Hello Splinterlands Community! It is another exciting week as it is time again for another edition of Splinterlands Social Media in the early parts of the new year. I will continue to provide and share some of my insights in the game which I believe would be helpful to the players and to the Splinterlands community in this year and I hope that my pasts insights were helpful to the community. For the Splinterlands Social Media Challenge for this week, I will share an exciting match that I recently had where I was able to try out an interesting combination of double Protect buffs coming from two different units that has the Protect ability. This ability gives bonus 2 armor to all my units at the start of the match. It makes my units very durable especially against melee and ranged enemy monsters and that durability was doubled up as I was able to deploy two units with this ability. This makes my units gain 4 armor at the beginning of the battle making them more sturdy and more safe against melee and ranged enemy units. I will continue to talk about this battle that I had and I will share the team composition that I built for this match.

My Battle

This is the modern ranked battle that I want to share in this post where I was able to deploy two different units with the Protect ability which are Venari Wavesmith and Ravenhood Warden. Before the exchange of blows in the match starts, my team was granted additional armor twice because of the two Protect ability taking effect in the battle which was very useful and helpful to win the match. If you are interested on all of the huge action and exciting damage exchanges that happened during the match, you can all witness it by clicking the battle link below.
https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_51bb2d62c2bf3ced31eae87e20ece3c2?ref=hatdogsensei

The Ruleset

Taking Sides

There is only one ruleset that is present for this modern ranked battle and that is Taking Sides. This ruleset does not allow the Neutral element monsters to be deployed in this match. It makes the available units to be deployed in the match comes from the element of the summoner that was selected. In my case, I have selected Zeddica which is a two element summoner which allows me to deploy water and death element monsters I have in my collection. This gives me more opportunity to build my collection since I have a good collection of water and death element units that blends well together which I was able to do in this match.

My Lineup

Summoner: Zeddica

I have chosen Zeddica as my summoner for this modern ranked battle. It is a water and death summoner that does not provide any buff to the team and also does not bring any debuff to the enemy team. It is also a good choice for this match as it allows me to deploy water and death element units in this match considering that Neutral element monsters are not available for this match because of the Taking Sides ruleset.

Monster 1 : Night Ghoul

I have used my Night Ghoul in this match and placed it in the first position of the team. It is a common death unit that deals a great amount of melee damage to the enemy team. This unit also has a massive amount of health making it a good frontline unit for the team. It also has the Taunt ability which makes this unit the priority target of all enemy units each round making it a solid frontline for the team.

Monster 2 : Kulu Mastermind

I have also used my Kulu Mastermind in this battle and placed it in the second position of the team. It is a legendary water unit that also deals a great amount of melee damage to the enemy team. This unit is also a great frontline unit for the team since it also has a massive amount of health as well. It also has the Opportunity ability which makes this unit prioritize first the enemy monster that has the lowest amount of health causing it to be taken down early in the match as possible.

Monster 3 : Nerissa Tridawn

I have also used my Nerissa Tridawn for this match. It is an epic water unit that deals a great amount of magic damage to the enemy team. This unit does not have any abilities making it a straightforward magic damage dealer for the team. It also has a great amount of health which is why it is placed in the third position of the team in order to become a potential frontline for the team if the Night Ghoul and Kulu Mastermind was taken down in the later part of the match.

Monster 4 : Venari Wavesmith

I have also used my Venari Wavesmith for this match as well. It is a rare water unit that also deals magic damage to the enemy team. This unit is one of the two units in my team that has the Protect ability. That ability provides bonus armor to the entire team at the start of the match. Since this unit has a low amount of health I decided to place this unit at the back of the team for this match.

Monster 5 : Sea Stalker

I have also utilized my Sea Stalker in this match. It is a rare water unit that deals a great amount of ranged damage to the enemy team. This unit has the Snipe ability which is very useful in this match as it allows the unit to strike down the enemy units that is placed in the backline of the enemy team. This unit also has the Camouflage ability that allows this unit to cannot be directly targeted unless this unit is in the first position of the team. It makes this unit more safe against enemy monsters that has abilities like Sneak or Opportunity.

