LKP's Axie Log #24: Battling with Double Edged Swords

What's up axie pips?

It's a fantastic day for most us. Although the hype in AXS and SLP is calming down there are still many surprises waiting, like how Hive just made a fantastic rally doubling it's value in the last 24 hours. I bet there are still many opportunities to come, we just need to be patient and stay awake to grab them when they present themselves. I wonder, is Uptober really happening? Sigh. Anyways, I really need to control myself nowadays. Every time I visit the marketplace I have the urge to buy an axie that I really want. I always told myself not to because we are still in deficit from our previous investments. It's quite a shame, that Dusk with Soothing Song and Allergic Reaction is quite cheap and would make a really strong backline for our team. We need to grind harder! It would take time but somehow we'd eventually make it there.

For this post we would be talking about two battles. One of which was against a Bird-Beast-Plant team. It's a backdoor bird that has 'Eggbomb' and 'Pigeon Post' so we somehow expect that they would be directing most of their attacks in our midline reptile. As much as possible we would like to avoid using 'Acro' from our backline because we don't have much defensive cards there. If we were lucky, the beast having range moves like 'Axie Kiss' and 'Revenge Arrow' might do us a favor given that we played 'Catapult' well later on.

The second battle was against a Reptile-Beast-Plant team. The beast's attack cards are not that impressive as they only have 'Jaguar' and one 'Nut Cracker' but that 'Cuckoo' when played right with a 2x nut would be very painful. Thankfully, the opponent was not patient enough to wait for a proper combo. The trouble here was the reptile and you might ask why. The problem is that in a 1 v 1 situation with our backline plant, our core of attack would be the 'Acro' as it deals the most damage out of all the cards we have in the back. But this would actually not be favorable for us because once we gain speed the damage from their 'Surprise Invasion' would be amplified. Together with 'Chomp' and another amplified damage source coming from 'Tiny Dino', this combination would still be very painful even for plant backline like ours. Anyways, let's just go and watch these two battles for me to explain everything clearer.

Aroma without Pigeon Post is a Disaster

So, this was the matchup against the BBP team. They got tons of damage from both mid and the back so we need to takedown the tank while sustaining attacks from their back. In round 1 we played a 'Cactus'+'Serious' combo which was very effective because they passed. They were keen to bring down our tank with 4 high damage cards split evenly between their beasts and bird. Saving the 'Pumpkin' earlier was a wise choice because our front was only left with 100 health, which was brought down further to 23 by the 'Carrot' played by their plant. We did not anticipate here that they would use 'Egg Bomb' as what we focused was actually making sure that they would fail stealing energy from us. We are only avoiding that energy steal but ended up killing their Bird, gaining speed advantage from the back and gaining an energy courtesy of the mouth card 'Kotaro'.

In round 3, we knew that the tank would surely die but we still played a 'Carrot' in case they attempt again for another energy steal. This move could not prevent them from stealing but at least we would manage to reduce our loses by 1 instead of 2. Defending with 'Bone Sail' was an efficient move as it sustained most of the dying attack from the bird. The following round, it was obvious that our energy advantage was gradually showing. With 3 energy they were still so focused on attack, forgetting to sustain their plant with shield and heal. Maybe they were frustrated that their bird died early and wanted to gain advantage in numbers for the next round. But that was a bad choice because they lack the energy to execute a decisive move against out reptile.



With damage increase at round 5 for 'Tiny Dino' and their lack of defense, we managed to take down their plant exposing their remaining axie which was the beast. There was no need to defend our mid as it already done it's purpose. Their beast got some damage from a 'Catapult' reflect so things would be much easier as we had less health to burn. Because we used the move 'Acro' earlier to finish their plant it's our turn first. We played another 'Acro' just in case they manage to live, followed by double 'Ill-omened' to burst them and deprive them of crit. They entered last stand and killed our reptile but also died with it because our previous attack put them into last stand. 'Freddy' our backline plant was just as fresh as he entered the battle in round 1. No damage, fresh and green. :D

Almost a Draw

This second battle as mentioned earlier we're up against an RAP team. They have some really annoying cards here like 'Hot Butt' in their plant and that 'Night Steal' in their beast. In round 1, we went all out and played 'Acro' from our backline and a 'Vegetal Bite'+'Cactus' combo from our front. We got no choice since they got 'Hot Butt' which disables our mouth card in the next turn, so it's better to play it early when you have a card to play a combo with it, in this case 'Cactus'. They played 'Night Steal' and 'Vegetal Bite' very early but we already consumed our energy preventing it from being stolen. It's a pity that we have drawn 'Serious' and 'Pumpkin' the following round, this could have been a great combo to play but since the mouth card was disabled for our plant we got no choice but to just play 'Pumpkin' for defense, we also played a 'Luna Absorb' to gain some energy for the next round.

They were getting agitated in round 3. Because of the presence of 'Pumpkin' for two consecutive rounds they were slowly chipping our health. It was a bad move though as they used double 'Tiny Dino' for that. I think a better move would be just to pass and save the cards. After all, cards like 'Tiny Dino' shined brighter after round 4 because of the damage increase effect. In round 4 they had a pretty great crit playing that lone 'Nut Cracker'. That 'Surprise Invasion' from their reptile managed to pass through our midline. The damage was significant but still bearable nonetheless. Since it came to this 2 v 3 situation we got no choice but to play high defense in our mid with the intention to eliminate their front and expose their mid. We saved one of our 'Bone Sail' for the next round. Things would be more brutal so we needed something with high defense.

Since we played 'Acro' at the end of the round 5, our reptile would be in first turn next round. I thought we would be able to kill them with our mid not receiving much damage but we were wrong. The beast shielded up close to 120 so we didn't manage to take it down. The only consolation was that they would not crit due to 'Jinx' effect from 'Ill-omened'. Even without crit our midline reptile took a full blown hit from two 'Jaguar' dealing more than 150 damage each. Their beast was also just barely hanging so killed it with 'Bone Sail'.

It came down to a 2 v1 in round 6. We tried dealing as much damage as possible from our mid while gaining energy from the back. In round 8 we sacrificed our mid although we had some pretty good cards to play with. If we played 3 cards including 'Tiny Dino' they would be left with around 130 health. In the next round they had more than 200 shield but we would have only 3 cards so we would still not be able to take them down unless we secured crit. We went to the seemingly safest option of sacrificing the mid not realizing that our speed advantage would be against us this time. 'Surprise Invasion' is amplified when attacking a faster target and together with another amplified skill 'Tiny Dino' and stun from 'Chomp' this would surely be painful. After the exchange and now entering round 10 we were actually at a disadvantage in terms of HP. We were at 108 and they were in 223. Because of 'Acro' we managed to take the first turn and went all out. Their reptile entered last stand and I was sure that it would be a draw after seeing those from cards from them. But after doing some computations later on we would actually enter last stand even if played a 'Chomp'+'High Damage' combo first. Well, they played the zero cost card so it was a relief at that point.

Anyway if they did play the combo we would be left with 31 HP (136-105) as excess damage. Our morale modifier would be [105(remaining hp)*35(morale stat of our reptile)]/100 which would be 3675/100 or 36.75. Since our morale modifier is greater than the excess damage we would enter last stand. Anyway, this formula is provided by leveldash so be sure to visit this article if you are interested.

And that's all for today.
See you guys again soon.
Stay safe.

Ciao~