Unprotected Undead

Greetings, battle mages!

For this week's Splinterlands Battle Mage Secrets challenge I have a really awesome battle with two interesting rulesets that kind of complement each other in a way that will lead to total mayhem.

The main focus of the challenge is on Unprotected ruleset. This rule means that monsters on both teams won't have any armour to start with and do not receive armour from abilities or summoner buffs either.

The other rule in play is Born Again. This means all monsters will have a Rebirth ability making them come back to life once after being killed.

Since the monsters are now vulnerable without armour and will be born again, I'd say this one has the words 'bloodlust' and 'martyr' written all over it. Definitely.

Let's take a closer look at my choices and strategy.

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My Team

ETERNAN BRUTE is a Souldbound summoner who brings one Gladiator monster to the battlefield while reducing the armour of all opponent units by 2.

The latter one mentioned is however useless in a Unprotected battle. I was well aware of this, but I still decided to go with Eternan Brute because of the extra Gladiator. Yes, this will be a huge part of my offensive strategy but more of that later!

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My go-to tank unit with Fire Splinter is usually the Ferox Defender who will provide armour to my squad with protect ability but since the Unprotected ability applies, I chose TUSK THE WIDE to fill those boots.

Tusk is an excellent choice for this kind of battle as he has plenty of health and also the Void ability to protect himself from the magic attacks.

Slow and not very strong offensively, Tusk is here to protect the weak ones with his presence and hopefully can take quite a few attacks before my other monsters come to assist.

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XENITH MONK is kind of a secondary, backup tank with a pretty nice amount of health for such a low mana cost unit.

Even though I rarely use this card, it has been a long-term project of mine to upgrade it to the second level. Xenith Monk would then receive the Heal ability which would obviously open up a lot of new use cases for him.

Monk isn't the cheapest card on the market costing $0.29 and to be honest, I was kinda hoping its price would've dropped even more... Still, being a Neutral unit and having that great ability on level 2 makes it a card I just have to invest some time in the future.

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KOBOLD MINER is one of my latest purchases. I paid only $0.57 for this Alpha card and thought that was a real bargain. Its current price is $0.86 but there are only two copies for sale at that price, after that the price jumps to $2.35!

This monster isn't very strong but it's a perfect choice for low-mana battles as it costs only 2 mana points. I also like the fact that it has enough health(3) for a small unit and some speed to surprise the slower units.

Kobold Miner has the Sneak so it will be targeting the last monster on the enemy team. With the absence of armour, it might be able to do some damage to their last line of defence.

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VENARI MARKSRAT is here to offer some crucial ranged attack support.

Who am I kidding? The most important function of the Marksrat is to eventually trigger his Martyr ability which will then boost all the stats of adjacent monsters.

In this case, the most important one to benefit from this ability is the next one...

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This is the cornerstone of my attack strategy. ORELLA ABADON is a Gladiator monster who is here thanks to our summoner, Eternan Brute.

Costing only 2 mana points, a level 3 Orella brings a lot to the table. He has a very strong base melee attack(3) and more importantly he is fast(speed 3) meaning if he is up against another small unit, Orella will likely have the advantage.

If that wasn't enough, Orella will only grow stronger after each kill because of his Bloodlust ability.

To boost his greatness, and to make him totally unstoppable, I have placed not only one but two Martyr monsters next to him. If and when these guys should perish, at that point Orella could take on entire armies by himself!

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Unlike the pretty useless Venari Marksrat, FIRECALLER is actually a Martyr unit that is pretty lethal offensively.

A level 4 Firecaller has a ranged attack of 3 so before he will fulfill his purpose of serving Orella Abadon, he can do some serious damage by himself.

Firecaller has 4 health points so he could perhaps take an attack or two before falling. To think of it, a better idea would have probably been putting Marksrat here in the last spot so we could enjoy Firecaller attacks for a longer time.

Oh, I forgot to mention that indeed, these martyr guys will born again and their ability will trigger again. Who could stop Orella Abadon then?

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Entering The Arena

As we wander toward the arena it is time to take a first look at our opponent's squad.

• It seems they also have the sacrificial Marksrat who is placed shamelessly in front. The idea behind this is probably trying to make the already powerful Drybone Barbarian super strong.

• Behind the Barbarian, in a relatively safe place is a tank healer Venari Crystalsmith. Her purpose is to support the Barbarian once he gets in the first position.

• They also have a small, but very annoying, Time Mage on their team. This one will slow down my units which will be a minor setback.

• Celestial Harpy is in the last spot and will be targeting my weakest units if it lives long enough to try that...

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The Battle

Life versus Fire. To find out who is going to get burned, watch the battle HERE, or/and continue reading my battle report below.

ROUND 1

The first round started exactly according to our plan. Tusk The Wide held his ground well in the first spot while Orella Abadon killed Celestial Harpy and triggered the bloodlust for the first time.

We then destroyed their Marksrat, twice, which made Drybone Barbarian mad and strong as he stepped up to take the tank position.

ROUND 2

Drybone Barbarian made his first strike and managed to seriously hurt Tusk by taking over half of his health. However, there were things happening in the background as Orella used his new powers to take down their Time Mage.

Time Mage came back and unfortunately, our Firecaller was wiped out. This obviously then made Orella even stronger and faster.

ROUND 3

At the beginning of the third one, Drybone Barbarian and Venari Crystalsmith killed the poor old Tusk and made sure he wasn't coming back.

ROUNDS 4 & 5

Orella's stats were all at 8 now while there were only two opponent units left. Kobold Miner soon made it only one as he killed the Crystalsmith.

Fast and strong Barbarian managed to dodge Venari Marksrat's attack but wasn't quick enough for Orella Abadon. Drybone Barbarian still made a comeback and did something amazing by dodging three attacks from three different monsters! Surprisingly enough, it was the one monster I had been dissing in this post to finally become the here of the day - Yes, The Marksrat.

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Conclusion

I cannot emphasize this enough: the Unprotected rule is made for monsters with Bloodlust ability. If you have a relatively fast Bloodlust unit like my Orella who was well-protected in the middle, you are very likely to take advantage. That might then very well lead to a situation like this where the Bloodlust monster becomes unstoppable.

I was lucky to get the Born Again rule in this one also, as it really adds to my initial strategy.

To counter a strategy like this could be quite difficult when these two rules are in play. An Opportunity monster could be a choice but then again, it would perhaps attack the Martyr "guard" first and make Orella even stronger. It would then choose the reborn Martyr monster again and the vicious cycle would be created.

How would you counter this kind of a line-up with these rules? Leave a comment below!

Thank you for reading!