Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge! Reverse Speed

[Source]

Hi everyone! It's time for the weekly Battle Mage Secrets challenge and the challenge this week is the Reverse Speed Ruleset.

About the Ruleset

Reverse Speed

The Reverse Speed ruleset states that "Monsters with the lowest attack speed attack first and have the highest chance of evading attacks". This means that the Bloodlust ability will increase your stats but will actually slow you down and using the Slow ability will give your opponent an advantage.

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Battle Ruleset(s)

Details of my battle with this ruleset is as follows.

Fab Four: Up to four Units can be used
Unprotected: Monsters do not have any armor and do not get armor from Abilities or Summoner Buffs
Reverse Speed: Monsters with the lowest attack speed attack first and have the highest chance of evading attacks
Mana Cap: 31
Available Splinters: Only Fire, Water, Life and Dragon Splinters can be used
Format: Modern

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Cards & Line Up

The Summoner vs

Summoner: General Sloan - It increases the Ranged attack of my entire deck by 1.

The Line Up

Position 1	Position 2	Position 3	Position 4

vs

Position 1	Position 2	Position 3	Position 4

[Card image source]

Position	Name	Description
1	Drybone Barbarian	It has the Enrage and Retaliate ability, and is here to quickly take down the opponent's tank with its high attack when enraged.
2	Spirit Hoarder	It has the Triage and Dispel ability, which will help heal Iziar and also remove any positive buffs from the opponent's tank.
3	Venari Crystalsmith	It has the Heal ability, and is here to keep Drybone Barbarian alive as long as possible.
4	Iziar	It has the Taunt and Void ability. It will be targetted first and takes reduced damage from Magic attacks.

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Strategy

The ruleset here meant that (1) only 4 units are usable, (2) monsters have no armour and (3) the slowest monsters are actually the fastest.

With this ruleset combination, I thought that the Life Splinter had a decent chance of winning, even though the monsters I chose were not exactly slow. I opted for a strategy where the opponent will hit my first and last positions first, and units which can heal them both. Drybone Barbarian is excellent in this ruleset with it's high damage and lack of any shields in the battle.

The opponent used a different strategy that favoured mine, as he used 2 magic monsters which did reduced damage on Iziar. As such, his backline did damage on Iziar that my Spirit Hoarder could heal, while I concentrated attack on his tank. I managed to take out the tank relatively fast. Once that was done, the rest were easily taken out.

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Thoughts on the Reverse Speed Ruleset

The Reverse Speed ruleset is rather fun, as it makes the slowest monsters the fastest. Most upgraded cards have a higher speed, so this ruleset does give some advantage to the party with a deck of lower level cards. Other than that, no real good strategy except to use the slowest cards you have with the highest damage.

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Battle

Watch the battle here