We're all sneaks now: A Splinterlands Battle Challenge

We're all sneaks in this week's Splinterlands Share Your Battle Weekly Challenge with the Elven Cutthroat sneakily slashing enemies in battle.

---

We're all sneaks this week as the Elven Cutthroat, together with its sneaky friends, the Feral Spirit, and the Silvershield Assassin battle in the Splinterlands. Will this group of low-mana, high-attack monsters prevail? Or will they be outshined by sturdier foes? We'll find out in my entry for this week's Splinterlands Share Your Battle Weekly Challenge.

---

Theme: Elven Cutthroat

For this week, the challenge is to include the Elven Cutthroat, a Neutral Common Card when battling.

The Elven Cutthroat is one I have used a bit in the past. With high speed, low mana, and Sneak ability, it is the neutral counterpart of cards like the Life Splinter's Feral Spirit, the Fire Splinter's Kobold Miner, the Water Splinter's Sabre Shark, and the Death Splinter's Skeleton Assassin. The Goblin Thief, Undead Badger, and Pelacor Bandit from more recent card editions are also comparable to it.

Unlike these other cards, though, the Elven Cutthroat is not as fast. Nor does it have a secondary ability like Poison or Flying.

Nonetheless, with 3 melee attack damage and 6 speed when maxed out, it could be a lethal attacker when paired with other sneak monsters for a double, or even triple, sneak strategy.

That is, as long as it survives. With just 5 life points at Level 10 and only 4 life points when playing the Gold League at Level 8, it's a pretty squishy monster when facing a counterattack.

---

The Battlefield

For this battle, only the Fire, Water, and Life splinters were active. Mana was at 38, and the Melee Mayhem and Healed Out rulesets apply.

In building my team, I chose Tyrus Palladium with his +2 Armor because I was expecting a lot of melee attacks. Then, I chose the Silvershield Paladin as a tank and the Crystal Werewolf to protect the back.

Because of the ruleset, I decided on an all-melee lineup. This included the Silvershield Knight to increase the melee attack of all my monsters and three sneak attackers including the Silvershield Assassin, Feral Spirit, and the Elven Cutthroat. Together, it allows for a 4-Sneak Combo to help eliminate the opponent's backline.

Thus, going into the battle, I have three monsters to attack the front and 3 monsters to attack the backline with the Sneak ability.

---

The Battle

My opponent and I both went with the Life Splinter. However, while I had Tyrus Paladium, the opponent had The Peakrider as a summoner.

We also had different approaches to the battle. While I took advantage of the Melee Mayhem ruleset and used an all-melee lineup, the opponent chose to defend against Melee Mayhem while using a mix of melee, ranged, and magic attacks.

For his lineup, the opponent used Chain Golem as his main tank and Cornealus as secondary tank against snipe monsters, followed by Armorsmith, Defender of Truth, Thunderbird, and Lone Boatman.

The opponent stacked his armor with a total of +5 Armor (+3 from Peakrider and +2 from Defender of Truth). He even made sure to keep his team's armor intact with two monsters with the Repair ability.

However, while the opponent defended his frontline well, his backline was completely exposed with just the Lone Boatman flanking his team.

Here are the two teams at the start of the battle:

How did the battle go?

Because the opponent focused his defense on the frontline, expecting a barrage of melee attackers, his back monsters were exposed to the Elven Cutthroat's sneak attack. Thus, together with the Feral Spirit and the Silvershield Assassin, my team was able to eliminate the opponent's team one sneak attack at a time.

Upfront, it was a different story. The opponent's Chain Golem and Cornealus managed to overwhelm both my Silvershield Paladin and Silvershield Knight.

However, with the help of the Crystal Werewolf's Silence, which weakened the opponent's magic attacks, my "weaker" tank was able to hold on long enough to allow my sneak monsters to win from behind.

In the end, I won the battle in 4 rounds.

Here is a link to the full battle

---

Sneaky, sneak attacks

With Melee Mayhem, players often focus their defense on the frontline because they are expecting melee attacks to attack the front. However, by splitting my melee attacks with sneak, I was able to take advantage of the opponent's vulnerable backline and win the battle.

The attack was also made more powerful with the Elven Cutthroat. Instead of just attacking three times per round with Life monsters, I was able to lodge four sneak attacks every round, allowing my lineup to overcome the opponent's well-fortified +5 armor defense.

So, for this battle, the sneaks have it.

---

Some Musings

Could I have won the battle if a Taunt monster was used?

The Taunt ability is an effective counter to sneak attacks. By forcing all opponent monsters to attack the monster with the taunt ability, all Sneak, Snipe, and Opportunity attacks, which were supposed to bypass the frontline and attack where defenses are weak, are rendered useless.

Considering that the Shieldbearer has the same mana requirement as the Chain Golem, Taunt could have been used by the opponent in this case, and perhaps I wouldn't have had such an easy go at it.

---

That's it for this post. Thanks for stopping by.

---

The cover image and all other images in this post are taken from Splinterlands artworks or screen captures from the Official Splinterlands website. (That's my affiliate link, if you're wondering.)

The post also appears in SplinterTalk.io, a nitrous instance for content all about the Splinterlands.