This week's Share Your Battle challenge features Magi of Chaos! This challenge was a fun one for me because it was a little bit of a change from previous battle challenges - Magi of Chaos is an epic rarity card, which (at least as far as I can recall) hasn't come up much in the weekly challenges. Also, Magi of Chaos is a neutral card, which gives us plenty of different ways in which we can use it in battle.
As you may expect from the name, Magi of Chaos is a magic attacking monster. What you may not expect is that Magi of Chaos is also a top notch monster for its cost - usually when I see a neutral monster, it tends to be a little on the weaker side due to its ability to be used with every other splinter. But that is far from the case here! Even at just level 1, for the reasonable cost of 6 mana you get a solid 2 magic damage, to go along with 2 speed and 5 health. This means that Magi of Chaos is an excellent pick in magic attacking lineups, which is how we'll be showcasing it today.
If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!
This was the ruleset for today's battle. As you can tell, our options here are fairly limited - no melee monsters thanks to Keep Your Distance, and just two splinters to pick from in Earth or Death. While the Death splinter does have its merits, I opted to go for Earth here on account of the high mana cap.
When playing Earth magic lineups, Obsidian is the natural summoner choice. The +1 magic buff is kind of a big deal, particularly because many magic monsters have a low base attack. Magi of Chaos with 2 attack is one of the harder hitting magic attackers, and Obsidian will give his attacks even more OMPH!
It is rather difficult to find monsters with a lot of bulk when you are working with the Keep Your Distance ruleset, but I did my best to put my tankiest monsters at the front. Mycelic Slipspawn certainly fits the bill with a whooping 11 health. Regal Peryton is a bit more fragile with just 6 health, but its Flying ability means it had a chance to dodge ranged attacks and its high speed meant that it was likely to at least be able to attack in the round it gets taken out.
The middle of my lineup held most of my magic damage. Goblin Psychic and our guest star of the week, Magi of Chaos, both hit for 2 base damage, which got buffed to 3 with Obsidian. Goblin Psychic's Tank Heal ability could also be a gamechanger if it allowed my front line monsters to survive a little longer.
For the back end of my team I had the choice to either bring some low cost magic attackers or some higher cost ranged ones. The magic monsters would be weaker but would still be able to attack at the front. The ranged attackers would hit harder, but would be helpless if they happened to be stuck in the first position. I went for the ranged attackers - no guts, no glory! Hunter Jarx had a decent chance to take out an important monster in my opponent's lineup thanks to Snipe, and Uloth Dhampir would hit hard for 3 ranged damage per turn, while also having a chance to Stun.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am hopeful - my opponent has chosen a very similar lineup to me, with 4 magic attackers in front of 2 ranged attackers at the back. The difference was that my monsters generally had more attack, as well as having additional health thanks to a combination of higher levels and different card selection.
In the first round of battle things do not actually go according to plan. Thanks to an unlucky miss, I am actually behind in the damage race - both of our Mycelic Morphoids go down, and my Regal Peryton has take more damage than my opponent's.
Thankfully, after another round my monster's superior stats were finally able to tilt the battle in my favor. Thanks to a combination of higher speed and bulk, my lineup is able to plow through the rest of my opponent's magi attackers. By the start of the third round, my monsters were poised to take out the enemy Mantoid, leaving my opponent's final ranged monster stuck at the front unable to attack. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
My strategy worked out perfectly in this battle. My magic attackers at the front were able to survive long enough for my lineup's combination of ranged and magic attacks to tear through my opponent's lineup. Magi of Chaos slotted in perfectly as an additional hard hitting magic attacker with plenty of bulk. I am a big fan of Magi of Chaos - it has a solid role as a relatively cost effective magic attacker, and it will continue to be a staple of my lineups and strategies in the future.
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:
Splinterlands Economics: Utility - An overview of the concept of utility, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands.
Splinterlands Economics: Prisoner's Dilemma - An introduction to the Prisoner's Dilemma, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands.
A Noxious Affair - Using DRAGONS in Battle! - Last week's battle challenge, featuring the Dragon splinter!
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All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.