Hello, Splinterlovers, today I will make a post about Community Engagement Challenge: Favorite Strategies. I will discuss how to enjoying play the Splinterlands while only buy/rent some cheap card. To enjoy the game of course one of the requirements that you need to win, no one wants to keep playing if you keep losing the battle. But to win you must keep playing until you understand the strength of the card you have (summoner and unit), the formation best in some situations, and each ruleset although you can learn from other post about the strategy, but you must learn by playing to really understand what it mean. So this time I want to show u my battle that it looks impossible to win because the enemy card is a lot superior than my card, but I manage to win this by predicting the card the enemy will use and create a new formation.

Battle Link

If you want to watch the Battle Link
Video link:

Ruleset

• Silenced Summoners ruleset, all summoner abilities, buff, and debuff disabled.
• Fire & Regret, all monsters have Return Fire ability.
  • When hit with a Ranged attack, Monsters with Return Fire will return reduced damage to their attacker. Damage returned is equal to the damage of the attacker divided by 2, rounded up.
• Odd Ones Out, only monster with the odd mana cost can be used.
• mana cap.
• can use all elements Water and Dragon element.

My Lineup and strategy

The picture above is just example, not taking from this battle.

If you don't have powerful card checking Recently Played Teams every battle is a must with that you can predict how to battle the enemy which will increase your win rate. My Formation this time is formed because I see two powerful cards in the enemy lineup :

Because this is a high mana battle there is a high probability that the enemy will at least use Mantaroth and maybe add Venka the Vile in their formation.

• Mantaroth attacks can't miss, have high armor, HP, and damage because can attack with a shield and give splash damage (damaging unit adjacent to the unit he attacks), have the ability to half the melee and range damage, and can repair the shield.
• Venka The Vile can attack from any position to our unit in the first position, has high speed, damage, and Piercing ability (after breaking the enemy unit armor if there is damage left will decrease the HP). Every time it kills the enemy it will immediately attacking the unit behind.

As you can see the mantaroth have 11 mana cost this means a unit with the Giant Killer ability will do double damage to the Mantaroth who has 10 or more mana. Because of that then I decided to use this formation which can handle Venka too if the enemy uses it.

My lineup for this battle :

Summoner or monster	Abilities	Description
	Quick the Devious, Summoner. All abilities, buff and debuff is disabled due the Silenced Summoners ruleset	We used this Dragon summoner because I need it in order to use the unit in the Dragon Element who can counter Mantaroth and Venka.
	Venari Marksrat, 1st position, Support, has the ability Martyr, Ensnare, and Shatter.	We used this unit to boost the stats of our unit in the 2nd position using Martyr ability (every time this unit dies will boost all base stat of the unit adjacent to this unit by +1), because I think although that unit in the 2nd position has a chance to kill Mantaroth and Venka the stats of Armor and HP are low it may die before can do the job.
	Desert Dragon, 2nd position, attacker and tanker. Has the ability Trample, Piercing, Retaliate, and Giant Killer.	This is our main attacker and our main weapon to kill the Mantroth and Venka because It has Giant Killer ability with very high damage. The Piercing ability will help to kill the enemy faster because after destroying the enemy's armor if there is any left damage will decrease the enemy's HP. With the Trample ability if we hit the enemy and kill it, it will immediately attack the enemy behind. This unit will counterattack the enemy melee attack with a 50% chance using the Retaliate's ability. As you can see all ability is good against Mantaroth and Venka units except the low speed, armor, and HP. In this 2nd position, this unit can't attack it needs to move to the first position.
	Carnage Titan 3rd position, attacker, and 2nd tanker. Has the ability Reach, Double Strike, and Shield.	Although it needs to move to the 2nd position before it can attack because have Reach ability, I Purposefully use this unit so when Venari Marksrat dies and Our Desert Dragon moves to the first position this unit will help attack the Mantaroth / the enemy tanker. The ability of Double Strike makes this monster a powerful attacker. Each round this monster can attack twice for a total damage of 8. To handle Blast damage from Mantaroth this unit has Shield ability, which can decrease the enemy's melee, range attack by half including the Blast damage.
	Merdaali Guardian, 4th position, Support, has the ability Tank Heal, Repair, and Strengthen.	We use this monster to Heal our monster in the first position (especially Desert Dragon) and restore the unit armor (Repair ability) that has the highest damage. The Strengthen ability will increase all of the enemy HP to +1 .
	River Hellondale, 5th position, attacker and support. Has the ability resurrect, Inspire, and Dispel.	I am still not sure that Desert Dragon has a chance to kill Mantaroth so I need it stronger that's why I use this unit that has Resurrect ability to resurrect the Venari Marksrat to double the effect of the Martyr ability, and Inspire ability will increasing our Desert Dragon and Carnage Titan damage by 1.
	Runic Skyclaw, 6th position, attacker. Has the ability Flying, Snipe, Reflection Shield and Giant Killer.	Put this unit in the last position, as a safety guard against the enemy melee unit who has Sneak ability (attacking the unit in the last position), because this unit has high speed of 6 and Flying ability (increase the chance to evade the enemy melee and range attack by 25%). Although this unit Has Giant Killer I don't think it will help us attacking the Mantaroth right away because this unit has Snipe ability which prioritizes attacking the enemy range and magic unit in the 2nd - 6th, if there is no one it will attacking the enemy unit in the first position. With the Reflection Shield ability, this unit is immune from the damage of Fire & Regret ruleset.

Our Formation is finished and we are ready to battle :

What cards are essential?

It hard to think which card essential, each card has it own role and supporting each other. But if I must choose I think Venari Marksrat and Desert Dragon.

What battle situations does it shine in

I think if we see the enemy player spam Mantaroth in Recently Playing team.

Conclusion

Our prediction was correct that the enemy would use Mantaroth and Venka, but we didn't think that the enemy would use Agor Longtail units, luckily we brought Runic Skyclaw the range unit which gives double damage with the Giant Killer.

Here you can see that after getting a double boost from Venari Marksrat Martyr ability , the Desert Dragon's hits Mantaroth, leaving it with 6 HP, then kills the enemy units Carnage Titan and Venka the Vile:

Even though we cannot predict exactly what dangerous units the enemy will use, we only guess 2 units that the enemy will use, it increases our chances of winning, of course, RNG still plays a role in our victory.

With cards that don't require a lot of money and good formation /lineup we can still enjoy and win battles in this game. But of course, having stronger cards will allow us to enjoy this game more because it will increase our chances of winning, and make us not think too much.

Thank you, my friend, for taking the time to review my battle report. I appreciate your efforts and would be grateful if you could provide me with feedback on any mistakes you find by leaving a comment.

If you are new and want to try this fantastic strategy card battle game feel free to use my referral code https://splinterlands.com?ref=poplar-22 to join.

Credit

• Thumbnail using Canva.
• Divider took from @kyo-gaming.
• Card description, Image, and graphic were taken from https://Peakmonsters.com and https://Splintercards.com