Surviving a toxic earthquake

This match was fought with Earthquake and Poison rulesets. As if the challenge with these two rulesets was not enough, the mana cap for this match was only 12! This means that our creativity to win this match is very limited.

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MY LINEUP AND TEAM PLACEMENT

Summoner	First position	Second position

Third position	Fourth position

Summoner: Alric Stormbringer
My rationale for playing Alric is simple -- it's the only leveled up Summoner that I have available. Given my planned lineup does not utilize any attack, the only thing that matters is how high is the level of the monsters that I can played based on my Summoner.

Position 1: Gelatinous Cube

In order to survive this catastrophic ruleset, I need a monster that can withstand -4 damage each round. Among all the monsters available, I found that the combination of Gelatinous Cube's tank heal and scavenger works best in this situation. Normally, I would put this monster on the backline, but I need it to be cleansed to increase my odds of winning!

Position 2: Kelp Initiate
Cleansing my Cube for just 2 mana? Yes please! I got Kelp Initiate so that I can remove the poisonous effect on Cube with Kelp's cleanse ability.

Position 3 and 4: Furious Chicken and Creeping Ooze
Both are really just an add-on and can be replaced by any monsters that have the same manacost. It is important to add these two to boost Cube's health with its scavenger ability.

MATCH RESULTS AND VERDICT

One of the worst positions to be in is to face an almost automatic 4 damage each round, then you just have 12 mana available to be creative. This brings my total mana left for monsters to be 9 only.

Match replay link

When I first saw the matchup, I was not confident that my Cube can withstand the additional 5 damage that will be coming from Sea Monster. Despite having Cube on my side, it was still a tough match up due to Sea Monster's heal and high damage. My opponent put in an excellent team. Personally, I think the only improvement that can be done on my opponent's part is to not put Ooze, Chicken, and Fiend anymore since having those monsters do not increase their chance of winning. In fact, it diminished their chance as it's quite common for other players to put a monster that utilize the Scavenger ability in these rulesets.

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Match Conclusion

It was a fun match! I love winning on matches that I am not spamming the usual lineups and where I have to be creative. My key takeaway on this match is to put only cards that benefit my team. As we saw on my enemy's lineup, I would have likely lost if my Cube did not get 3 additional health from the enemy's extra monsters.

This match also made me realize that as much as it is tempting to maximize all the monsters that we can put depending on the mana available, we should also be more deliberate with our strategies.

There you have it! I hope you enjoyed this match. In case you missed the previous replay link, click HERE to watch GELATINOUS CUBE in action.

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CREDITS

• Splinterlands for the game-related images, game screenshots, and lore.
• chrisroberts for the well-written and fun to read lore across Splinterlands
• flauwy for the nice-looking dividers
• Cover photo made in Canva

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