Hello Splinterlands summoners and welcome to my blog. In today's post, I'll be showing my strategy in Collateral Damage ruleset. Under this ruleset, all units gain the Reckless debilitation. Reckless causes each successful attack to deal damage to adjacent allied units.

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My Strategy

The general strategy to take advantage of units with Reckless is to pair it with units with Painforge ability like the Cavewise Wayfinder and Vicious Giraffe Combo. However, there are not a lot of units with Painforge ability so instead, I form my team in such a way that only a few units attack per round while other units just sit still. In essence, the strategy let's the enemy defeat themselves by taking extra damage from Reckless each time they attack.

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Featured Battles

Battle 1 - Frontier

In this forty nine mana battle in the Frontier, I would usually have a tank followed by magic and range damage dealers. However, because of the Collateral Damage ruleset, I had to tweak my line up so that only the fourth and last position units deal damage. The rest of the team just sits still and absorb enemy damage. The first position is taken by Spitting Camel. It cannot attack since it's a range unit. It does have seven health to be a decent tank. In second is a melee unit that can't attack unless he takes the first position when the camel gets defeated. Port Guardian is also good tank with three armor and seven health. Having two melee damage is a bonus. In third is a non attacking unit, Asel Alagosdil. It's a great tank for only four mana. It has three armor, six health and Divine Shield ability. In fourth position is my damage dealer, Saltwater Mage deals three magic damage and has the Sneak ability. In fifth is another unit that will not attack but draw enemy attacks. New Beluroc Aegis has five armor, seven health and the Taunt ability to attract enemy attacks. In last position is my best damage dealer. The Mystic Scaleweaver deals four magic damage and has the Slow ability.

The enemy had the Earth splinter that adds life to all units. Four units attacks while one unit, Dread Tafarian does not attack and absorb the Reckless damage from allies. Although only two of my units were attacking, the enemy suffered from friendly fire and was defeated.

Link to Battle

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Battle 2 - Modern

The next battle was in Modern mode. I used the same strategy of having fewer attackers. In this battle, only positions one, three and sixth were attacking while the others units served as shock absorbers of Reckless. First position was taken by Commander Slade. He deals four melee damage and has great defense of six armor and nine health. In second position was the Ulundin Overseer, a tanky non attacking unit with five armor and twelve health. Under normal circumstances, their positions will be switched with Ulundin Overseer in first and Commander Slade in second position. However, because of the Collateral Damage ruleset, I had to change my strategy and unit positioning. In third position was a magic damage dealer, Torrent Sniper who deals three magic damage. In fourth position was New Beluroc Aegis who is not only effective as a defender but also has the Taunt ability to draw enemy attacks and spread the enemy's damage. In fifth position was another non attacking unit, Asel Alagosdil. In last is my best damage dealer same as in the first battle, Mystic Scaleweaver with four magic damage.

My enemy does not seem to care about the ruleset and had a full attacking line up. He even has two units (Thragrun and A'lan Musketeer) that has the Double Strike ability which means they will also hit adjacent allies twice. Like in the first battle, my units outlasted the enemy. The enemy units got damaged by their own allies and got defeated in the battle.

Link to Battle

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Final Thoughts

Thank you for reading and I hope you learned something from this post. Sometimes, sitting still and letting the enemy attack will win you battles. Defense is better than offense in some situations and rulesets. We have to adjust our strategies to better meet the battle conditions in order to win.

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Come Play Splinterlands!

Start your Splinterlands adventure today with my referral. You can play the game for free in the Frontier Mode or take your game to the next level by purchasing a spellbook. Buying a spellbook allows you to earn SPS tokens and use the market to sell in game assets. Also, we will both get 500 Credits which can be used top purchase cards once you buy a spellbook.