HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Welcome to yet another week of the "new" iteration of the Splinterlands Weekly Challenges 😜.

For any old Hivers/Splinterland players who've just come back and are confused, fret not! Even with the name and format tweaks, right at it's core, battles are still the foundation of these posts.

In this week's edition of Battle Mage Secrets, tread lightly and creep up on your opponent. However, everyone is doing the same thing! Who will have the softest step and end up being the best backstabber?

No matter! I present to you the ruleset — SUPER SNEAK 🔪🔪🔪

The game's description of SUPER SNEAK is as follows: "All Melee attack Monsters have the Sneak ability."

Looking at the description of this ruleset, it is obvious that fielding a melee heavy team will allow you to take advantage of this the most since it is something that is available only to melee units. That also means you should expect your backline to face an onslaught of attacks and prepare accordingly. 😉

I will take advantage of this ruleset in my battle showcase today to show how 1 of my units in particular becomes a lot stronger than one would expect with SUPER SNEAK. Introducing the unit, DRYBONE BARBARIAN.

The Drybone Anarchists are an army of raiders, pillagers, and plunderers led by the llamataur warlord, Eternan Brune. They control the Drybone Badlands in the Wild Northeast, where it’s survival of the fittest, and only the strong survive… and Drybone Barbarians are strong indeed.
Wild, savage warriors, they rely on their brute strength and primal rage in combat. They attack any travelers and outsiders foolish enough to venture into their territory, taking what they want and leaving the rest for scavengers to pick clean.

From Splinterlands Lore on DRYBONE BARBARIAN

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DRYBONE BARBARIAN is a Common card released during the Soulbound Rewards expansion. At LEVEL 1, it has 4 ⚔️ ATTACK⚔️ and 2 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 0 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 10 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the ENRAGE ability. It's summoning cost is 9 🧪MANA🧪.

As a unit itself, DRYBONE BARBARIAN might look lacklustre. It has a very high casting cost and all it seems to have is a very high Health stat and Melee Attack Damage. For that cost, it is very steep and there could be much better alternatives.

However, what is often overlooked is it's ENRAGE and RETALIATE ability! This is an amazing combination of abilities. Once he takes damage, he enrages and his speed and damage is increased by a whooping 50%! The RETALIATE ability then has a 50% chance to activate which allows him to immediately attack the unit which attacked him with a vengeance!

This could make all the difference if the battle comes down to the wire where the slightest advantage is the fine line between victory or defeat! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 This is definitely what I'd consider game changing! 😱😱😱

⚔️🛡️My Battle Showcase🛡️⚔️

Let me present a battle I fought recently in which the ruleset SUPER SNEAK was in effect. My opponent used the Chaos Legion edition Summoner Kelya Frendul from the WATER splinter as his main pick, while I used the Soulbound Rewards edition Summoner Franz Ruffmane from the LIFE splinter. 💧 VS 👼🏻

At first glance, it would seem like I was at a distinct disadvantage.

• My opponent was using a Summoner which was gave a significant advantage to melee units!

• His units were tailored to counter this ruleset.

• His backline was protected with units with the DODGE and DEMORALIZE abilities.

• To exacerbate matters, all his units were heavily armoured and that would cause my units even more attacks before they actually got to deal any damage at all!

I was honestly expecting this to be a really bad matchup for me 😜🤣. This was a team who had an innate advantage in this ruleset. His team had one purpose only and that was to counter this ruleset and defend their backline. Would I be able to turn the tide of battle against such an opponent then? Victory or defeat would lie in the small details.

I would say that the ruleset SUPER SNEAK was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. The advantage it gave my team resulted in me outlasting my opponent in this battle. It definitely provided the edge that I needed to overcome my opponent.

This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆

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LINK TO MY FIGHT

👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

1st CARD SLOT

The Pelacor Conjuror is chosen for this slot. He plays the role of the Main tank perfectly with his great stats. His high Health and Speed stats AND the FLYING ability will also allow him to have much longer staying power on the battlefield. This allows all other units to be kept safe until he is taken down.

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2nd CARD SLOT

The Soul Fiend occupies this slot. It's main role here is to be a "zero cost" sacrificial unit.

