HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Welcome to week 43 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, we witness the power of one of natures most devastating disasters. The EARTHQUAKE! Not so surprisingly, as a player of Magic the Gathering before I even came across Splinterlands, the Earthquake card is also another known and loved classic MTG card that I used to play with!

The EARTHQUAKE ruleset in Splinterlands is startingly similar! They say imitation is the best form of flattery, so all I can say is that the very essence of the Earthquake card from the Granddaddy of all TCGs have been perfectly captured by Splinterlands.

No matter! I present to you the ruleset — EARTHQUAKE 🪨✈️

The game's description of EARTHQUAKE is as follows: "Non-flying Monsters take 2 Melee damage at the end of each round."

Just as I said about Splinterlands Earthquake being really familiar, this ruleset basically spells death for any creatures who can't fly! 2 damage every round is no joke. Even the most hardy landbound unit will not be able to take more than a few rounds of damage from this relentless ruleset.

I will take advantage of this ruleset in my battle showcase today to show how one of my units in particular becomes a lot stronger than one would expect with EARTHQUAKE. Introducing VENARI WAVESMITH and NOA THE JUST.

A massive race of rat-like people called venari have lived in the Strite for thousands of years. They are skilled technicians and mechanics who can make advanced devices and tools the likes of which Splinterlanders have never seen. The venari control powerful forms of magic that they have synthesized from the minerals and mana flows of the Strite. Through their complex field of science called smithing, they have been able to create and recreate many types of natural and magical phenomena from any magical element.

From Splinterlands Lore on VENARI WAVESMITH

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The Venari Wavesmith is a Rare card released during the REWARD expansion. At LEVEL 1, it has 1 ⚔️MAGIC ATTACK⚔️ and 2 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 0 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 3 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the PROTECT ability. It's summoning cost is 5 🧪MANA🧪.

Noa continued to fight with his fists, and his powerful muscles and lightning-fast reflexes proved more than a match for the sharp edge of a blade or the blunt face of a club. He defended the tribe time and again against its enemies.
Eventually, he attained the rank of captain, head of the militia. Later still, after leading the defense against the invading Chaos Legion forces and a counterattack that left none of the interloper’s ships afloat, Noa the Just was unanimously voted tribal chieftain of Torrent..

From Splinterlands Lore on NOA THE JUST

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NOA THE JUST is an Epic card released during the REWARD expansion. At LEVEL 1, it has 0 ⚔️ATTACK⚔️ and 6 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 4 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 5 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the RUST ability. It's summoning cost is 5 🧪MANA🧪.

It might seem odd that I would pick these 2 cards which are non-flying units for the EARTHQUAKE rule set.

At first glance, the Venari Wavesmith and Noa the Just might seem like a terrible choice, with such low stats too! Coupled with their lack of any ability to fly whatsoever, one would be forgiven for thinking I had completely botched the entire game.

However, what is often overlooked is their abilities to influence one particular stat in the game — ARMOUR!

The Venari Wavesmith has the PROTECT ability which grants all your units +2 ARMOUR and Noa the Just has the RUST ability which reduces all opponents ARMOR by -2.

Since the EARTHQUAKE ruleset says it deals PHYSICAL damage, that means ARMOUR is a very important stat which can affect how much more damage all units can take! I hope you see the obvious connection these 2 units have to the EARTHQUAKE ruleset now. Both of them combined basically reduces the damage your units take and increases the damage the opponent's units take.

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 EARTHQUAKE was in effect. My opponent used the Chaos Legion edition Summoner Thaddius Brood from the DEATH splinter as his main pick, while I used the Chaos Legion edition Summoner Possibilus from the WATER splinter. 💀 VS 💧

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

• All my units were NON FLYING units!

• My opponent had an ALL FLYING team save for his main tank which had THORNS. 😭

• That meant my own units would take even more damage when trying to attack the opponent! 😱

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. FLYING units almost always beat NON FLYERS in an EARTHQUAKE ruleset. 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 EARTHQUAKE 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 Diemonshark is chosen for this slot. He plays the role of the Main tank perfectly with his great stats. His high Armor stat 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 Coastal Sentry takes up the second slot. With his amazing attack damage and the DOUBLESTRIKE ability, he will be able to mow down the opponents quickly. He will also take the place of the main tank as a sacrificial one hit backup tank.

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3rd CARD SLOT

The Demented Shark occupies this slot. It's main role here to be a MELEE BUFF for the team with it's INSPIRE ability.

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4th CARD SLOT

The Deeplurker occupies the 4th slot here. With his OPPORTUNITY ability, he will be able to pick off any weak units in the backline.

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5th CARD SLOT

The Venari Wavesmith occupies this slot. It's main role here is to buff all my units with +2 ARMOR with it's PROTECT ability.

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6th CARD SLOT

Noa The Just takes the last slot. This card, like the wavesmith before it, is here for it's ARMOR reduction abilities. It inflicts -2 ARMOR to all the opponent units making them more vulnerable to my attacks.

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. The opponent went for almost all FLYERS while my own units were all grounded on the land. 😱

💧WATER💧 VS 💀DEATH💀

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My opponent used the Cursed Windeku as his tank in the 1st slot which was a VERY good choice. With his THORNS allowing him to reflect my melee damage against myself, it would result in my units taking massive damage from both that and the earthquake ruleset.

The Gargoya Lion occupied his 2nd slot. This unit is an amazing all rounder with great stats and more importantly, the FLTING ability. It would likely also be the backup tank after his main tank fell.

In his 3rd slot was the Riftwing. It's SCAVENGE ability and fast speed and FLYING ability would make it really hard to bring down.

His other slots contained more ranged DPS units, all of which had the FLYING ability too.

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 a high mana game with 46 mana as the limit. The rulesets were EARTHQUAKE & HEAVY HITTERS.

• The first round saw both our sides launch a flurry of attacks. And boy was it a spectacular amount of fireworks, so to speak. 🤣

• After dust settled from the first round of attacks, the opponent's maintank Cursed Windeku and his Gargoya Devil DPS-er had already died! My units were all still standing even after a round of EARTHQUAKE damage. Even I was surprised by that result.

• I had been so fearful of his FLYING units VS my NON-FLYING team in this EARTHQUAKE ruleset. That amount of raw damage would have killed me outright in any normal battle.

• However, with the RUST and PROTECT ability, I was simultaneously able to boost my defence and increase my offensive power!

• My own main tank was still pretty much unscratched, having negated most of the damage with it's high ARMOR.

• The 2nd round saw his Gargoya Lion die to my firepower.

• Every subsequent round saw more of his units fall while all my units were still hanging on thanks to the additional ARMOR provided by my Wavesmith.

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

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the EARTHQUAKE ruleset to give me a slight advantage. I had already lost out horribly in terms of the lack of FLYING for my units. However it ended up being the entire reason for my win! By capitalizing on the ruleset, I was able to pick units which completely altered the amount of ARMOR everyone had! The opponent simply could not handle all that ARMOR 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 EARTHQUAKE 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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