Time for the TIME MAGE! An opportunity to explore an often overlooked card.

You know, in the Splinterverse, there are just some cards I don't tend to use. I guess it's like life, isn't it. We get into our routines and patterns and they often lead to the exclusion of people or experiences. I am like this with my battles, I don't often use the LIFE splinter, and when I do, I don't often use the TIME MAGE. However, it is TIME to correct that - and in doing so, I wanted to share with you one of my battles.

To do this, let's start with the TIME MAGE:

On it's surface, this is a pretty awesome card. It has 3 health, which is solid enough in a backline, while the +4 boots will often mean this card will be out of the box with an early hit in the battle. The only detracting factor of this card is the +1 magic damage only.

The key part of this card, then, is her skill: Slow. This is a really cool skill to have on your card, as it reduces all your opponents' card speed by 1. This is significant, as often battles are won based on early hits - and the kills that can be achieved before your opponent has a chance to strike. By playing a card with slow, all of a sudden, I should find myself beating my opponent's to the first hits, and hopefully, this will allow me to get the early lead and from that position, to dominate or expose my opponent's backline early.

This guy is amazing!

My card is Level 1, which means it is not properly leveled for the Silver league where I play, but I only have Level 1 LIFE summoners, so if it were a higher level, it wouldn't matter, but I did want to check out it's complete stats, just for some perspective.

In the end, I was incredibly impressed. This is one hot card, but it gets better and better as it levels up. I was able to note that at Level 3 this card would gain an extra magic bolt, which will make her far more dangerous. At Level 5, she also gains the RUST skill which reduces opponent's armour. Interestingly, she won't get +3 magic until Level 8 - but, it's not her attack that gives her value in your team, it is her SLOW skill.

To celebrate the card and this week's battle challenge, I decided to buy another card; this gives me two TIME MAGES. They card itself is not expensive at 28 cents per card, but I didn't have the DEC to buy enough to level her up. I am at 68,000 total card power - my goal is to hit 70,000 and then to start buying a bit more strategically. The TIME MAGE is definitely on my list!

So let's get to the BATTLE Ruleset:

This ruleset is very interesting, and not one you see often. The 'Keep Your Distance' ruleset excludes all melee attackers from the battle. This can often pose a problem, as Arrowed attackers can not often hit from the tank position, and it will likely mean whichever card is played early in the battle, may well be killed quickly and expose your backline. Typically, magic and arrow attackers don't have much armour - so the potential here is for a very quick battle.

The other part of this ruleset is the 'Aim True' part. This means that arrows can't miss, and will always hit their target. Although - it won't help you if you don't get to fire them off in a quick battle!

In looking at the ruleset, my biggest risk was my opponent playing WATER - And if Kelya Frendul gave my opponent's team all +1 armour, it was going to offer him protection I wouldn't otherwise have. My TIME MAGE's SLOW would therefore be crucial in trying to get an early advantage.

To help me out, I put my PELACOR CONJURER out the front. This is card I very infrequently use, but in this ruleset, he's well suited. He is low mana at 2 - and his health will allow him to survive a number of hits, becoming a 'meat-shield' of sorts. In my back-line I play the Djinn Renova, whose 'Strengthen' skill will give him an additional health.

My Backrow:

Looking at my backrow, you'll note that the mana limitations this week have meant my team doesn't have a lot of depth. Instead, you'll see I've gone for some low mana magic damage dealers - who I hope will quickly move through my opponent's team, without consideration of armour. They do provide a bit of a shield with decent health to protect my PELAOR ARBELEST - who, with General Sloan's help, will hit for +6 arrows each round - and, with the aim true, he can't miss. GOLD!

There are a few parts of this line that I like.
The first is The Time Mage

• By playing in the off-tank position, she will allow my team to take a strong position early with her SLOW skill. She will also move to 4 health with Djinn Renova's STRENGTHEN. In a battle like this one, four health will act as a good defense for the team behind me.

The Paragon Dax is also a solid feature of my team, as he only costs 2 mana, and provides a 1 magic attack. I positioned him after the TIME MAGE, because the MAGE has higher health, which in theory, might give her an extra defending hit before exposing my 3rd card. The trick is, you want your higher health cards in before your lower health cards - this will give the battle longevity.

Djinn Renova also has a significant position, at 7 mana, she's not cheap, HOWEVER, her double magic attack will strengthen my magic offensive, hitting each target with up to 4 magic per round - but her key is her STRENGTHEN skill. In this ruleset, every piece of HEALTH will be essential to protecting my backline - I've positioned her near the backend of my team, so TIME MAGE and PARAGON can move to the tank position with additional health.

The final position is occupied by my Pelacor Arbelest. That card is going to be a significant strength in this battle, with his double strike ability - he'll hit for up to 6 damage per round. In total, I am playing 4 magic, 6 arrow damage. At 6 mana, he's great value, and without melee attacks, I don't have a great risk of SNEAK attacks dropping him early in the battle.

This is how the battle gets underways:

Right from the start I felt fairly confident of success, as I have 24 HEALTH total compared to my opponent's 19 health. I also have 10 attack per round, compared to my opponent on 5. By playing a tank with an arrow, that card won't attack - but I reckon he did that so he could try and heal it and get some longevity in the battle. Spoiler: it didn't work.

Ok, let's have a look at how the battle went, have a look at this video. It's only four rounds!

At the end of round 1, you can see, the initial hits have meant that both my opponent and I have lost our tanks, and we're starting to expose the backline.

But then, by the end of Round 2 - I've moved into a dominant position, having dealt more than twice the damage compared to my opponent. At this point, he simply doesn't have the offensive assets left to be able to win this battle.

And by the start of Round 4, the battle won't last much longer. He got my TIME MAGE down - but, by that point in the battle, it didn't matter that his card will attack before mine, as my remaining line-up is well positioned to defend his 1 magic attack, whilst still having +9 total attack left between the three cards:

So what's the verdict?

• I don't often play LIFE, and have limited experience with TIME MAGE. Yet, I've often thought of the usefulness of speed. I often play WATER to be able to access a lot of speedy cards, often leading to a quick advantage being gained. That said, I havn't often thought of reducing enemy speed to gain that advantage. It's making me think through some strategy options, and I like the potential I'm seeing!
• I do really need to Level my card up to Level 3, and get a summoner that will allow a Level 3 RARE card to be played. This will certainly be on my to do list, because I can clearly see how that speed advantage she gave me, led me to the early dominant position in this battle.

Thanks for joining me, for another Splinter Chat! This blog was put together as part of Splinterlands' weekly 'Share-Your-Battle' challenge. Have you put yours together yet?
LordTimoty

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