Underdog Victories!: Sometimes The Top Of Ladder Takes An L
Hello there! @saydie here, playing Splinterlands everyday!
As we play Splinterlands, we come across opponents that we thought we could not beat due to how high their ratings were, and with their vast collection of cards. On other occasions, we thought we could not beat them since their team was stacked with all the powerful cards, or that we did not maximize the mana cap. Under those circumstances, we resolved ourselves that we would lose the match, and just moved on to the next battle, but then we were surprised that, all of a sudden, we won the match. Then go back to the battle to see how the situation got reversed and which cards help to change the battle's outcome.
That was the case, for this week's Community Engagement Challenge, where I grabbed the victory when playing against Lorkus in a tournament, which is undoubtedly one of the top players in the game (or the scholar that plays that account to be precise).
Given how huge the difference in our rating, chances that I get matched with the top player in modern Champion leaderboard is very low, but when it comes to tournament, it all comes down to RNG so when you get matched against any of the top players, the pressure becomes more intense, specially since we cannot see the opponent's lineup during the tactics phase and may have placed it to the wrong card.
Battlefield Rulesets
Rulesets are the modifiers that changes how a player will build their lineup with the cards at their disposal. In the match that I'm about to share, there are three rulesets at play, aside from the 49 mana cap and with both teams allowed to play Life, Death and Earth Element.
With the Close Range ruleset, range units can now attack even at the first position, so I do not have to avoid using range units within my team.
Manuevers on the other hand, gives all melee units the Reach ability which allows them to attack when they are in the second position.
For the last ruleset, we have the Lost Legendaries which bans the use of legendary units for both teams.
Opponent Lineup
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Aside from the opponent being one of the top players in modern champion league, they also got this very scary and very shiny lineup which consist of 6 gold foil cards including the Archons and 1 black foil card.
My Underdog Lineup
Since it was on a tournament match, I do not have a luxury to see my opponents team previous teams that they used since they haven't place their team yet when I submit my team, so my strategy here is to just go with best Archon in my disposal which is:
With the ArchonCryptic, I get the means to give Poison and Expose ability on 2 units and at the same time, the -1 speed is nice so that I can attack much faster and the Blind increases my chance to dodge opponent attacks.
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Main Tank: Grimbardun Fighter- Serves as a good anti-melee/range tank for only 9 mana as it has Shield which halves the melee and range damage it receives and has Deflect which makes it immune to Thorns or Blast damage as well as with Corrosive Ward that makes the melee unit that attack this card to lose -2 armor each turn.
2nd Unit: Ujurak Brave- Originally just put it here as a secondary tank with Silence to reduce the magic of the opponent cards, but turns out to be a game changer.
3rd Unit: Umbral Elemental- At only level 2, it only has Taunt that forces the opponent to attack this card and a temporary speed boost from Swiftness, since it will be defeated right away.
4th Unit: Meriput Slinger- Has the Impede ability that reduces the speed of the target for every successful attack as well as Slow that reduces the speed of all opponent units.
5th Unit: Arachne Weaver- The Corruption Heal helps in healing all my units that takes damage up to 70% of their health at the cost of their max health reduced by 1 each time they are healed.
6th Unit: Daigendark Hunter- Another range unit which has the Silence ability along with Sneak which allows it to attack the backline units of my opponent.
If you look at my team, there was really nothing special with them. Not only 3 of them were soulbound rewards, but I also have one card that is not even maxed at gold level.
Battle Showcase
Since range units can attack in the first position, I decided to place the tactics ability on my 2 range units, Meriput Slinger to attack the front and Daigendark Hunter on the back in order to spread the Poison damage. Again, since it was a tournament, I did not get the opportunity to see what my opponent team is like during the tactics stage, so I just go with my instinct when placing the tactics. Turns out, the opponent was a magic focused team so the double silence really helped, but still can't say at this point if I can win the match since the opponent has the means to get health and prevent me from healing.
Round 1:
In round 1, my team was able to defeat Anyu Huntswoman but since the opponent has a magic focused team, it doesn't really do much. Rather, the opponents magic units has gained additional health, while it blocks my Umbral Elemental from being healed by using Affliction.
Round 2:
In round 2, the opponent immediately defeated my Umbral Elemental and also blocked my Grimbardun Fighter from being healed as the opponent continue to leach health each time they attack. Thankfully, Daigendark Hunter has successfully landed Poison to Arachne Weaver.
Round 4:
I think this is the turning point where my win gets decided when Ujurak Brave becomes the main tank. This is because it has the Immunity ability, meaning that it cannot be afflicted by negative buffs, so even if it gets damaged, it can still received healing. So what my team needs to do is to just slowly chip away the health of my opponent until we win the match.
Round 8:
Fast forward to the final round, we finally beat the last unit of the opponent, though, they are quite persistent that the match has reached 8 turns before it ends.
Closing
When facing such a strong opponent, with such a powerful deck, it's not common to expect to lose the match. That said, players are human too and they are not perfect and so, they can also make mistakes as well as take a lose.
Thank you, and see you on the next post!
Splinterlands Free Assets
This were assets that I edited using Adobe Photoshop and more of this assets were available in this post for anyone who likes to use them.
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