy to take down the Spy in round two. Going the other way, the Chaos agent would protect the Spy keeping it alive at least into round 4. And those extra attacks can make all the difference.

As for the match as a whole, I have this one in the bag. My opponent’s spy only attacks one time, as my rare 2-speed Harpy will always act before the adjusted 2-speed common Spy. Beyond that, fire is finished! My Time Mage’s slow ability has my whole team acting before the whole fire team. So, after my Hireling restores two armor to my tank, the archer takes the armor down to one, and the Living Lava’s whole 4-powered attack is absorbed by the other point of armor. Then the reaching Brute can score a three-damage smack which is entirely healed by my Crystalsmith the next round! From this point on, it is impossible for fire to do more damage to my tank than my healers can heal. I win.

Did I get it wrong though? See for yourself here.

Here we have the position in round two right after the Hireling does its armor repair job.

And again in round three. We can see that fire was unable to make any progress in damaging my Sheildbearer despite having no misses in round two.

So it’s just a matter of time before the fire team is reduced to ashes. And it’s the Time Mage who gets the honor of landing the knockout blow..

As far as I can recall, this is the first time I have used the Time Mage on this type of team, and the results impressed me. I surely think my team wasn’t optimal. I think the two, three and four positions should be slotted with Time Mage, Hireling, Harpy. And certainly the hireling should have been in third position. If I do lose my Tank, the hireling is instant cannon fodder and letting it live while other team members are attacked is a blunder.

I am looking forward to experimenting with this type of team in the future, where the Time Mage helps me to win the infinite-healing-loop race!

Posted using Splintertalk