Dealing with opponents who rely on support cards with buffs and debuffs can be annoying, as these cards often enhance their team's power and create an advantage if left unchecked. In this guide, I'll share my ideas on the utility of using Sneak and Opportunity strategies as effective methods to target the opponent's backline or lowest-health units, where support and some high-impact attackers are often positioned.
While this strategy works across all elements, I often use Dragon and Water due to their high-speed units, which increase the chance of evading attacks, striking first, and hitting their targets reliably. Depending on the ruleset, other elements can also be used, as each Element features at least one unit with Sneak or Opportunity abilities.
It's worth mentioning that Sneak and Opportunity typically focus on melee damage, but for versatility, it's important to practice ranged and magic damage into your strategy as well. With this in mind, I'll be showcasing some sneak and opportunity ability cards of each element, ensuring your lineup can improve or add some countering abilities to various battle scenarios rule sets given.
Fire Element
When using the Fire element for a Sneak and Opportunity strategy, your choice of summoner is important and useful on the given rule set. Tarsa can enhance melee damage, Skargore makes great use of the Enrage ability, Conqueror Jacek excels in maximizing speed advantages, and Eternan Brune is ideal for deploying Gladiator cards. The lineup depends on the ruleset, but this element I deployed respectively includes Antoid Platoon, Fire Caller, Mordeus, Uraeus, Gobalano Soldier, and Tenyii Striker. I might accidentally put Fire Caller on this lineup😂.
While Fire Caller is a reliable ranged attacker, I often prefer Gladiator cards like Fina Voxom and Orella Abadon because of their Sneak and Bloodlust abilities. Fina Voxom can be powerful, but I typically rely on Orella Abadon since it’s easier to obtain and upgrade compared to the legendary Fina Voxom. Ultimately, card positions and deployments can vary based on personal preference and battle requirements if you feel that strategy might work, but incorporating Gladiator cards into this strategy often executes well excellent results, thanks to their overpowered synergy with Sneak and Opportunity abilities.
Water Element
The Water element is my favorite and most commonly used for a Sneak and Opportunity strategy. This strategy focuses on dominating the opponent's backline, taking advantage of the Water element's high-speed stats to attack first and attacking their support and low-health cards. My common lineup includes Baakjira, Kulu Mastermind, Deeplurker, Pelacor Bandit, Uraeus, and Noa the Just, arranged in that respectively.
Baakjira serves as the front tank due to its exceptional health and healing abilities, while Noa the Just puts in the backline with its Dodge, Backfire, and Rust abilities, executing excellent synergy with the Sneak and Opportunity strategy. This combination allows for both sneak-opportunity melee damage and backline protection.
However, this strategy can be countered by certain setups, such as teams using full Camouflage monsters with Lily Shieldpaw as the summoner, combined with powerful cards like Grimbardun Smith. While these counters are rare because of their high cost, nonetheless it's recommended to check opponent history especially if the opponent has a higher league than you which a higher league either a pro player or has some powerful decks.
Earth Element
Using Lobb Lowland as the summoner, a lineup featuring Pelacor Mercenary, Queen Mycelia, Venari Scout, Katrelba Gobson, Uraeus, and Thane Newsong (respectively) is a common and effective Sneak and Opportunity strategy.
For an upgrade, Arkemis the Bear can replace Pelacor Mercenary to provide additional armor, further strengthening the team's durability, and Thanalorian Blade for more additional damage with opportunity attacks. This lineup from the Earth element totals 34 mana, making it suitable for mid-mana cost battle. Also if you have Eternal Tofu a legendary overpowered card that can counter melee units because of thorns you will considerably high chance of winning utilizing its thorns.
A highlight card in this lineup is Katrelba Gobson, which excels as the main melee damage dealer due to its Bloodlust ability. To maximize its impact, it’s essential to position Katrelba Gobson in a spot where it can remain protected for at least a few rounds, allowing it to safely trigger Bloodlust and dominate the battlefield as it gains power with each successful elimination. Balancing protection and positioning is important to let this card shine and go rampage in your strategy.
