Up, Up and Away - Battling with Earthquake!

This Splinterlands Social Media challenge post features a battle with the Earthquake ruleset! In this battle, we will be taking a look at one of those rulesets that can often be the bane of a new player. Monsters taking damage every turn? How un-fun, especially when your lower level cards tend to be missing useful abilities such as Flying! However, as the cards at your disposal and your toolkit of strategies grow it becomes much more manageable. In this battle I will be showcasing a basic strategy that can prove to be powerful in this ruleset.

Earthquake is a ruleset that is a soft counter in that it deals small amounts of damage to specific monsters over time, but the annoying part of this rule is that it deals that damage to a large portion of the monsters that you have to choose from - everything that doesn't have the Flying ability. All of those monsters that don't have Flying will be taking 2 points of physical damage at the start of every turn. The obvious winners in these games are monsters with Flying. But there are a few other good choices here - monsters that give your team additional armor, provide some healing, or that take less physical damage due to Shield can be great options in the Earthquake ruleset.

If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!

---

Here are the rules for our battle. As you might expect, we have the Earthquake ruleset. Like I mentioned above, Earthquake deals 2 points of physical damage at the start of each round, beginning from round 2. To go along with Earthquake, we have a 29 mana budget and the Earth, Life, and Dragon splinters to choose from.

---

Looking at the ruleset and available splinters, the first two summoners that come to mind are Risqruel Drath and Eternal Tofu. Drath is incredibly strong due to the Flying ability, while Tofu is a ridiculously powerful generalist who also happens to pack the Snare ability, which removes Flying. I choose to go with Tofu due to the Earth and Life splinters both being available, and the fact that removing Flying will often trump having Flying in the first place.

---

Going with Tofu means that I have no Flying from my summoner. This is not a big deal - it just means that I want to choose some monsters with Flying for my team! I led off my lineup with Uriel the Purifier, a melee monster with Flying and a whole lot of bulk, as well as the Heal ability. I backed Uriel up with Mana Warden. Mana Warden unfortunately does not fly, but does support Uriel by granting him the Shield ability.

---

For the middle of my lineup, I went with a Soul Fiend as a buffer, and Adelade Brightwing. Adelade is a great support monster in this battle because of her Flying ability, and her Repair. Uriel's Heal already gives us some health recovery at the front, and Adelade's Repair doubles us up on recovery options. Between those two monsters, we have a huge tank at the front with an appreciable amount of recovery. My hope was that they would be able to stall out the opposing team's damage output, and let the Earthquake ruleset and Tofu's Thorns ability do the rest.

---

I was all out of mana at this point, so I finished off my team with another buffer monster - Fungus Fiend. I didn't expect it to do much, but it didn't cost me any mana to bring along and might soak up a hit to deal some Thorns damage.

With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I like what I see - my opponent has brought along some solid monsters in Pelacor Mercenary and the always formidable Quora. But their overall damage output doesn't seem to be terribly high, and Tofu's Snare ability will quickly remove Pelacor Mercenary's Flying.

---

As expected, in the first round of battle the enemy Pelacor Mercenary gets Snared. My team also adds in a few attacks, but a large portion of the actual damage here is going to be from Earthquake and Thorns.

---

The Earthquake damage begins to add up and take its toll on the opposing lineup. The enemy Quora is getting some additional buffs from Martyr, but with Uriel's combination of Heal and Shield (from Mana Warden), her damage is significantly decreased.

---

By the beginning of round 4 my team is poised to take the victory. Uriel is Recharged and ready to attack, and the enemy Quora does not quite have enough health to stand up to my lineups's combined damage output. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.

---

This battle shows just how important Flying is in the Earthquake ruleset. By selecting monsters that had it I was able to minimize the ruleset's impact on my on lineup. And by bringing along a summoner that could remove Flying from the opposing team, I gave my my monsters a huge advantage in the battle.

Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:

• Double Trouble - Battling with Even Stevens! - A Splinterlands battle analysis, featuring Even Stevens!

• Splinterlands Economics: Causation - A look at causation, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!

• Splinterlands Economics: Ceteris Paribus - An introduction to the concept of Ceteris Paribus, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!

---

Thinking about giving Splinterlands a try but haven't signed up yet? Feel free to use my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=bteim, and be sure to reach out to me if you have any questions!

All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.