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Ahoy and welcome to my latest Battle Mage Secrets post.
Last week I missed out on it because I got too busy on Monday to still get a post out. Which is my own fault I should've tried to get it out at an earlier day but oh well.
This week the featured ruleset is Melee Mayhem. When this ruleset is active Monsters with Melee attack can attack from anywhere. So you could play way more Melee Monsters since now they don't require abilities like Opportunity, Reach or Sneak to attack from the backline.
You can recognise this ruleset with the following icon.
When Monsters with Melee attack can attack from anywhere it really opens up a lot of opportunities to play Monsters that you'd normally not really play often because they can't attack from the backline. It also allows Monsters with a Dual attack like Magic+Melee or Ranged+Melee to be placed in the backline and use both of their attacks thanks to this ruleset!
This week I'm once again sharing a battle from a recent Tournament. I've also had this ruleset in Ranked but not too often. One of my recent victories included using Mylor as he's a great choice when expecting a lot of Melee attackers. But my last two Battle Mage Secrets have included Mylor as my Summoner so I definitely didn't wanna share that one 😂 Gotta show some variety!
So yeah I'll share one from a Tournament I played a few days ago. Also I finished 3rd place in that Tournament!! Which was really great and that increased my desire to share a battle from it! It was the Gauntlet Wild Bronze Invitational Tournament. In this battle I played against the player cookiess.
Here is a picture of our initial lineup.
Battle Rules
This was a battle with a 23 Mana Cap. ONLY the Life Element was available to be played. The battle had 3 rulesets:
- Broken Arrows: Ranged attack Monsters may not be used in battles.
- Holy Protection: All Monsters have the Divine Shield ability.
- Melee Mayhem: Melee attack Monsters can attack from any position.
Here is a link to the battle if you want to check it out: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sm_zUc71Ryda7FJVah8E85P&ref=athunderstruck
Battle Lineup
Alright so only Life Element is available. That already limits what we can play. Ranged attack Monsters can't be used so there is no point using General Sloan as Summoner and I wouldn't have to fear Ilthain. There is already Divine Shield for all Monsters thanks to the Holy Protection ruleset so there wouldn't be any benefit to playing Lorna Shine. Then I decided I'll go for Tyrus Paladium to provide +1 Armour to all the Monsters on my team. That way any Melee Monsters would have to first hit to break the Divine Shield and then hit again to break the Armour before they could attack my Monsters health.
In the front I placed a Furious Chicken to just serve as an initial tank as it doesn't get a Melee attack at this Bronze level yet anyway. After that I used Lord Arianthus to serve as the main tank with Shield and Void abilities so it'll take less damage from Melee attacks and potential Magic attacks.
Then I used Soul Fiend. It can act as a target for Opportunity after the Furious chicken dies and if Lord Arianthus dies it could also serve as a bit of extra protection for my Jared Scar.
After that I picked Jared Scar. Placing him in the middle of my backline so he's surrounded and protected on both sides. He has kinda low Speed but with that Bloodlust ability he could become really strong if he managed to kill some Monsters.
Then I picked Armorsmith because he has the Repair ability. So thanks to this ruleset he can attack from this position to deal extra damage while also Repairing Armour on one of my Monsters every turn. Which works really well as I used Tyrus as my Summoner giving +1 Armour to all my Monsters.
Last but not least I picked the Silvershield Knight. He has the Inspire ability which gives +1 Attack to all my Monsters with Melee attack. So he'll make himself and those other 3 Melee Monsters that I brought in my team quite a bit stronger. With his own Armour and good Health he can also protect the backline a bit in case my opponent uses some Monster with the Sneak ability.
Battle Analysis
Ah it seems my opponent played Lorna Shine despite the Holy Protection ruleset. But I guess they didn't have Tyrus available and in that case Lorna is the best choice because the other Summoners require too much Mana. Especially since Sloan and Ilthain wouldn't even offer a proper benefit (except maybe the Speed from Ilthain) because Ranged Monsters couldn't be played.
They're using Pelacor Conjurer as a frontline tank which is a smart choice because with Divine Shield and giving it Armour it has to be hit twice already before its Health can be damaged. It has good Speed and on top of that the Flying ability which might make it harder to miss. They added Divine Healer behind it to be able to heal it too.
Then their backline actually consists of 3 Melee Monsters that all have the Sneak ability. Which is going to render my Lord Arianthus a bit useless, especially in the beginning, because they're going to mostly target my backline.
In between the Sneak Monsters my opponent placed Truthspeaker to add +2 Armour to all of their Monsters. Which is also a solid way to provide Armour.
If I didn't bring Silvershield Knight for the Inspire then that Armour they got would need a hit from both Soul Fiend AND Armorsmith to take it down because they'd then have only 1 Melee attack each.
