Steem Monsters: Deck Building #1 - Daily Quests - "Defend The Borders!"

stevecronin (56)in #steemmonsters • 5 years ago (edited)

Questing in The Splinterlands

Welcome!

While this Steemit blog hasn't typically been about Steem Monsters, or blockchain gaming at all, it's certainly a dApp I've been preoccupied with and - therefore - have been excited to talk about with everyone here! I thought I'd try something new, mostly thanks to recommendations from @transcript-junky, and start detailing how I complete the new daily quests available in the game!

Today's quest is simple: win 10 ranked battles with the Life Splinter.

Preperation

Before jumping in with a Life Deck to complete this quest, it's always important to review the ever-changing Battle Rules & Mana Cap.

Today we're looking at the Melee attack ability, which is represented on our monsters by the icon below.

We also only have 17 Mana to use for our Summoner & Monsters (represented by the number in the upper left hand position of the cards.) For example, the Monster below takes 2 Mana in order to use.

Barring unique monster abilities, melee attacks normally only occur from your deck's first position. Furthermore, unlike other forms of attack, melee will damage an enemy's armor before its health. In the example below, from my Death Deck, you can see the highlighted monster is currently in the first position (my Haunted Spirit with a Melee attack value of 4.)

Because I know, in today's battles, melee attacks can come from anywhere, I want to consider the following possible strategies when building a deck:

Armor Up - if people are more likely to use Melee Monsters today, I want to be able to utilize armor abilities in order to absorb their attacks.
Speed Attack - I can also embrace this attack chaos and choose Monsters that have both the highest Attack (melee or otherwise) and Speed values in order to crush my opponent as quickly as possible.

Building the Questing Deck

First I want to choose a Summoner, since I know I'm using the Life Splinter, that makes the choice pretty easy :)

I currently have two Life Summoners: Tyrus & Kiara. Today, Tyrus is my guy since his ability gives all my Monsters +1 Armor.

Next, I want to take a look at my Life Splinter Monsters.

I currently have 9/10 Life Monsters (missing the Legendary.) I'm not really worried about that now since the Life Splinter is not the type of Deck I spend a lot of time upgrading. Here I'm looking for cards to get the quest done.

Right off the bat, I notice my Feral Spirit as a good option. He's a low mana cost (which is important when the cap is 17) and has a high Speed of 5 (which I've decided earlier, is really important for today's battle rules.) While his attack value is only 1 at Level 3, I know I have him in Gold at Level 4.

So this is a good pick for me.

I'm also tempted to play around with Defender Of Truth, as his Protect abilities grants my Monsters additional armor (which adds on to what Tyrus is already doing.) Finally, I'm thinking I want to use my Silvershield Warrior because he's my most experienced card (at Level 5) and has a decent mana cost for having 3 Attack, 2 Armor, & 6 Health (his speed is low but the rest of his stats make up for it.)

Now I look at my Neutral Monsters.

Not much to go off here for this Quest. My Hydra costs way too much mana to use at today's mana cap and the rest of the monsters (at their current level) do not have the stats to compete. At this point I'm thinking the Elven Cutthroat might be a last-ditch option if I have the 3 mana to spare, but I'm not super excited to play her.

The Final Lineup

Here's what I end up using most of today to knock out the quest.

As noted in my initial analysis, I do go with with the Feral Spirit & the Silvershield Warrior. In addition I use the following two cards:

Divine Healer

Because I'm using my Silvershield Warrior as a weaker Tank in the first position (6 Health, 2 Armor,) I decide I want to use my Divine Healer solely for his Tank Heal ability, so I can keep my Warrior alive as long as possible.

Peacebringer

At Level 3, the Peacebringer has a pretty solid combo of Attack, Speed, & Health which are better relative values at a mana cost of 4 than any of the other Life cards I have not in use.

Positioning

Screen Shot 20181110 at 5.41.33 PM.png

What's most important here is to have the Silvershield Warrior tank in the first position - and - to make sure the Divine Healer is protected by placing him in a bottom-end position.

That's it and you're good to go!

How Did You Quest Today?

Let me know your strategy for this quest in the comments below! Or, since you got a look at all my cards, is there a way you would have completed this quest differently? Let's do this!

UPDATE (11/12/18)

A hiccup in my build, the Peacebringer should be in my final position because of his ranged attack, so I actually switched his positioning with that of the Feral Spirit!