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Ahoy fellow Splinterlands players. Welcome to my next weekly Battle Mage Secrets post.

This week the featured ruleset is Unprotected. With this ruleset active the Units can't have any Armour at all. Their default Armour, if they have it, is removed and they can't gain any Armour from abilities or Summoner Buffs either. For example Kelya normally provides +1 Armour and +1 Speed, but with this ruleset active she'll only be giving that +1 Speed.

You can recognise the ruleset with the following icon.

With this ruleset active it could be a great moment for Monsters with Melee and/or Ranged attack to shine as they won't have to worry about any Armour and can just go for the Health right away. It is worth noting that the Shield and Divine Shield abilities still work, because this ruleset has a broken shield one might think those abilities don't work either but that is not the case. So Shield and Divine Shield can still be great plays!

In the battle I want to share with you this week the Melee attack Monsters will definitely shine with no Armour because of the other ruleset where only Monsters with Melee attack can be used. This battle is from the Summun Infuria Modern Silver Invitational Tournament a few days ago (not to be confused with the one that started today). I was up against wengsmith1125 for this battle.

Here is a picture of our initial lineup.

Battle Rules

This was a battle with a 42 Mana Cap. Only half the Elements were available with Earth, Life and Dragon being the available ones. The battle had 3 rulesets:

• Unprotected: Monsters do not have any armor and do not get armor from Abilities or Summoner Buffs.
• Are You Not Entertained?: One additional Gladiator card may be used in battles.
• Up Close & Personal: Only Monsters with Melee attack may be used in battles.

Here is a link to the battle if you want to check it out: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sm_mm7UiiS14FjYeMKhHKa0&ref=athunderstruck

Battle Lineup

With no Armour the Monsters with Melee attack won't have to worry about having to break it so they could really shiny here and well they have to because of the Up Close & Personal ruleset. Due to that reason I'm using Mylor Crowling as my Summoner to provide Thorns to all of my Monsters. That way my opponent will take some damage whenever they attack me with the Melee attacks.
Gladiators can also be used so this battle so there is a chance that we can see Quora Towershead in this battle.

For that reason I'm placing Unicorn Mustang up front. With its Void ability it'll take less damage from Quora and it has some good high Health to also survive some Melee hits while dealing Thorns damage back.
I placed Mycelic Infantry second so that when my Unicorn Mustang goes down I have another tank unit since he has the Shield ability and won't be taking much damage from those Melee attacks, while still returning the same Thorns damage.

My opponent might have a lineup that could deal with a potential Quora play. So the Gladiator that I'm bringing into battle is Katrelba Gobson with a nice Sneak attack and Double Strike so it gets to attack the backline twice.
Paired with Katrelba Gobson I bring Uraeus to have a second Monster with Sneak for some extra damage to the backline.
These 2 can go either pretty well or really badly. Depending on whether or not my opponent plays Mylor. From their 5 most recent battles I didn't expect that though since I only really saw Chaos Legion cards there, but y'know it's always possible they did go and rent one. Will have to see how it goes!

Then I'm bringing Disintegrator for that Demoralize ability to reduce all Melee attacks on my opponents side by 1.

Lastly I bring War Chaang. It has Ranged AND Melee attack so it can deal some damage to the frontline with the Ranged attack. It also has the Retaliate ability which gives it a 50% chance to attack back against the Monster that attacked him. Pairing that with the Thorns and Demoralize makes it a great backline protector against Sneak.

Battle Analysis

Ah my opponent is using Lobb Lowland this battle. From the ruleset we can already bring a Gladiator, so with them using Lobb Lowland they can actually bring 2 Gladiators into the battle. Which is exactly what they did.
They have Grund up front for that Dual Strike.
Followed by Quora who can act as a second tank while already dealing Magic damage while in the backline.
Then they also brought Katrelba Gobson as a 2nd Gladiator to have some backline attack.
A Venari Scout for some Opportunity damage.
Last but not least they also brought Disintegrator to reduce my team's Melee attacks by 1.

