Social Media Challenge - An Encounter With Cryptic But When It Is "Back to Basics", Just Keep It Simple

Prelude
Good day to all, hope that all of you are having a good week so far and having many memorable and interesting battles in Splinterlands. In today's sharing, I will be sharing an encounter with Cryptic, a strong archon but when we are playing simple strategies, perhaps, we might not even need to use Cryptic.

Cryptic

A card that looks like a conjurer that can give really good battle tactics to his lineup. Firstly by a negative speed debuff to opponent and at the same time give them blind as a default ability. Next will be battle tactics. One can either choose retaliate and enfeeble or poison and expose. To be honest, this card is really very strong because choosing the right skill will benefit the team by alot. But when the match is just back to basic ruleset, will all these matter?

So let's dive right in to today's battle sharing.

Battle Sharing

Reference Battle
Battle Link: https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_bf51cadd9825d59069dd2d91510223cf?ref=vaynard86

Ruleset: Back To Basics
Mana Limit: 41

Selection Analysis
In today's matchup, there is 3 choice available to us for this match, namely water, earth and dark. And the simple minded me had just one goal, boost up that magic attack and bulldoze through my opponent's lineup. So the choice is clear, it will be water splinter.

To lead the lineup, I call upon Mariel Singariel, whom is a foundation water splinter archon that gives +1 magic to the whole lineup. Since no abilities, all the negative ones will all be gone and so leading the frontline is none other than the Halfling Refugee, now it is really cheap and good at 1 mana with good stats and no side effects. In the remaining lineup, I started putting up all the magic attackers, that can fit into the mana requirement, I have in my collection. First up is Abyssal Elemental which is able to hit for 1 magic attack but when boosted by archon, hits for 2. And the same goes for the next in line, Torrent Sniper which has 8 health and can hold off for quite a while. Following which is Saltwater Mage which can hit for 2 but upon boosted, can hit for 3. Next is my favourite card for such matches, because upon boosted, this card can hit for a whooping 5 damage and this is none other than Shock Trooper. Last but not least to hang on till the end is Mystic Scaleweaver whom also can hit for 3 upon boosted. As to why this card is after Shock Trooper, I cannot remember but somehow I wanted a card that had a little more health at the end of the lineup (some kind of muscle memory kind of selection).

Opponent used Crytic as archon which is a double coloured splinter with a battle tactics and because of the double coloured, opponent is able to pick cards from both water and death splinter. The abilities of Cryptic had already been described above so I will not mention much here. And similar to me, the cards with negative effects are also being used by my opponent, which are Halfling Refugee and Shock Trooper, one leading the line and one anchoring the base. And the card in 2nd position is actually Helheim Demon which I think is an interesting choice because it is quite expensive to use this card with its heavy mana requirements. Next card is Captain Fellblade whom will be fantastic if this was not back to basic because this card has sneak so both the attacks will land from the back which is a super dangerous threat. And following Captain Fellblade is Torrent Sniper and Dark Arborist whom are both magic attackers and opponent had an upgraded Torrent Sniper that hits for 2 while Dark Arborist only hits for 1 magic damage.

Interesting selection by my opponent but for sure, he can hit me earlier due to the negative speed debuff but will speed + battle tactics take me out or raw magic power will prove to be too hot to handle?

Let's go to the round by round synopsis.

Round by Round Synopsis

Round 1 - Shock Trooper and Dark Arborist will take the poison and reveal for battle tactics. And the match begins. It look all doom and gloom for me as opponent just bulldoze through my defence and take out Halfling Refugee and Abyssal Elemental. Though I cleared off opponent Halfling Refugee as well, this is going to be an uphill battle.

Round 2 - Things got a little even now that while opponent cleared my Torrent Sniper, I was able to clear out their Helheim Demon and Captain Fellblade. A sigh of relief as we pull through another round of craziness. Though I need to be careful especially with 2 crds on opponent side being able to poison.

Round 3 - My lineup did what they could and clear out Torrent Sniper while opponent side cleared out my Saltwater Mage. And worse still, my Shock Trooper is now poisoned. A worrying chill goes down my spine again.

Round 4-5, Round 4 saw an exchange while Shock Trooper zaps Dark Arborist to death while kill subsequently. Then Mystic Scaleweaver hanged on with more health and outlast opponent Shock Trooper to bring home the win!

Battle Summary
While it might have looked a little simple that I use brute strength to outmuscle my opponent. It didn't go down as clear cut I thought it could be. And it was really till the last few moments that I manage to win the match.

In this match, a few talking points to discuss. Captain Fellblade was a bad call because it couldn't fully utilize the melee portion due to the ruleset. And many of the cards that my opponent had picked would have been perfect should this match is not back to basic and will be further boosted by Cryptic's ability to sink me deeper. But thankfully, some tiny mistakes here and there by my opponent allowed my team to come on top as winners of the match.

Wrap Up
Thank you all for dropping by the post and walking through with me on the sharing on this match and learning together with me on how to do better in various rulesets, card selection and against strong foes that in normal days are hard to overcome.

See you next time!

I am currently part of PIZZA, an active gaming and creative arts crypto community on the HIVE blockchain and part of PIZZA guild. Popular cryto games such as SPLINTERLANDS, RISING STAR and HASHKINGS are actively discussed in this community.

Many events are being organized from time to time. Join the PIZZA DISCORD. This is a place filled with 💰🍕🎁GIVEAWAYS & AIRDROPS💰🍕🎁 and most definitely consisting of a friendly community to be in.

Till my next battle sharing, take care, stay safe and happy battling!

If you are keen on playing Splinterlands, feel free to join me via this link: https://next.splinterlands.com/register?ref=vaynard86

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