Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge! Holy Protection!

[Source]

Hi everyone! It's time for the weekly Battle Mage Secrets challenge and the challenge this week is the Holy Protection Ruleset.

About the Ruleset

Holy Protection

The Holy Protection ruleset states that "All Monsters have the Divine Shield ability". This means that monsters do not take any damage on being hit the first time, and the Divine Shield is re-applied when a monster is resurrected. That two abilities would be great combination to use in battle.

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Battle Ruleset(s)

Details of my battle with this ruleset is as follows.

Fab Four: Up to four Units can be used
Holy Protection: All Monsters have the Divine Shield ability
Super Sneak: All Melee attack Monsters have the Sneak ability
Mana Cap: 45
Available Splinters: All Splinters can be used
Format: Wild

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Cards & Line Up

The Summoner vs

Summoner: Kelya Frendul - It increases the Speed and Shield of my entire deck by 1.

The Line Up

Position 1	Position 2	Position 3	Position 4

vs

Position 1	Position 2	Position 3	Position 4

[Card image source]

Position	Name	Description
1	Diemonshark	It has the Trample and Enrage ability, and is great for higher damage and additional attack if it kills off the monster it's attacking.
2	Coastal Sentry	It has the Double Strike ability and together with the Sneak from this ruleset, it works wonders.
3	Noa the Just	It has the Rust ability, which removes 2 shields from the opponent's entire deck. This is important as my deck is fully melee, and the Rust will allow me some advantage.
4	Kulu Mastermind	It has the Weapons Training and Opportunity ability. It will target the weakest monster and at the same time give 3 melee attack to Noa the Just.

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Strategy

The ruleset here meant that (1) only four monsters can be used in the deck, (2) monsters will take no damage on their first hit and (3) Melee monsters will attack the last position.

With this ruleset combination, I opted for Kelya Frendul as the summoner, as it provides an additional on top of the Divine Shield from the ruleset. My strategy was to remove the shield from the opponent and hit with as high a damage as possible. I also made use of the double strike ability from Coastal Sentry so that it can do damage since it strikes twice.

The opponent used a similar strategy, using Djinn Oshannus and Deeplurker instead of Coastal Sentry and Kulu Mastermind. That gave me an advantage as I got additional attacks from Coastal Sentry and Noa the Just. As such, I won the battle fairly easily.

On hindsight, I thought it might have been better if Positions 3 and 4 were swopped with Positions 1 and 2, as Diemonshark had better stats to tank from the last position.

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Thoughts on the Holy Protection Ruleset

The Holy Protection ruleset can be rather irritating if used in conjection with the Resurrect, Martyr and Bloodlust abilities in the deck. It can potentially grow the monster with the Bloodlust abilities with stats that is very hard to take down. However, it is to your advantage if you are able to put up such a deck.

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Battle

Watch the battle here