Battle Mage Secrets - Winning By A Hairline!

The theme for the current "Battle Mage Secret" challenge is Noxious Fumes ruleset this time! This means all units are Poisoned at the start of the game. Units with Immunity are not poisoned. This is a one-time application - units that are Cleansed, Resurrected or Rebirthed will not be re-applied with poison. Enrage is triggered by Poison application.

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 a Rare Water card, River Nymph!

River Nymph is well known for her Cleanse ability and that's the best ability to have for Poison battles, along with Immunity battle. The rest of her stats are pretty decent but are not so important because Poison will eventually take her down after 2 turns.

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

River Nymphs inhabit the rivers of the Splinterlands. Shy and reclusive, they usually remain hidden beneath the water's surface. However, they have a strong respect for life, and they have been known to aid those in need. They are also fiercely protective of their homes and will defend it if it is threatened.

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Battle Type & Team Lineup

Position	Card/Level	Mana
Summoner	Kelya Frendul	4

Not many elements can handle Noxious Fumes ruleset because of the lack of cards with Cleanse ability. Water and Fire seems to be cope better because of River Nymph and Scavo Chemist so this time I can only pick Water.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
1	Djinn Oshannus	8

Poison battles are not battles where one would try to max out the lineup with 6 cards because the HP is very important here. Djinn Oshannus has 10 HP and would be a strong card here.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
2	Nerissa Tridawn	9

Riding on the principle of survivability, Nerissa Tridawn comes in at 9 HP and good amount of damage. At -2 HP per turn, she can deal 5 x 3 damage before she goes off.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
3	River Nymph	4

River Nymph is a must have in this battle because of her Cleanse ability. It's not a sure win but Cleanse provides a huge advantage here.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
4	Torrent Fiend	0

Torrent Fiend is a filler card and is meant to distract any Opportunity attacks from River Nymph.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
5	Wave Brood	8

It's not an easy choice but I decided to field a Taunt card to soak up all the damage. Wave Brood is able to absorb 12 damage and that buys a lot of time for the entire team.

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• Pre Battle: My opponent had quite a number of cards which are foreign to me because I haven't been able to catch up on the Rebellion deck. My opponent had cards with Scavenge and Immunity so it is going to be a tricky match. Let's see if Chaos Legion can overcome!
  

• Round 1: My team went all out to attack but our effort were immediately impeded by the opposing healer. It's going to be a tough battle ahead.
  

• Round 2: Poison took out quite a number of cards it was down 3 vs 4 cards on the board. My opponent's strategy with Scavenge was starting to pay off and that's 14 HP on that tank that I have to deal with.
  

• Round 3: All the hard work with the damage output was getting outdone by Scavenge and Tank Heal and I was definitely running out of time here, with Poison breathing down everyone's neck every turn.
  

• Round 4: We were still not done with that Scavenge tank but fortunately Nerissa Tridawn was strong to survive so many rounds. The battle looks set to be down to the wire.
  

• Round 5: 5 Magic damage per turn consistently really made an impact in the final rounds and we hunted down every single card one by one. Here we are, almost done!
  

• Round 6: And we won! By a hairline!
  

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

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Post Battle

Did my strategy work? The Rebellion cards were very strong and fortunately my strategy was spot on, and I had decent cards such as Djinn Oshannus and Nerissa Tridawn to see through the rounds. It was definitely a close fight and my team was 1% stronger in this one.

What's the Battle Mage Secret? Cleanse strategy is still better than a Scavenge strategy for Poison battles! Hehe!

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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