Splinterlands Social Media Challenge - Improvising On The Failed Entry

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Hello Fellow Hivers!
Hope you are all looking forward to the weekend like me after a tough week at work.
If I remember correctly, this is my second entry ever to the Splinterlands Social Media Challenge mostly because I am not able to manage enough time over the weekdays to write a post and my focus over the weekends are on the Battle Mage Secrets post (formerly Weekly Battle Challenge).
I will be honest with you guys, it is very difficult even on the weekends to balance between family time and writing a decent post here.
The last weekend for example I was busy with my daughter's doctor's appointment on Saturday and we went out Sunday evening. Which is why I was unable to complete my post on last week's BATTLE MAGE SECRETS Weekly Challenge featuring Going the Distance.
Family always comes first, so after a tough week at work it is always recommended to spend quality time with family over weekends.
Now, coming to today's post. Since I had the last week's BATTLE MAGE SECRETS Weekly Challenge on draft, I thought why not edit it a bit and participate in the Splinterlands Social Media Challenge.
This post will be about the same rule set but I am sure you will find it interesting.
If you are not sure what Splinterlands is, make sure to give this articles a read and at the end you will find some information to get started with the game.

ABOUT THE RULE SET:

Only units with ranged attacks may be used.

• Consider including units with the Close Range and Return Fire abilities in your lineup.

Ranged monsters are often seen to be most dominant and deadly among the Splinterlands monsters even though most of the Ranged monsters are only able to attack from back line unless the Ranged monster has the Close Range ability.
Now, why exactly the Ranged monsters are so dominant?
Most of the Ranged monsters in Splinterlands come with high damage and has very high speed and therefore it is often the case that the opponent monsters are taken out before their turn with a proper line up of Ranged monsters.
Splinterlands battles are made unique with it's different rule sets of which most of the community is a big fan. And the Splinterlands team are constantly introducing new rule sets every now and then to make the battles and team selections even more interesting.
Our featured rule set for the week, Going the Distance is one of the newer rule sets introduced by the team that has shifted the meta. With Going the Distance, the players are forced to play only Ranged monsters and build our team strategically.
The battle I will be focusing on today is a Modern format Gold league battle with Going the Distance being one of the rule sets.

BATTLE RULES :

• Mana Cap : 40
• Rule sets :

Up to Eleven: All Monsters have the Amplify ability.
Heavy Hitters: All Monsters have the Knock Out ability.
Going the Distance: Only Monsters with Ranged attack may be used in battles.

• Available Splinters :
  Fire
  Water

THE LINE UP :

Position	Card	Mana	Level	Description
Summoner		6	3	Our choice of summoner for the battle was a level 3 Conqueror Jacek, the legendary Fire summoner from Chaos Legion Set. Though the summoner costs 6 mana, it creates an impact with it's buff abilities of +2 Speed, Piercing and Scattershot making it's monsters strong and unpredictable and it goes very nicely with the Ranged monsters from the Fire Splinter.
Position 1		9	5	We start our line up with a level 5 Lava Launcher. Being a reward card, this card does not get the recognition it deserves. At level 5, it comes with 4 archery damage, 3 speed, 7 armor and 6 hp along with Close Range and Stun. The card plays exceptionally well with Conqueror Jacek. This is hands down one of the better cards we can play in a Going the Distance battle.
Position 2		7	6	In the next position, we are playing another reward card, and a Close Range ranged monster too, a level 6 Gargoya Devil which happens to be a Neutral card that comes with 3 ranged damage, 3 speed, 2 armor and 4 hp. Along with Close Range, the card also has the abilities Flying and Deathblow and ticks out all the requirements to play in a battle like this.
Position 3		2	6	In the third position, we have placed a level 6 Xenith Archer, the neutral Chaos Legion card with 2 Ranged damage 3 speed and 4 hp. Though the card has no abilities, the stats it has for only 2 mana makes it a very widely used card.
Position 4		6	8	Next, in the fourth position of our line up, we have decided to play a gold foil level 8 Supply Runner, the neutral ranged card that plays exceptionally well with any line up because of it's Swiftness ability. The card is also quite strong if we consider it's base stats of 3 ranged damage, 5 speed and 5 hp.
Position 5		3	7	In the fifth position, we are playing the 3 mana Ranged monster from the Fire Splinter, a level 7 Fire Spider with 2 Ranged damage, 3 speed and 5 hp. The card also comes with very useful abilities such as Snipe and Snare.
Position 6		7	3	In the last position, we are playing a level 3 gold foil Ash Mirage from the Riftwatchers edition. The card comes with 2 archery damage, 5 speed and 7 hp. It also comes with the useful debuff ability of Headwinds which will be very helpful considering the fact we are expecting all Ranged attackers with the Going the Distance rule set.