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3rd CARD SLOT

Captain Katie occupies this slot. She is an amazing Magic DPS unit that has the SNIPE and BLOODLUST abilities.

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4th CARD SLOT

The Spirit Hoarder occupies this slot. Safely protected in the middle, it's role is to offer support to the team via it's TRIAGE ability. This ensures the backline will stay healed up.

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5th CARD SLOT

Jared Scar occupies this slot. It's role is simply being a hard hitting DPS unit. It also has the BLOODLUST ability.

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6th CARD SLOT

The Drybone Barbarian occupies this slot. It's role is to be the backline tank with it's high Health and RETALIATE ability.

I hope you're starting to see the pattern here in my team setup. 😉

⚔️🛡️Battle Action Report🛡️⚔️

As you can see, both of us fielded very different units in our matchup. My opponent went mainly for Melee DPS, while I had a distribution of a variety of units. 😱

👼🏻LIFE👼🏻 VS 🌊WATER🌊

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My opponent used the Diemonshark as his tank in the 1st slot which was a VERY good choice. With his great defensive stats and high ARMOUR, this is a unit which will protect it's entire team until it falls.

Tide Biter occupied his 2nd slot and was another great choice. It's REACH ability allowed it to attack, while it made for a great backup tank too!

The Cruel Sethropod occupied his 3rd slot, and it's role was to provide a form of cheap and effective DPS.

The Disintegrator and Serpent of Eld made up the bulk of his SUPER SNEAK backline defence with their great anti melee abilities DODGE and DEMORALIZE.

His Venator Kinjo occupied the last slot, being able to deal a bit of DPS whilst protected by its CAMOUFLAGE ability.

All in all, I would say that the opponent picked a really strong team.

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My choice of the Main Tank was the Pelacor Conjuror who is perfect for this task. He has really high defensive stats and the FLYING ability in order to take extra hits to ensure that all the other units are protected. This allows it to last longer on the battlefield.

The Soul Fiend followed next. As a "zero cost" unit, it's purpose is solely to be a one hit sacrificial unit.

The Spirit Hoarder played the role of a Support Backline Healer with it's TRIAGE ability.

Captain Katie, Jared Scar and the Drybone Barbarian filled out the rest of my team as the main DPS-ers.

As you can see here, I was going on the offensive here.

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The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was a mid mana game with 34 mana as the limit. The rulesets were SUPER SNEAK.

• The first round saw both our sides launch a flurry of attacks. However, instead of the usual frontline tanks seeing all of the action, it was more focused on the backline units.

• This is where the performance of the Drybone Barbarian exceeded all my expectations. Instead of his defensive anti melee backline protecting his team, his Serpent of Eld and Disintegrator both got killed when they attacked my Drybone Barbarian thanks to his ENRAGED RETALIATE! 😱

• The next round was not much better for the opponent as my Drybone Barbarian once again RETALIATED and killed his attacking Cruel Sethropod!

• It was all over for the opponent now as I eventually mopped up his entire army. 💀💀💀

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the SUPER SNEAK ruleset to give me a slight advantage. Individually, on their own, my units would face a huge disadvantage against an enemy which was built to be anti melee. However, thanks to my choice of the Drybone Barbarian with his ENRAGE and RETALIATE, I was able to turn the tide of battle! The opponent simply could not handle all that at all.

Well as you can see here in this video recording of my battle, the results were pretty good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

This was truly an eye opener! 😁🏆

Slowly, but surely, I wore down the opponent's team and the match ended up with me inflicting a crushing defeat. My team selection proved to be the edge I needed to eventually overpower my opponent. 💪🏻

🔮🔮🔮Hindsight is 20/20🔮🔮🔮

Would I have done anything differently? 🤔 This might have seemed like a disadvantage at the start but I ended up winning handily. IF I had to use the same cards again, there would be no better lineup than what I had already used for the match. Any other combination MIGHT have resulted in a loss for me. I'm really satisfied with the results against such a worthy opponent. 🏆🥇

💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

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I definitely can appreciate the ruleset SUPER SNEAK and how it changes the dynamics of usual gameplay. This is one of those rulesets which can be turned into a huge advantage if surrounded with the proper team. The role it brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

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