BATTLE MAGE SECRETS Weekly Challenge! - Reverse Speed Ruleset

Hi Guys! In this post we are exploring on another Splinterlands ruleset. The ruleset we are focusing on is Reverse Speed.

In a Reverse Speed ruleset, units with lower speeds will attack before units with higher speeds. Attack Accuracy based on speed will also be reversed. This mean it is now harder to hit a slower unit.

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Lets take a look at a Modern Silver ranked match with Reverse Speed as one of the ruleset. The battle restrictions are:
Melee Mayhem and Reverse Speed with a max mana of 35. All splinters are available except for Dragon. The Video for the Full Battle can be seen here:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_af0793647bbb776a2888a8f956c09dca&ref=genming

Splinter	Mana Cost	Position	Reason
Tarsa	4	Summoner	As this was a Reverse Speed ruleset, any summoner that increase the speed of my lineup or decrease the speed of the enemy team would be disadvantageous to me. Thus I ruled out summoners like Quix, Jacek, Kelya and even Skargore (enraged units gain speed). In the end I went with Tarsa as Fire splinter has some really slow units.
Grum Flameblade	11	1st	Grum Flameblade is my main tank at the front. So why do I use Grum Flameblade when Bloodlust is actually not a suggested ability to use in a Reverse Speed ruleset? Bloodlust is not recommended in this ruleset because Bloodlust will increase every stats when the unit makes a kill which include speed. So the more Grum Flameblade kills, the faster it beccomes which is not good for this ruleset. However Grum Flameblade starts with a speed of 1 and has Void Armor and Void as well. This means it is a great defender against Magic units while also a great offensive unit since it is one of the first to start hitting. Even though it will gain speed when it kills, it will also gain armor and health which makes it harder to be killed. Since I don't know whether the opponent is going to use Magic units or not, I decided to use Grum.
Ferox Defender	8	2nd	Very important unit in this setup as Ferox Defender has Protect ability. This unit gave all my units +2 armor. It was also slow and used melee attack which worked very well in this Melee Mayhem (melee unit can attack from any position) and Reverse Speed rulesets.
Scorch Fiend	0	3rd	A 0 mana cost unit with low speed and a melee attack to provide some additional damage dealing.
Spirit Hoarder	3	4th	Spirit Hoarder is very slow at only 1 speed and so was good for my lineup. It also had Triage which will heal my backline if needed.
Disintegrator	7	5th	A fantastic unit to use in this match as it not only reduced the opponent melee units damage but was also slow with just 1 speed and can hit due to the Melee Mayhem ruleset.
Noa the Just	2	6th	With only 2 mana left to use, I went with Xenith Archer as my last unit as it had just 1 speed and can also contribute a bit of damage dealing.
Total Mana:	35

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Opponent Lineup:

My opponent went with a Death splinter lineup with Thaddius Brood as the summoner and Harklaw. The rest of the units were mostly slow melee units. No magic unit was deployed so my tank Void and Void Armor would be useless in this fight. However my Disintegrator would be a pain for my opponent.

End of Round 1:

You can see the Demoralize ability of my Distegrator was a big hit to the enemy lineup as it straight up reduce all the enemy melee units' damage by 1. Only the enemy Harklaw escaped that ability because of its own Immunity ability. By the end of round 1 though, my opponent's Harklaw was half dead while my Grum still had full health. My Grum did also lose all its armor though.

End of Round 2:

In round 2, my Grum killed the opponent Harklaw and gained 1 speed. It also gained 1 armor and 1 health and thus was able to easily survive the 2nd round. Meanwhile the opponent 2nd unit was dying fast.

End of Round 3:

I lost my Scorch Fiend in this round though it was alright. It was a 0 mana unit and manage to absorb the opponent Opportunity unit damage for 3 round while also damaging some damage itself. The opponent on the other hand lost 2 more units and one of them was to my Grum again. Grum again gain speed, armor and health and was able to survive the 3rd round as well.

End of Round 4:

My Grum finally died but it had done its job. My opponent is left with 1 and a half units while I still had 4 units.

End of Round 6:

I won this with 4 units almost intact by the end of Round 6.

KEY STRATEGY
My strategy was to use Grum to tank the opponent's magic, melee and ranged attack while Disintegrator would reduce the opponent's melee damage. Even though the opponent didn't use any magic unit, my strategy worked very well against the opponent's melee lineup. In a Melee Mayhem ruleset, there is a high chance to be facing more melee units.

SUMMARY AND TIPS
In summary avoid using summoner and units that increase speed or decrease opponent speed in a Reverse Speed ruleset.

Other abilities that are not advisable to use in Reverse Ruleset are Enrage, Bloodlust and Martyr. But again in special situations some of these abilities could still be helpful for example my Grum Flameblade's Bloodlust was what kept it alive for so long in this match. What is important is you must be clear of what you want from that particular unit and how its ability would help in the current ruleset.

To any new players who wish to explore the world of Splinterlands, do feel free to sign up with my REFERRAL LINK 😊.

My guild, The Guild of Kingshaven, is also looking for new members. For added incentive to joining us, our guild leader will also be assigning Runi to any new member that can actively participate in brawl battles and give donation to our guild buildings. Runi is extremely powerful and is the only unit that has the Rebirth ability.
Our guild link is https://splinterlands.com/?p=guild&id=07ab9325eea386c3570db41f53fd991e78806485&tab=