Hello people of the Splinterlands! It's @zoe01 here, back with another friendly battle Challenge. I ended up having a friendly match against one of the best player of splinterlands and it's none other than @atnazo. He was asking for a while that we should play, due to my sickness and busy schedule I didn't have much time. But we had decided to play the previous day and it was really fun. I wanted to make this post earlier but I couldn't but here am I now.

First of all it is a friendly battle, but I still wanted give my best and see what happens on the battlefield. So, I was going play against atnazo, I was a bit nervous because he plays all day and all night, I think lol. But then I thought that I shouldn't overthink about it.

And somehow... I WON! 😂

So obviously I had to share this one. (Not the ones I lost)

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Battle Rules & Match Setup

Before entering the arena, here was what today's friendly battle looked like:

• Opponent: atnazo
• Match Type: Friendly Challenge
• Mana Cap: 99 Mana
• Ruleset: Healed Out
• Ruleset: Reverse Speed
• Rounds: 5
• Result: Victory
• My Rating: 1,240
• Opponent Rating: 2,500

The two rulesets made this battle very interesting.

Healed Out means units and summoners lose all abilities that restore health. So basically, there was no healing in this battle. Once the health was gone, there was no healing to bring it back.

And Reverse Speed means units with the lowest speed attack first and they also have the highest chance to evade attacks.

This is always a funny ruleset because normally we want our monsters to be fast but here being slow can actually be better. So I had to think about my lineup a little differently.

We had 99 Mana, so there was plenty of room to use some strong cards. I knew atnazo was going to bring a strong team because of his experience, so I just wanted to make a lineup that could survive and hopefully give me a chance.

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My Lineup & Battle Strategy

For my team, I decided to go with one of my Death lineups and use some cards that I thought could work well with these rules.

My Team

• Summoner: Thalgrimore
• Position 1: Buns the Unseen
• Position 2: Nim Guard Captain
• Position 3: Gorm the Vengeful
• Position 4: Sorrow Harvester
• Position 5: Lenore Nevermore
• Position 6: Black Widow

I was trying to make a lineup that had a little bit of everything. I wanted a strong frontline, some magic protection and also some damage from the back.

Buns the Unseen was my first position monster and I thought it could do a good job taking the incoming attacks.

Then I had Nim Guard Captain behind it, which could attack from the second position and also has Void ability, so it could reduce magic damage.

For the middle, I used Gorm the Vengeful, which has some really useful abilities and could also target weaker enemies with Opportunity.

Then I had Sorrow Harvester and Lenore Nevermore to provide more damage, while Black Widow was sitting at the back.

Black Widow was also useful because of Poison. Like when she poison's the opponent will lose their health in the beginning of the next round. That can be annoying for the opponent as there is no healing available, lol.

atnazo had a very strong lineup and I already knew I was facing someone who understands the game much better than me. Also, he used the monsters on the right position which I clearly did not.

So honestly, I was just hoping my team would somehow win.

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The Battle Begins

The battle started and both teams immediately started attacking.

Because of Reverse Speed, the slower monsters were getting their attacks first, so the battle started a little differently than a normal match.

I was watching every attack and hoping that my monsters would not miss. 😂

The Healed Out ruleset also made every attack more important because there was no healing available.

So once a monster started losing health, there was no way to recover it.

As the battle continued, both sides started losing monsters.

At this point I was still thinking that atnazo would probably turn things around because he is a top player and his team was looking really strong.

But somehow my team kept surviving.

The Reverse Speed ruleset was actually helping me more than I expected. Some of my slower monsters were getting the chance to attack before the faster ones and those attacks were making a difference.

I was honestly watching the screen thinking:

"Wait... am I actually winning?" 😂

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Somehow I Was Winning!

The battle lasted for a short time like it was only 5 rounds, and my team was still standing tall.

At first I thought, I was gonna lose,(because I've been losing) but my monsters kept fighting for me to win, lol.

Victory

When I saw the victory screen, I was amazed more than being happy, lol. I was like, how did I really win? Or is it a glitch?

It was a fun match and surprising for me because I was fully prepared to lose against my pro friend atnazo.

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Post-Battle Thoughts

This was honestly a really fun match because it was a friendly challenge with a friend and that made the whole battle more enjoyable.

atnazo is a really one of the best players and being one of the top players on the Splinterlands leaderboard, I already knew I was going to have a proper challenge.

But somehow my lineup worked this time. 😁

The Healed Out and Reverse Speed rulesets also made the battle more interesting. I don't usually think too much about slow monsters but Reverse Speed completely changes that.

Normally we are always looking for speed because faster monsters get to attack first. But in Reverse Speed, being slow can actually become an advantage. So you have to think a little differently when building your team.

And Healed Out also made the battle more dangerous because nobody could depend on healing to stay alive.

To be honest, I don't think winning this friendly match suddenly makes me a pro player or anything hehe. 😂 It was just one fun battle and I know atnazo can definitely beat me in many other matches.

But still...

Let me enjoy this one victory please! 😂😂

I have also lost plenty of battles before, so I only posted the one I won. hehe.

It was really nice having a friendly challenge with atnazo, and hopefully we can have another one soon. ☺️

Oh lastly I received a gift from him for playing, that was so sweet of him.

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Have you ever played a friendly battle against a player who is much higher ranked than you? And did you ever manage to surprise them with a win? Let me know in the comments below.

Have you played splinterlands before? If not make sure to play it now. Here's the link

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Thanks for reading 🌷