Battle Mage Secrets - I Made It To Gold League!

The theme for the current "Battle Mage Secret" challenge is Super Sneak ruleset this time! This means all melee units gain the Sneak ability. It's not always easy to get the specific ruleset, but if you play hard enough, you definitely can find one! This time I was lucky enough to have one - woohoo!

So here's the interesting battle that I encountered.

Anyway, I thought it would be still be interesting to introduce some useful cards and show how their strengths can be maximised especially with a particular ruleset. In this post, the featured card is one of my favourite summoners, the Legendary Astral Entity!

When Astral Entity was first released, I decided to rent it to try out just for the fun of it. Fortunately, the rent was very affordable so I kept it by my side and when I started to use it more and more, I realised it is extremely powerful for most of the fights. Because it was such a major part of my lineups, I decided to bite the bullet and spend 21 USD to purchase a copy of it! Haha you can probably laugh at me now, because it's less than 7 USD on the market currently. I guess the same can be said for the prices for most of the cards now. No regrets of course - it's a cool card to own!

As usual, here's the lore for Astral Entity for your reading interest:

From the shadows and the ether comes an eldritch entity known only as the Astral Entity. It is a celestial being that drifts through rifts in reality, searching for new planes and realms. There are almost no recordings of the Astral Entity in the athenaeums of the Splinterlands, but if one was to search through forgotten scrolls in the cobwebbed corners of ancient libraries, one would find the briefest mentions of this being. Snippets from across the centuries mention a humanoid shape made of cosmic energy. No one knows where it came from or what it wants, but it has only been recorded doing one thing: observing.

In spite of this, death always seems to follow the Astral Entity’s arrival. Clans and nations go to war. Crops wither, livestock become ill or infertile, and famine ravages the land. Droughts, plagues of locusts, and violent storms bring empires to their knees. And when it’s over, the Astral Entity vanishes without a trace.

When the Chaos Legion invaded the Splinterlands, the rift they opened echoed across realities. This drew the attention of the Astral Entity. It was able to slip through the rift undetected and explore this new world.

It witnessed a world rich in mana, with diverse people and dramatic landscapes. It also witnessed a world crushed by the grip of the powerful Chaos Legion and their leader, Silus of the Rift. The Astral Entity observed the battles, the people suffering, and all the death, but it did nothing to intervene. What it did do was learn. It learned the strengths and weaknesses of not only the Splinterlands, but of the Chaos Legion, as well.

The time may come when the Astral Entity chooses a side. Whatever choice it makes will be purely for its own gain and based on all it has learned from its eons of passing through the rifts.

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Battle Type & Team Lineup

Position	Card/Level	Mana
Summoner	Astral Entity	6

I usually use Water lineups, but as they couldn't be used in this battle, my second choice would be Death. Astral Entity is a very strong summoner for non-Magic battles and is very suited for Super Sneak battles. All his 3 abilities are very strong and defensive minded, which is something I like.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
1	Night Ghoul	11

Night Ghoul was chosen to be my tank because it has Taunt and I wanted to protect the backline at the start. With 10 HP and 4 Armor, it should likely get the Resurrection from the Astral Entity and the extra armor would come in handy to buy more time defensively.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
2	Pelacor Deceiver	5

Pelacor Deceiver is one of the best cards to partner with Astral Entity because it has high speed, and when partnered with Astral Entity's Dodge ability, it is quite hard to hit. Not to mention, there's Enrage this battle too.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
3	Possessed Puppet	7

I thought for a long time whether I wanted to field Possessed Puppet because on one hand, it has Double Strike, but on the other hand, it is not as strong as it seems. Assuming that the opponent fields Disintegrator, its Melee damage drop to 1. And if the opponent fields Harklaw, its effective damage becomes 0. Or if the opponent fields Cursed Windeku, two hits of Thorns will effectively wipe itself out. Hmm but is there a better card out there? I thought it was still worth the gamble.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
4	Carrion Shade	1

A filler card hopefully to soak up Cursed Windeku's Thorns somewhere.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
5	Disintegrator	7

Disintegrator is a must have card for such Melee battles because the risk/reward is asymmetric. While the card alone is not powerful, not fielding it will have disastrous consequences if the opponent comes up with a full Melee lineup.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
6	Crypt Beetle	3

The mana runs out, with just enough for Crypt Beetle with Shield to receive hits after my tank goes down. Partnered with Disintegrator, hopefully it will be a bit challenging to bring it down.

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• Pre Battle: When the lineups showed up, it was of no surprise to me. Death lineup on the opposite with the expected cards, Cursed Windeku, Pelacor Deceiver, Possessed Puppet, and Disintegrator. The main difference is the summoner, all eyes on Astral Entity.
  

• Round 1: If you thought Cursed Windeku was tough to fight, an Enraged one is even much tougher. As expected, I had a hard time fighting the opposing Cursed Windeku which was already at 5 speed. Unfortunately, my initial plan didn't go accordingly to my liking as Possessed Puppet took the Resurrection from Astral Entity after receiving two Thorns attacks.
  

• Round 2: Disintegrator battles are always very slow because the damage crawls. Coupled with Astral Entity and Enraged, you get more misses all over the board. Nonetheless, the team huffed and puffed and got Cursed Windeku, while Possessed Puppet went off the second time.
  

• Round 3: Still maintained the card advantage as I had an easier run-in doing the Sneak attacks vs my opponent. Fortunately, having Astral Entity meant my opponent's Armor boost got neutralised.
  

• Round 4: Closing in on the win for this one! Still lots of misses flying around, thanks to Astral Entity!
  

• Rounds 5 to 8: This went on for another 4 rounds, way longer than I expected. Pelacor Deceiver held on and we sealed the win!
  

If you are interested to watch the battle, you can find it here.

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Post Battle

Did my strategy work? Astral Entity did most of the heavy lifting even though people who watch the battles might not realise it. The -2 Armor, the Resurrection ability, the Dodge ability, are all defensive and work mostly behind the scenes. For non Magic battles, Astral Entity led lineups are very strong and comfortable. In addition, there are also many possibilities and combinations to play using Astral Entity, including leveraging on the Resurrection for cards with Martyr and Scavenge.

What's the Battle Mage Secret? Astral Entity is without doubt the best Death Summoner!!! At least for me hehe!

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And with that... For the first time in ages... I ADVANCED TO GOLD!!!

Ever since they revamped the system, I have been a Wild Bronze player for most parts since I am a casual player these days which means I don't usually play much. Sometimes I make it to Wild Silver mid-way through the season and finish off there - and the reset brings me back to Bronze once again. And then the cycle repeats.

Gold League was always something unthinkable for me, because I always hear horror stories (and complaints) about how tough the playing field is these days even in Silver and everyone has max decks etc, you get what I mean.

I don't have an big card collection and more specifically, I am just using a Level 2 Kelya Frendul and Level 1 Astral Entity, i.e. capped at Bronze levels. But I have tried to make the best out of what I have, be it in battles or brawls - it's not possible to win every battle - but I am ending this season with 90 wins out of 151, which is about 60% win rate. Pretty happy with that.

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So that's all I have! What are your takeaways from this battle? Feel free to comment below, as I am always keen to learn and improve!

As always, thanks for reading and have a pleasant day ahead!

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If you are interested to sign up to play Splinterlands, my referral link is here.