Monster 6 : Ravenhood Warden

Lastly I have also used my Gold Foil Ravenhood Warden in this match and placed it in the last position of the team. It is a rare death unit that deals ranged damage to the enemy team as well. This unit also has the Protect ability which works similarly with Venari Wavesmith making this team composition more durable and sturdy at the start of the match. Since this unit also has a low amount of health, it needs to be placed at the back of the team in order to become less vulnerable against the incoming damage from the enemy team.

My Battle Analysis

ROUND 1

The first round was a lot of exciting actions and exchange of damage on both teams. My team was able to take down the enemy team's Venari Bonesmith and was very close to take down the enemy team's Cursed Windeku. The double taste of Protection was fully showcased in this round as my Night Ghoul was able to withstand all the incoming damage from the enemy team and survive this round. The durability of this unit was enhanced by the two Protect ability from my Venari Wavesmith and Ravenhood Warden which makes the unit a solid frontline for the team.

ROUND 2

The second round was full of action and exchanges as well. My team was able to take down the enemy team's Dhampir Stalker and Cursed Windeku which brings down the enemy team to 3 units remaining on their team. My Night Ghoul was still able to withstand all the damage from the enemy team and barely survive this round with one health remaining. Overall my team still has the edge after this round as my team does not have any casualties and my heavy damage dealers on the backline is healthy enough to take down the remaining enemy units in the match.

ROUND 3

During the third round my team suffers the first casualty as my Night Ghoul was taken down by the enemy team in this round. My team was able to deal a significant damage to the enemy team's Harklaw which makes that unit very vulnerable heading in to the next round. Since my Night Ghoul was taken down in this round it is up to Kulu Mastermind to serve as the frontline for the team. It is a very durable unit as well which gives me confidence that it would be able to survive the upcoming remaining rounds.

ROUND 4

During the fourth round my team was able to take down more of the remaining enemy units which are Harklaw and Silent Sha-vi which leaves Magi Necrosi the lone enemy unit that would be taken down in the next round. It was a one sided exchange in this round as my team only has minimal damage in this round thanks to the double protection bonus from my units and the enemy team suffers to take downs in this round putting the enemy team in a major disadvantage in the upcoming round.

ROUND 5

During the fifth and final round of this match, My team was successfully take down the enemy team's Magi Necrosi which officially ends in this match and gives me the victory for this modern ranked battle. It was my Kulu Mastermind that was able to deal the big finishing blow to the Magi Necrosi and it was an overkill as the heavy melee damage from Kulu Mastermind was way too much as the Magi Necrosi only has one health remaining before being taken down. Nevertheless, I am glad that my team suffers minimal damage in this match since I only have casualty in the entire match and that is the Night Ghoul.

The two Protect abilities from my team which comes from Venari Wavesmith and Ravenhood Warden was very effective in this battle as the Protect ability stacks together forming a very sturdy and durable armor to the entire team at the beginning of the match. This strategy is very effective against the enemy team that is composed of melee and ranged damage units which happened in this match. The enemy team has 2 melee and 2 ranged damage units on the battlefield and the double taste of Protection from Venari Wavesmith and Ravenhood Warden was fully utilized to minimize the damage my team would received. My Night Ghoul has an astounding 8 armor at the beginning of the match which is more than enough to survive the incoming damage from the enemy team for two whole rounds. This just shows how useful and helpful is the Protect ability and knowing that it can be stacked together, I want to imagine how it feels to have an entire team composition where every unit has the Protect ability.

Thank you so much for reading my post, If you haven't tried playing Splinterlands, I'll suggest to start playing this game right now and it would be really great and awesome if you would start playing the game by using my referral link below.
https://splinterlands.com?ref=hatdogsensei