The Common Crew

Greetings, battle mages!

This week's featured ruleset in Battle Mage Secrets is Rise of the Commons meaning only common and rare cards can be used in battle. This is one of those rulesets I have actually been preparing for as I've slowly built my Fire deck to be relatively competitive in these kinds of challenges.

I guess the building of this particular Splinter deck started because I wanted to make the most of Tarsa's +1 melee buff and therefore started collecting cheap melee monsters.

Later on, I noticed that it's a really good thing to have a deck ready for some restrictive rulesets such as little league and Rise of the Commons.

In my opinion TARSA is an excellent summoner to use with common and rare units as her melee buff will make them far more dangerous than they first appear.

The only issue I'm having at the moment is that my Tarsa is only on level 2 and is desperately requiring an upgrade as some of my Soulboud monsters have outgrown her, meaning they can't be played on their highest level.

I do have a level 3 Eternan Brute but costing 6 mana points, it is more suitable for those higher mana battles.

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Scouting My Opponent

Still, Tarsa was just a perfect choice for this low-mana battle. Besides the Rise of the Commons ruleset, we also had the lost magic ruleset preventing us from using any magic units. Despite that, my opponent chose Obsidian, a summoner whose only buff is to boost magic attacks.

They also had the Failed Summoner, a monster that is very good at countering other magic teams with his magic reflect ability. However, in this battle, he would remain idle because he has no attack of his own.

My opponent seemed to have used a big chunk of mana for the tank unit indeed worth every bit in many cases - Mycelic Infantry suffers reduced damage from melee and ranged attacks because of its Shield ability.

Their last monster is Venari Scout, a pretty weak but sneaky melee monster with the opportunity ability.

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My Team

What a great little tank unit ANTOID PLATOON is! Being a common unit it is allowed in Rise of the Commons and costing only 4 mana, it also fits in with the Little League ruleset.

It's a perfect match with Tarsa as the melee attack is increased to 2 points and health jumps up from 4 to 5. In order to reduce that, the enemy will first have to go through its armour which could be easier said than done because Antoid Platoon has the shield ability to make it a tough little nut to crack.

TENYY STRIKER wouldn't fit in Little League but is my go-to monster on special occasions such as Rise of the Commons here.

This Rare unit would be somewhat dangerous with its base stats alone but becomes a force to reckon with after Tarsa's buffs. He will then have a melee attack of 3 and 7 health points. That combined with a relatively good speed(3) will probably require more than one attempt from the opponent to bring him down.

The Striker will also use his Sneak ability to target the last monster in enemy ranks.

Building an army of rare and common small-time monsters around Tarsa and her summoner buffs isn't just restricted to Fire units alone.

BATTERING RAM wouldn't be that menacing with its base stats but with an increased melee attack it will become a surprisingly lethal monster in taking down the weak links of the enemy.

The Ram costs only 2 mana points making it fit easily into many formations. Using the opportunity ability will indeed make it a threat to other small units but its low health(1) will also make it vulnerable to opponent opportunity attacks.

Still, Battering Ram has a nice amount of speed that just might give it an advantage.

Last but not least, well maybe he actually is the least, VENARI MARKSRAT is sort of an insurance card against opponent Sneak monsters. In other words, Marksrat can be sacrificed for the greater good.

If and when he is killed, his martyr ability will trigger making adjacent monsters stronger. In this case, it happens to Battering Ram who would then become a nasty little thing with a 3 3-point melee attack.

If the Ram wouldn't exist at that point, the same would apply to Tenyy Striker then.

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The Battle

So, in a nutshell, my strategy is to use Sneak and Opportunity monsters to take down the back-line of the opponent squad while hoping my little tank unit will hold. If this proves to be successful, I would perhaps have an overpowering amount of units that would be focusing on their Mycelic Infantry.

To watch the whole battle, click HERE or/and continue reading my battle report below!

• ROUND 1
  • The first round started with the fight between opportunity monsters(Venari Scout & Battering Ram) and with a little help from Tenyy Striker, it ended in the victory of my Battering Ram.
• ROUND 2
  • Now it was time to get rid of that idle Failed Summoner. The exact same strategy seemed to work, Tenyy Striker softened the target and the Ram then finished the job. Well done guys!
  • Meanwhile their Mycelic Infantry had destroyed the armour of the Platoon and reduced their health 3 but the ants were still holding.
• ROUND 3
  • Now that my stronger attack units were focusing on their tank we actually managed to do some damage to it leaving it with 6 hitpoints.
  • After the Mycelic Infantry's turn, our Antoid Platoon was still left with 1 hitpoint. Such troopers!

• ROUND 4
  • After my attacks the incredibly resilient opponent tank was still left with 2 hitpoints and having such a strong melee attack, there was no hope for the Platoon. Well served.
• ROUND 5
  • I the beginning of the final round it was Tenyii Striker's time to pay back and with a single blow, the battle was over.

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Conclusion

My strategy worked perfectly in this low-mana battle even though this is a stripped version of my common/rare Fire Splinter lineup. If there had been more mana to use, I would've very likely included such monsters as Ferox Defender to add protect, Disintegrator to demoralize the opponent, or just bring in the heavy artillery with Chimney Wallstop.

When I'm heading into a Splinterlands battle with a large amount of mana to be used, I usually go with Water and magic but Fire still remains my favourite lower mana, special occasion Splinter. I'm actually currently looking to add a few more low-mana monsters to it so if you have some great 2-3 mana melee monsters in mind, do drop a comment below.

Thank you for reading!