The battle starts with my Silvershield Knight hitting Pelacor Conjurer to take away Divine Shield. Soul Fiend hits the Pelacor Conjurer to destroy that Armour thanks to its 2 Melee attack from Inspire. Then Jared Scar successfully hits the Pelacor Conjurer too and kills it because he has 6 attack and. This lets him Bloodlust so he goes to 7 attack and also gains +1 Armour, +1 Health and +1 Speed. My team finishes their round with Armorsmith taking away Divine Shield from the Divine Healer, who is now unable to Heal because the Pelacor Conjurer is gone.
I'm glad my Monsters didn't miss the Pelacor Conjurer though! They both had 2 speed less than it so their chance to hit got reduced to 80% chance. Then it also has the Flying ability which should lower my chance to hit by 25% so their hitchance goes down to 55% chance. Still more than half a chance to hit them though so that's was nice. If they missed in the first round they'd quite likely have hit and killed it in the 2nd round especially with Silvershield Knight being able to attack it too.
On my opponents side in the first round their Dumacke Exile hit my Silvershield Knight and took away its Divine Shield. Then my opponent actually got really unlucky since their Uraeus AND Stitch Leech both missed against my Silvershield Knight and they both had 80% chance to hit it. So yeah really unlucky actually.
Which still leaves it with Armour at the end of the round.
If Uraeus did hit him then Armorsmith would have repaired the Armor so if then Stitch Leech still missed he would've also finished the round with Armour.
If both Uraeus and Stitch Leech hit my Silvershield Knight he would've finished the first round without Armour but with full Health if my Armorsmith went first. OR he would've finished the round with 4 Health left and still 2 Armour if my Armorsmith went after Stitch Leech (due to both having the same Speed and same rarity).
Here is a picture of our lineups at the start of round 2.
Armorsmith had taken away the Divine Shield from Divine Healer in round 1. So now with round 2 starting the Silvershield Knight takes away its Armour and then Jared Scar kills Divine Healer to get another Bloodlust.
My opponent's Dumacke Exile destroyed the Armour on my Silvershield Knight.
Since I now killed Divine Healer the Stitch Leech goes to the frontline. So it won't get to attack my Silvershield Knight only their Uraeus gets to do that, which it does.
My Soul Fiend and Armorsmith take away the Divine Shield and Armour from the Stitch Leech. Armorsmith also repairs the Armour on Silvershield Knight so it's at 2 Armour and 4 Health at the end of the round. Which means it still has enough to survive another round of damage from Dumacke Exile and Uraeus.
Meanwhile my Furious Chicken is still rocking the frontline. It had its Divine Shield taken away by the Divine Healer and now its Armour taken away by Stitch Leech but it's still alive!
Starting round 3 my Jared Scar now kills the Stitch Leech and gains its 3rd Bloodlust.
At this point the battle victory has totally been secured for me. My opponent only has 2 Monsters left that can attack and with Sneak they are still trying to hit the Silvershield Knight in my back. With its Armour being repaired so often by Armorsmith they're really struggling to take it out.
Jared Scar now has a lot of Speed though so he's often the one that now either takes away the Divine Shield OR the Armour and then the Monsters get killed by my others. So no more Bloodlust for him.
The Dumacke Exile does not want this to be a flawless victory for me as he ends up killing my Furious Chicken.
Now that he killed my Furious Chicken to keep his Honour it is time for my Monsters to finish this battle.
GG 😄
Was My Strategy Successful?
Oh yeah that was a great strategy. Add some Armour to all my Monsters with Tyrus as my Summoner. Have some good frontline for the potential of Melee Attackers in the front. Put some low Mana Melee attackers around Jared Scar to protect him, have one of them be Armorsmith to repair the Armour. Finish off my team with Silvershield Knight to increase all the Melee damage on my team with the Inspire ability and have him as a solid backline protection too with the higher Health on him and thanks to Armor Repair.
I might've gotten a bit luck in round 1 to kill Pelacor Conjurer since my Soul Fiend, Jared Scar and Armorsmith all had like 55% chance to hit it. But that's still slightly over half a chance to hit it. Even if not all of them hit it in round 1 then they should've been able to take it out in round 2 anyway. While Silvershield Knight and Armorsmith could continue to hold down the backline.
Conclusion
Definitely a great team combo. So lovely to use Jared Scar and even more awesome to see him get some Bloodlusts. My Lord Arianthus might have been a bit useless since it never got attack once. But it was there as protection in case my opponent ran a team with more Melee Monsters attacking the frontline. Or even against some Magic Monsters as they could've also gone that way if they expected me to add a lot of Armour to my team.
Also if you check out the battle and use that to view the tournament standings you can see I finished this Tournament in the 3rd place! That was really sweet! 😄
Picture of the tournament ending positions.
That's it for my Battle Mage Secrets challenge this week. Thank you for reading!
If you haven't signed up for Splinterlands yet and want to check it out, you can do so with my referral link at: https://splinterlands.com?ref=athunderstruck
Thanks for sharing! - @yonilkar
