Favorites, to battle! - 7 - The Battle of Favorites! - 7

I spent all the rests and got a huge underground respawn by minion standards. From the start, only the computer dungeon is available, but there is one problem - the starting hero there is Miner, and I only went to him after fast-building Efreeti and discovered an Efreeti external dwelling. I decided to take it on the first day and Town Portal it. I managed to do that, but at the expense of main town development, resulting in many Efreeti but no Pit Fiends or Hounds built. On the second day, I found another Efreeti external dwelling. Initially, I decided to focus on Nymus, gave her Wisdom and Fire, invested in GM4 in the dungeon, but miscalculated - she got Counterstrike + Water Walk. Then the opponent's tavern army was stronger, I had no resources, and in Inferno there wasn't even GM2. Everything was very bad, and then I got extremely lucky - from a level 2 Dragon Utopia, I got the Cape of Silence + a 4/4 hat, recouped resources, upgraded Pit Fiends on the third day, and everything started developing rapidly. On 146, the opponent was 1 hex short of taking my main town; its loss didn't scare me, but it gave me a chance to attack him via Town Portal. Nela had better combat stats, while I had more than double the spell power; earlier, I scouted him with a scout hero and he cast Haste. I attacked with over 2k+ Explosion in reserve, and he had the Cloak of Denial, so I had to improvise and fire Lightning Bolts, while he started buffing - Mass Haste, Mass Shield. I decided to buy back on round 3, completing the main objective by cutting down a fat stack of 40+ Wyverns. I attack again on the same turn; he decided to buy back and returned my 35k gold.
After that, we did some mop-up, built both Arches (but now I had first speed in battle).
On 212, I ran to his respawn through a small central treasure zone, where, by the way, I decisively took the Orb granting +50% water damage. He hadn't built a Tower at all, instead focusing on Conflux, but crucially, I built a Lookout Tower at his base and reached the secondary's ramp the next turn.
The opponent launched an attack on his turn; I was powering up with all my might in the Castle; he fell 1 hex short, although at the time I thought he wanted to fight in the field on my turn. Well, that gave me an extra turn to grab a flag for Luck + Morale (I had the Spirit of Lamentation, but luck doesn't hurt), and I attacked.
The difference in combat parameters was heavily in his favor, but he had 16 spell power while I had 28, and the water boost was very timely since an Amulet of Lightning appeared there; additionally, I had 35% resistance (20 skill + 15 boots) that activated twice during the battle, and an Ice Bolt dealing 850 damage created enough of an edge for victory.
I really liked the finish - any small detail could have tipped the outcome toward the opponent.
Thanks for the game.