Dragons can be very powerful addons to other splinters. While some dragon monsters are very strong and can change the tide of battle, sometimes choosing the Dragon Summoner alone can change things for the better…

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Watch the battle!

Ruleset

In this battle I had a choice between Death Water or Dragon. I Chose Quix the Devious as my summoner for a few reasons. First, I have him leveled up to Gold, While my summoners for death and water are both at Silver. But more importantly both my other two silver level summoners give -1 Magic (Bortus and Thaddius). With only water and death as main deck options I did not think it was likely that there would be any magic spamming and there for most of the summoner buffs would be waisted with my other two options. Meanwhile Quix gave me two buffs that would be more useful -1 Speed and -1 Ranged. Neither one is overwhelming speed is so important in splinter lands, so every little bit helps. I was also trying to fulfil the stubborn mercenaries’ quest, so no neutrals allowed this battle.

Positions and rational

Baakjira is an amazing wall of health that is very hard to break through. With the Equalizer rules It also makes this a very high health battle which minimizes the effects of the earthquake. Not to mention his strengthen gives a slight edge in Equalizer.

Djinn Oshannus is one of my favorites to use in second position. With a boost to health he is hard to kill quickly and Baakjira and Oshannus together make a great counter in case the other player plays multiple magic monsters.

Pelacor Bandit was placed in the third position. With Quix, I was able to play him at level 8 giving him a boost to both speed and damage compared to using my water summoner. I placed him in front of my ranged attackers as a final wall to allow them to keep fighting if my tank was lost. With a high speed and flight, he is hard to hit and even harder to take down in this ruleset with such a high health. He also has sneak so he will attack right out the gate.

Axemaster is one of my favorite water cards. The double strike ability is strong and with good speed and a total of 6 damage per turn he can take down enemies fast. He was placed in forth position in hopes that he will be protected for as long as possible. Sneak attacks won’t reach him for a while and the front is well guarded.

Angelic Mandarin is in the fifth position. Again, Quix helps since I can play my level 5 Mandarin giving him an extra point of range damage. More ranged damage can never hurt, but its his triage ability that really shines. With such a high health game I expect it to go on for many rounds and having triage will protect against sneak attack and opportunity

Wave Brood takes the rear in this game. While he doesn’t gain much from the benefits of Equalizer, he does have taunt. Having most of the damage directed at the wave brood for the first few rounds will give my higher damage dealers like Axemaster more rounds to attack before any damage come its way.

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Pre-battle Thoughts

They went with Kelya Frendul as their summoner. The extra speed will be neutralized by Quix and further dropped by Baakjira, but the +1 armor will give their monsters more time on the field. The Serpent of Eld and Flying Squid will do a good bit of damage to my front but with Baakjira it will still take them some time. Deeplurker is always a beast but with the equalizer ruleset it will still take him at least 4 turns to defeat any of my cards so his opportunity ability is more of a hinderance in this since I find that concentrated damage is better for these high health games. Diemonshark is a powerful tank, but he won’t be able to attack until he gets to the front. Enrage makes for some nasty attacks but I still think my health wall and the concentrated damage of 4 out of 6 cards will make him short lived. Ice Pixie is protected from the earthquake but that about it. Since Baakjira and Djinn Oshannus and both have Void, Ice Pixie won’t be able to do any damage until they are defeated, if it can make it that far. And finally, they have Goblin Chariot taking up the rear. His 3 ranged damage will drop to 2 thanks to Quix. Pelacor Bandit is the only one who will be doing damage to him for a while so he should have time to deal a decent amount of damage to my team.

ROUND 1

No one drops in the first round. So far so good. His tank the Serpent of Eld is already on the ropes

ROUND 2

The earthquake takes a bite of both teams, but my concentrated fire strategy is working. Serpent of eld is gone and the Flying Squid is close to death. Both Baakjira and Wave Brood are almost spent but that was expected.

ROUND 3

Wave Brood and Baakjira finally drop in round 3. The rest of my team are still pretty healthy; meanwhile deep lurker and Goblin Chariot are both nearing their end.

ROUND 4

Deeplurker and Goblin Chariot drop during this round. Djinn Oshannus is barely holding on, and Diemonshark is enraged and doing some pretty big chunks of damage.

ROUND 5

Oshannus gets taken out at the beginning of round 5 by the earthquake. Diemonshark drops with a team effort leaving only the Ice Pixie standing on the other team

ROUND 6

Ice pixy only does one damage per round. Its will not be enough. My team whittles away at the Pixies health. It survives but it is now only a matter of time…

ROUND 7

The pixie drops in round 7 ending the battle with a victory!

FINAL THOUGHTS

I think my main strategy of concentrated fire was very successful in this ruleset. With so much health you’re not going to knock out any monsters quickly with a sneak or a snipe, all your doing is allowing your opponent more rounds to fight back. The only monster I used that fell in that category was the Pelacor Bandit, but for only 3 mana having 3 melee damage, plus flight plus a very high speed was too much to reconsider. I could have subbed him for Merdaali Guardian for some extra health throughout the match which may have kept Baakjira around longer, but it was really a toss up on which would have gone better.

The other player didn’t go heavy on the magic damage so had I gone straight water with Bortus, he would not have given me any help in this battle. Quix was definitely the better choice both for the bump to gold eligible cards as well as the minus to both speed and ranged. I may have still one with Bortus, but it would have been much closer. I would be doing 2 damage less per round while the other player would be doing one more per round and be faster. A few misses can mean all the difference in this game.

All in all, I am very happy with this battle. I had a plan and it worked out. What more can you ask for?