HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Welcome to week 45 of the new iteration of the Splinterlands Weekly Challenges (at least, if I haven't miscounted so far, yet. 😜).

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, the weakest die and only the strongest survive. There is nothing EQUAL about this ruleset even if it is named so. The weak will be targeted until death. 😉

No matter! I present to you the ruleset — EQUAL OPPORTUNITY ⚖️⚖️⚖️

The game's description of EQUAL OPPORTUNITY is as follows: "All units gain the Opportunity ability which allows them to attack the unit with the lowest health on the enemy team."

Whereas last week's ruleset put all the small guys on equal footing with the biggest and baddest of them all, this week brings them down to the very lowest as they are bullied into submission. 💪

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 EQUAL OPPORTUNITY. Introducing the KRAKEN.

They say that in the recent shifting of the Planet that has come with the Untamed, great schisms were opened on the floors of the seas. Through these new openings emerged new monsters from the core beyond, larger than anything even the most traveled Azmaré pirate has ever seen. The Kraken is one such beast, and one that occasionally swims as high as the water’s surface. Sailors who have seen it say that it approaches from beneath like a great storm cloud, somehow darkening everything around it with its massive shadow. With the swipe of a single tentacle, the Kraken can capsize the mightiest ships as if they were a child’s bath toy. The Kraken is so huge that special Gloridax sorcery was used to ensure that its projected essence in tournament battle was only a small portion of its actual size. If this precaution had not been taken, summoning the Kraken would have crushed every spectator in the arena.

From Splinterlands Lore on KRAKEN

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The Kraken is a Legendary card released during the REWARD expansion. At LEVEL 1, it has 4 ⚔️ATTACK⚔️ and 4 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 3 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 14 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the TAUNT ability. It's summoning cost is 12 🧪MANA🧪.

It would seem odd that I picked the Kraken to single out for praise in such a ruleset. Didn't I just say the weakest would be targeted? How would picking one of the largest units in the game showcase anything extraordinary at all?

The secret to that lies in it's ability TAUNT. It forces all enemies to target this monster if they are able to. What does this mean then? All your weak units are suddenly safe from being picked off! Instead of having to worry about not being able to protect your weak fragile units, you can just go all out with the glass cannons and not worry any longer.

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 EQUAL OPPORTUNITY was in effect. My opponent used the Chaos Legion edition Summoner Tarsa from the FIRE splinter as his main pick, while I used the Chaos Legion edition Summoner Kelya from the WATER splinter too. 🔥 VS 🌊

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

• His Summoner was 1 level higher than me.

• ALL his units were Gold Foils AND also higher level than mine. 😭

• It was an "OPPORTUNITY" battle which traditionally favours the FIRE Splinter. 😱

• He even fielded an extremely strong Gold Foil Legendary Grum Flameblade in the frontline, which if he manages to score a kill, will activate BLOODLUST which will make him increasingly stronger.

I was honestly expecting this to be a really bad matchup for me 😜🤣. Clearly, in terms of card rarity and card strength, I was completely out matched. 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 EQUAL OPPORTUNITY 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 Frost Giant takes the role of the Main Tank in the first slot here. It's SHIELD ability and high health makes it perfect for the task. It is an important role since the backline will fall if the Main Tank goes.

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2nd CARD SLOT

The Kraken is also another amazing Tank who will serve to "suck up" damage from other units with it's TAUNT ability. This ensure the Frost Giant will not be overwhelmed and fall too quickly.

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3rd CARD SLOT

The Sea Monster takes up this slot. It will be able to deal immense damage from this position because of the OPPORTUNITY ruleset. Should the Tanks fall, it will serve as the backup Tank, especially with it's HEAL ability.

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4th CARD SLOT

The River Hellondale takes up this position. Protected right in the middle, it will weave it's magic over the entire team.

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5th CARD SLOT

The Demented Shark sits in this position, protecting the backline and yet able to attack, and also buffing the team with INSPIRE.

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6th CARD SLOT

The Disintegrator sits right behind to protect the backline too. It's DEMORALIZE ability will debuff the opponent's melee damage and thus reduce their overall damage dealt.

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 melee centric decks. 😱

🔥FIRE🔥 VS 🌊WATER🌊

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My opponent used Grum Flameblade as his main tank in the first slot which is an AMAZING choice, given how suitable he is as a tank. It also deals massive damage with its naturally high attack. The BLOODLUST ability makes it extra dangerous. His Molten Ogre and Disintegrator sat behind in the 2nd and 3rd slot as the backup tanks, while their DEMORALIZE ability also debuffed all my melee units. His Tenyii Striker, Tusk the Wide, and Goblin Mech rounded off the rest of his DPS in the next 3 slots.

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

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The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was quite a high mana ruleset with 52 mana as the limit. Both of us managed to fill out our teams hitting the limit or at least being really close to it.

• The first wave surprisingly ended up with none of my units dying! 😱 In fact, the OPPORTUNITY ruleset allowed me to take out his Disintegrator which removed one layer of his DEMORALIZE debuffs, thus increasing my damage for the next round.

• On my part, the Kraken with it's TAUNT and huge health pool managed to draw all attacks to it, protecting all my units!

• This is where my team started to get a huge advantage. The 2nd round resulted in the opponent's Tenyii Striker falling next.

• At this point, my Kraken died too! 😭😱 However, the River Hellondale swooped in to SAVE THE DAY with it's RESURRECT ability, thus bringing the Kraken back to life again!

• With such a huge advantage now, the next round saw my units pounding on my opponent and taking out Grum and the Goblin Mech.

• There was no way back now as the subsequent mop up of his remaining units was a foregone conclusion at this point.

• It ended up with my entire team, which was amazingly still completely intact, standing victorious over the battlefield! 😱💯

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the EQUAL OPPORTUNITY ruleset to give me a slight advantage. In their original forms, my units would all be too frail to even stand up to the opponent's targeted attacks. Not only that, their low HP would have provided Grum with free frags to activate BLOODLUST turning him into a monster. However it ended up being the entire reason for my win! By capitalizing on the ruleset, all my low health units were safely protected by the Kraken's Taunt! The opponent simply could not handle all that massive tank at all.

Well as you can see here in this GIF 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 EQUAL OPPORTUNITY 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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