Start of the battle

Lobb Lowland reduces my Monster's Speed by 1 which makes Unicorn Mustang the same Speed as Quora. Quora having a Magic attack causes her to attack first. Just 1 damage though as my Unicorn Mustang has the Void ability.
Then Grund attacks since he's same Speed but higher rarity so he deals 4 damage to my Unicorn Mustang but also takes 4 damage back as he took Thorns damage twice!
Now my Unicorn Mustang gets its turn to deal an extra 2 damage to Grund.
Their Venari Scout deals 1 damage to my Uraeus, leaving it at 1 Health. If it wasn't for that Demoralize from Disintergrator then the Venari Scout could've actually killed Uraeus. But yeah that's one of the reasons we brought Disintegrator.
Their Katrelba Gobson attacks now, hitting my War Chaang for 1 damage twice, but taking 2 Thorns damage every attack so 4 in total and so their Katrelba Gobson dies to the Thorns.
My War Chaang didn't Retaliate any of those 2 hits 😐 It didn't matter for killing Katrelba as it died to the Thorns but still that's my "luck" with the Retaliate ability. It rarely seems to work for me.
War Chaang deals 1 damage to Grund with that Ranged attack.
My Katrelba Gobson attacks the opponents Disintegrator twice for 4 damage.
Uraeus deals another damage to Disintergrator leaving it at 1 Health.

That wraps up round 1.

Quora starts the round again dealing 1 damage to Unicorn Mustang.
Grund attacks my Unicorn Mustang twice, dealing 2 damage per attack and taking 2 Thorns damage per attack. So with that 2nd attack he leaves my Unicorn Mustang at 1 Health but he himself dies from the Thorns.
Unicorn Mustang is now able to attack Quora because Grund just died.
Venari Scout could've killed my Uraeus, but because of the attacks that just happened my Unicorn Mustang is at 1 Health and becomes the target for Opportunity. So Venari Scout attacks and kills my Unicorn Mustang, but also dies to the Thorns.
Which is pretty awesome because now my Unicorn Mustang won't be able to die against Quora so she won't be able to Bloodlust.
War Chaang hits Quora in the face for 1 damage with that Ranged attack.
Katrelba Gobson attacks and kills the opponent's Disintergrator. Gaining +1 Melee attack, Speed and Health from the Bloodlust. But also removing that Demoralize debuff so my whole team gains the 1 Melee attack that they lost back.
This brings Katrelba Gobson to 4 Melee attack and she has Double Strike so she still gets to do a 2nd attack this round dealing 4 damage to Quora.
Uraeus deals another 2 damage to Quora leaving her at 2 Health.
That means my Mycelic Infantry could now take out Quora. Buuuut it ends up missing! There is a Speed difference of 2 so yeah it had 80% chance to hit and thus 20% chance to miss.

That miss means we go into a round 3.

I've managed to take a screenshot that shows the "Miss!" on top of Quora from when my Mycelic Infantry missed.

Going into round 3.

Quora starts again so she Heals herself for 3 Health. Dealing that 2 Magic damage to my Mycelic Infantry. Also doing a Melee attack but she only has 1 Melee attack and Mycelic Infantry has the Shield ability so it doesn't take damage from the Melee attack. But the Thorns still deals 2 damage to Quora.
Katrelba Gobson is up next and just 1 hit from her 4 Melee attack is enough to take out Quora Towershead!

GG! 😄

Was My Strategy Successful?

Yeah, playing Mylor Crowling for the Thorns damage was definitely a great pick. Having Unicorn Mustang up front too as it only took 1 damage every round and was thus not super likely to die to her. To avoid giving her Bloodlust. I think if I had placed Mycelic Infantry first it was a bit more likely to die to Quora because the Melee attack Monsters like Grund wouldn't be dealing much damage to it. Leaving it more vulnerable to Quora. But it could act really well as a secondary tank. So that worked out really well.

I didn't pick Quora myself because I thought my opponent might expect Quora from my side too and perhaps build a strong frontline against her.

Conclusion

I'm glad my opponent didn't play Mylor as well though otherwise it would've been a problem for my Katrelba and Uraeus who would've both died in the first round because of Thorns then.

I think it might have also been fun to play Quora with Mylor, because if she kills something due to it taking Thorns damage then she also gains Bloodlust. If I didn't play Katrelba and War Chaang I could've freed up the mana to place Quora in the back. But yeah then I'd lost out on a lot of that Sneak attack damage though so I'm really satisfied with my Katrelba Gobson play instead.

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