Reversed Speed - Beware The Worm

The first battles of the new season are always a real struggle for me. As more advanced teams have dropped from the Gold League into Silver and are on their way back, I get trashed along the way. Also, as I have dropped a few ladders down, I get more battles unsuited to my strategies. This means there are more battles with just one ruleset.

Times like these mean I have to improvise a bit more and use different Splinters on different occasions to see what will work and what won't. Today's battle is a good example of this. This week's Splinterlands Battle Mage Secrets secrets feature the Reverse Speed ruleset meaning the monsters with the lowest speed attack first and have the highest chance of evading attacks. So everything is pretty much upside down.

When trying to tackle the Reverse Speed ruleset there are a couple of things to take into consideration(things I often forget):

• Monsters with Bloodlust actually become easier to hit when their stats increase after a kill

• Abilities such as Swiftness and Slow work against you!

• Obviously you might also not want to use summoners like Helios Matriarch who have buffs that will increase speed

That being said, the ruleset is very interesting and it kind of opens a chance to browse the unused monsters that you don't usually pick because of their low speed. With Reverse Speed, they will now have their moment in the spotlight.

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My Team

When deciding on the strategy and the Splinter for this battle I almost ran out of time so the Death Splinter really was a last-minute call. This is the Splinter I rarely use even though I have some prominent monsters in it. That being said, I think I still made some hasty decisions while choosing the team. Let's have a look so you can have your say as well.

I'm not a big fan of the Taunt ability so I rarely use monsters with it but this opportunity was just too good to be missed. NIGHT GHOUL is a very powerful but slow tank unit with good armour and plenty of health. My idea of choosing this one was perhaps to use Taunt to draw enemy attacks toward it and hope it will be able to dodge them since the speed factor is now reversed.

USUT was my second pick and what did I just say earlier? Bloodlust Monsters will get faster after every kill and therefore slower cos of the ruleset. Still, Usut has that Flying ability too and we shouldn't underestimate the potentially growing magic attack. Also, if the Bloodlust should trigger, Usut would still be a good backup tank as it is slow and also has a nice amount of health and armour.

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Yet another slow monster, SPIRIT HOARDER, is a useful guy with its Triage ability to heal other units that are not in the first position. Being a Neutral unit, it can be thrown into any mix and I often use it with Water Splinter where it really excels because of Alric Stormbringer's magic buff.

URAEUS is not as slow as others but will do some damage when given a chance. Using its Sneak ability it will be targeting the last enemy monster. This will turn out useful if only my two big guys will hold in the front.

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SAND WORM is almost like it was made for battles like this. It has a super powerful melee attack(5) even on level one. The reason I'm not using this one more often is its low speed but hey, in this battle it has become a huge advantage! The Sneak ability will make the Sand Worm attack the last unit and if they are unprotected and slow(more speed), Sand Worm might finish them up with a single strike.

RAVENHOOD WARDEN has pretty adequate stats but his function on this team is to offer protection to other units using the Protect ability.

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Entering The Arena

In this battle, we only had one ruleset, the Reverse Speed. There was plenty of mana to be used and all the Splinters were available except for Water and Dragon.

From those options, my opponent chose Earth which has a lot of slow monsters to choose from.

• Mycelic Infantry is a solid choice for Reverse Speed battle having only 1 speed point but also having the Shield ability.

• Terraceous Grunt will be idle at the start as it cannot attack from that position.

• Hunter Jarx can pose a threat to my back-line monsters with his Snipe ability.

• Goblin Psychic got his magic reduced thanks to my summoner's buff but is still useful to them with his Tank Heal.

• Venari Seedsmith has some average stats but could grow stronger with Scavenger ability.

• Another potential threat. Goblin Tower can do some nasty things with Blast.

Seems like a strong squad but perhaps the most dangerous one is their summoner - Immortalis will reduce the health of my units and in addition to that, he will provide Shatter and Void abilities to all of his monsters. Shatter will remove those heavy armours from my two strongest units while Void will make Mycelic Infantr even more harder to knock down. Great.

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The Battle

So, based on this info, who do you think would win this one? Wait no more and find out by watching the battle HERE or/and continue reading my battle report below!

ROUND 1

There's not much to mention about the first round. Mycelic Infantry was as tough as expected. They also got Night Ghoul's armour shattered and his health dropped to one as we moved on the the second round.

ROUND 2

Sand Worm was the first to strike and it did take out the Goblin Tower, that's one more thing to worry about...Night Ghoul was the next to die while Usut took his place only to get his armour shattered as well.

ROUND 3

Again! This time the Sand Worm destroyed Venari Seedsmith who had grown a bit stronger but was no match to the Worm's lethal melee attack. For the rest of the round, we tried to take down Mycelic Infantry who was incredibly strong with all those defensive abilities.

ROUND 4

This was becoming a habit and this Sand Worm finished up their tank healer - Goblin Psychic. Usut was also done for today and left the arena without using the Blast ability.

ROUND 5

Now there was no question about who was the hero of the day. Sand Worm killed Hunter Jarx while Mycelic Infantry remained a tough nut to crack.

ROUNDS 6 - 9

As it turned out, Sand Worm ended up eventually destroying every monster on their team without taking a single hit! A true MVP.

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Conclusion

Even though I kind of felt I was forced to choose the monsters I chose, I feel like I learned something from this one too. The lesson learned is that Sand Worm is one hell of a monster for Reverse Ruleset battles! The fact that unlike in normal battles, he is now the one making first strikes in each round is a true game changer. The 5-point melee attack is a formidable threat even against tougher teams on higher levels. I'm now actually thinking about upgrading my Worm, it's a great specialist for special occasions and being a Nutral unit makes him more available for Reverse battles.

What do you think, is it worth buying a few copies?

Thank you for reading!