Adding a touch of melee to magic water in 31-mana Back to Basics

Check out this battle between @clove71 and myself (@dhimmel). The battle was a 31-mana Back to Basics Ruleset.

Vocabulary

• Back to Basics: Monsters lose all abilities.

Battlefield

Here's what we threw down.

Note that both of us summoned with Valnamor (not shown to Splinterlands bug on Linux).

Strategy

In such high mana games with the Back to Basics ruleset, it's customary to play Water. This is because the +1 magic/speed/health buffs of Valnamor come in handy. Since monsters lose all abilities, to get your back row in the game, you need to play magic or ranged attack. However, ranged attack has two main shortcomings:

1. Ranged monsters can't attack in the lead position. Anyone who's lost a Back to Basics match because their final monster with range got promoted to the lead position knows this too well.
2. Ranged attack may hit shields. Since there is no Void or Magic Reflect in this format, the risks of magic are reduced compared to usual.

The main downside of magic is that it's expensive in terms of mana. But at 31 mana, there plenty to go around.

We played the same cards except where I played a Enchanted Pixie (3 mana), @clove71 played an Electric Eels (4 mana). So I'm sure you're thinking, you played a 30 mana team in a 31 mana game. Yes! I have no qualms playing teams below the mana cap, and I often do without a diminished win rate (as far as I can tell).

I was concentrating on maximizing my magic attack, so the Pixie made the most sense. I did consider other configurations to use all the mana but considered the amount of magic I was sending down the pipe the primary consideration.

What @clove71 did that was a smart move was to execute on a few nuances of Electric Eels. They are as follows:

1. Electric Eels is the highest speed monster on the battlefield. It will attack first, meaning there isn't a risk that it dies without being able to deliver any damage.
2. Electric Eels has 8 health after the summoner buff. This is three more than Enchanted Pixie.

So both Electric Eels and Enchanted Pixie will unleash three damage per attack. But Electric Eels brings an additional 3 health points. Now my Enchanted Pixie did attack twice before dying. It's tough to tell how much of @clove71's victory was due to her cunning placement of the Electric Eels versus randomness of when monsters are tied for attack priority. In these matches of similar teams, luck can play a big role.

Anyways, great game and see everyone on the battlefield.

P.S. Also notice that we played Mischievous Mermaid (water) and Magi Sphinx (neutral) in swapped positions. I am pretty sure my arrangement is almost always superior, but would love to hear if you disagree.