Life Element
Grandmaster Rathe Summoner with Chaos Knight, Uraeus, Time Mage, Celestial Harpy, Stitch Leech, and Dumacke Exile respectively position line-up. With Grandmaster Rathe that gives friendly units 1 armor, it will protect at least 1 hit attacker in all types of attacks, and notice Time Mage is deployed it is because of its ability a Rust speed, an ability that can reduce opponent both speed by 1 and armor by 2 that combines well with the strategy sneak and opportunity ability a support type mage. Chaos Knight will act as a tank in first position and could also be a support melee because of Inspire's ability which gives additional melee damage to its team by 1 a perfect combination of prioritizing melee damage while also reducing the opponent team's armor and speed. This lineup mana cost a total of 31 which is another mid-mana cost battle though may not be as high-speed stats it's pact damage.
Death Element
The Death element offers an excellent Sneak and Opportunity strategy, particularly with the summoner Astral Entity, which boosts evasion and synergy. A recommended lineup includes Cursed Windeku, Broken Eaththug, Uraeus, Chaos Jailer, Night Stalker, and Silent Sha-Vi, positioned in this order. Cursed Windeku serves as the primary tank with its high health and Thorns ability which counters melee attacker. However, depending on the ruleset, you can swap it out for Arkemis the Bear to provide additional armor or Ever-Hungry Skull if the "Up Close and Personal" ruleset is active, as it takes advantage in melee-only battles. This versatile melee strategy ensures a high chance of evading all melee and ranger attackers and supports the effectiveness of the back-line team attackers.
Cards like Silent Sha-Vi and Night Stalker are important to targeting vulnerable backlines with their high melee damage, while Chaos Jailer offers additional utility with its useful support-melee damage team abilities. Combining these cards with Astral Entity's evasion boost creates a strategy that focuses on dismantling the opponent’s armor units quickly while maintaining strong front-line durability because of dodge ability and resurrect. The flexibility of this setup and its adaptability to various rulesets make it a high-winning strategy.
Dragon Element
Another element that can be used if you're planning to add extra cards in your team composition decision with multiple possible lineup combo strategies. I will only mention some useful cards that I commonly use. The summoner I usually use is Quix the Devious to dominate speed difference and reduce range damage by 1 which only costs 4 mana and Helios Matriarch costs 6 mana but has a feature that can deploy Gladiator cards. Both of these are optional depending on the rule set, now with Vruz, Dhampir Infiltrator, Dragon Egg Forager, and Whelp Helder which have Sneak and Opportunity abilities that only cost a few mana. It is quietly useful especially Vruz because of Martyr's ability and combo with the water element.
Neutral
Neutral cards like Arkemis the Bear, Uraeus, Lux Vega, and Couerl Lurker are highly versatile in battles, particularly in Sneak and Opportunity strategies, because of their universal compatibility across all elements which is also why I commonly use. These cards provide flexibility to fill gaps in lineups, ensuring that your strategy isn’t limited by element restrictions, notice that in every element Uraeus and Arkemis the Bea are present in most battles and it is cheap to rent them because of their lots of copies present.
Runi, on the other hand, is a rare card with an Opportunity ability that can target the lowest-health enemy. It’s a powerful asset when used strategically, especially in rulesets like when countering support units. To utilize Runi effectively, position it where it can maximize its damage output while remaining protected from direct attacks because it only has 1 speed but can guarantee a hit because of its ability.
Mad Ogre Anarchist is another neutral card with the Opportunity ability, making it valuable for breaking through weak points in the opponent’s lineup. Its high damage output can quickly eliminate vulnerable targets. Neutral cards’ adaptability and ability to work in any element make them essential in battles, as they can fit into almost any lineup to enhance strategy, particularly when synergized with Sneak and Opportunity abilities. Though I rarely see them in battles, we already have sneak and opportunity abilities of each element so why bother adding 2 or 3 of these cards, except if it is in the Shades of Gray rule set where you can free deploy this because unavailability of element units.
Overall, without tanks and supports sneak and opportunity strategies won't properly be utilized. These roles are essential because Sneak and Opportunity units typically target the backline or weakest enemy, and without a strong tank or reliable support, the strategy can quickly crumble if your team gets overwhelmed. By balancing the durability and utility of its abilities based on the rule set, tanks and supports ensure your offensive units (mainly melee attackers) have the time and resources to execute the strategy effectively.
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