THE OPPONENT LINE UP :

Position	Card	Mana	Level	Description
Summoner		6	3	The opponent's choice of summoner was a level 3 Eternan Brune, the soulbound reward Fire summoner that offers -2 armor debuff and Conscript which is quite interesting though a level 3 summoner in Gold league is a disadvantage.
Position 1		6	1	In the first position of the line up, the opponent played a level 1 Molten Ash Golem, the Ranged monster with Close Range along with the base stats of 1 Ranged damage, 1 speed and 9 hp.
Position 2		9	1	In the next position, the opponent went with another card with the Close Range ability, a Lava Launcher, however, unlike us the opponent played a level 1 version of the card with 3 Ranged damage, 3 speed, 6 armor and 5 hp.
Position 3		7	3	In the third position, the opponent has placed a level 3 gold foil Gargoya Devil with 3 Ranged damage, 3 speed, 1 armor and 3 hp, which happens to be another reward card with Close Range and Flying.
Position 4		5	1	In the fourth position of the line up, the opponent decided to play a level 1 Fire Elemental that comes with 2 Ranged damage, 4 speed and 2 hp. Apart from this, the Blast ability is what makes the card stand out.
Position 5		3	1	In the next position, the opponent makes use of the Summoner's Conscript ability as it placed a Gladius card, a level 1 Sarius with 2 Ranged damage, 3 speed and 3 hp and the useful ability of Bloodlust like all Gladius cards.
Position 6		4	1	In the last position, we will be facing another high speed Ranged monster from the Untamed edition, a level 1 Spark Pixies with 2 Ranged damage, 5 speed and 1 hp along with the Flying ability.

THE HIGHLIGHTS :

• Round 1:

In the first round, our Xenith Archer drew the first blood as it took down the Fire Elemental in 1 shot. Soon, our Lava Spider joins the party as it too 1 shot the Spark Pixie from the back line giving us a very solid advantage.

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• Round 2:

Round two starts off with our Supply Runner getting it's first kill of the match as it eliminated the Sarius in the first turn of the round.
Later in the round, our Lava Launcher got the kill of the Molten Ash Golem from the first position followed by our Gargoya Devil getting the better of the opponent's.

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• Round 3:

Round three was a matter of formality for us to grab the easy win.
And sure enough, our Supply Runner stated the round in the similar fashion as it eliminated the last standing Lava Launcher from the opponent's team to take us to the flawless victory.

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THE BATTLE LINK : Interested to watch the full battle ? You can watch it here.

STRATEGY:
Our strategy for the battle was to go for high speed and take down the opponent team like most line ups with Jacek. Playing the Supply Runner with Jacek made things even easier for us as it helped us our line up to have even more even courtesy of the Swiftness ability.
We also created our line up in such a way so that our front line monsters with Close Range can take a few more hits with their armor even though eventually, the armor was debuffed with the opponent's selection of the summoner.
Playing Ash Mirage with Headwinds was also one of the best selections we could have as the battle was featuring Ranged monsters only because of the Going the Distance rule set.

MVP:

Card	Kills	Contribution
	2	The MVP in the battle was definitely our Supply Runner. It not only contributed offensively with 2 kills in the battle, but also played a very vital role as a support card with the Swiftness that paired very nicely with +2 speed from Jacek .

Do support my article if you found it interesting.

If you have not played Splinterlands yet and interested in joining the game, you may use my affiliate link to get started and I will hook you up with a few competitive cards delegated.

Until you come across my post again ...