Four the Win - Battling with Fab Four!

This week's Battle Mage Secrets challenge features the Fab Four ruleset! Fab Four breaks one of the most basic Splinterlands rules - usually in a battle, you can choose up to six monsters for your team. In battles with the Fab Four ruleset, you only get to select up to four. Fab Four changes the way you can build your lineup, while leaving the remaining battle mechanics unchanged. This means that battles play out just the same as before, but changing the number of monster slots you can use has quite a bit of impact on which monsters see action on the battlefield.

Shifting the number of available monster spots impacts monster selection in small but significant ways. For starters, since you only need 4 monsters, that means that each monster can use up a larger proportion of your mana cap. As a result, higher mana costed monsters tend to see more play in Fab Four. Another change is that 4 monster spots means that the balance of melee or tank to support monsters shifts more towards the front line. Instead of having a tank, off-tank, and 4 support/backline monsters in a team, you instead have just 2 spots for those non-tank cards. Of course, you can always opt to use less tanks and more of those ranged or magic monsters instead - that's the fun strategy part of the game!

If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!

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Here are the rules for our battle. Of course, we have the Fab Four ruleset, which means that we have just four monster slots available. To go along with it we have another one of the recently added rulesets - Shades of Grey. So not only do we only get to bring 4 monsters into the fight, but we are also limited to selecting Neutral cards! Finally, we have a 21 mana cap and 4 splinters to choose from.

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For our summoner we will go with the jack of all trades, Kelya Frendul. Kelya's speed and armor buffs are great generalist buffs that are nearly always helpful to have. Kelya also only costs 4 mana to use, which is helpful given the somewhat low mana cap.

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We'll lead off our lineup with Mantaroth, who happens to be an excellent frontline tank. Mantaroth's Shield ability combines with his already high health and mana to give us an impressive amount of bulk. Oh - and his Armored Strike ability loves to see the extra armor from Kelya's summoner ability.

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As you can see, I decided against using a secondary tank, and went straight on to my support. Scavo Hireling comes with the Repair ability, which gives Mantaroth some sustain. This also helps with the team's damage output, since keeping Mantaroth's armor topped up will maximize the impact of his Armored Strike attack.

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Finally, I finished off the team with some Sneaky damage. Uraeus is a budget monster, giving us 2 points of Sneak attack for just 3 mana. Oh, and take a look at that - in this Fab Four battle, I actually ended up needing only 3 spots!

With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am not sure how the battle will turn out. On one hand, my Mantaroth has the distinct upper hand against the enemy front line. On the other hand, the opposing monsters include a Magi of Chaos who can bypass Mantaroth's armor, and the enemy Xenith Monk will be able to stall out all of Uraeus' Sneak damage. Will Mantaroth be able to cut through the enemy monsters before the Magi of Chaos' magic damage knocks him out? We'll have to see!

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The battle starts off just about the way I expect - by round 3 my Mantaroth has taken out the enemy Gargoya Lion. However, the health damage from Magi of Chaos is beginning to pile up.

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At the start of round 5 we can see that the race is just about over - and it appears that Mantaroth is going to win! In a photo finish, round 5 will see my Mantaroth finish off the enemy Magi of Chaos, with just a single point of health remaining!

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With Magi of Chaos off the field, the battle is all but over. The opposing Xenith Monk can't get through Mantaroth's Shield, and it is just one more round before a combination of Armored Strikes and normal melee attacks finish off the victory. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.

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My strategy for this battle ended up being - just barely - enough to pull off a win. My Mantaroth mowed through the enemy monsters, and finished off their pesky Magi of Chaos in a photo finish. This was a particularly fun battle since I got to use some monsters that I don't always use in my teams, and that happened thanks to the new rulesets that were just recently introduced - Fab Four and Shades of Grey.

Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:

• A Backwards Battle - Battling with Super Sneak! - A Splinterlands battle analysis, featuring Super Sneak!

• Splinterlands Economics: Causation - A look at causation, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!

• Splinterlands Economics: Ceteris Paribus - An introduction to the concept of Ceteris Paribus, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!

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Thinking about giving Splinterlands a try but haven't signed up yet? Feel free to use my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=bteim, and be sure to reach out to me if you have any questions!

All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.