Damour's weekly breakdown of the Battle mage secrets

CHALLENGE RULES

RULESET: Keep Your Distance

Description:

Units with melee attacks may not be used.

Use Phase, Void, Void Armor, and Magic Reflect to counter magic attacks.
Use Headwinds and Return Fire to counter ranged attacks.
Units with 2 types of attack (which include melee) cannot be used.

• Keep no attack monsters in the front.
• Use higher HP monsters closer to the front as secondary tanks
• Be ready for magic + range lineups
• Keep higher speed monsters up front.

Ruleset Nerfs

Rulesets that don't support	Reasons
Earthquake	2 damage to every non flying monster in the battle every turn.
Unprotected	Takes away the void armor counter. You could go with speed as the winning option here.

Ruleset Buffs

Rulesets that support	Reasons
Armored up	Having high armor will help you absorb some extra damage.
Holy Protection	Divine shield will protect you from one source of damage.
Up to eleven	This ability works so well with this ruleset because chances are your opponent is bringing range or magic to this battle are fairly good.

Monsters breakdown

Buffs

Piercing
This is great as there is a good chance your opponent uses armor related buffs so regardless if you use ranged or magic, you'll still go through the armor and deal damage.

Blast
Blast is a very strong ability allowing you to damage multiple monsters with one hit.

Scattershot
Scattershot is a good one to have if you think your opponent will use taunt. Your opponent is bringing monsters that are ranged or magic so there is a high likelihood that some glass canons will be in the opposing lineup. Scattershot can potentially deal with them early but do be warned RNG is RNG after all.

Reflection Shield
This ability directly counters the effect of Return fire or magic reflect ability.

Shield/Void
Shield reduces the damage from melee or ranged attacks while the Void reduces the damage from the magic attacks. Since the damage from the Blast effect is effectively halved already, having another ability like Shield or Void can reduce it further by half, and can be even reduce to zero damage.

Repair
Having the repair ability allows you to repair the armor of your monsters.

Protect/Void armor
Having high armor will help you absorb some damage. Similarly for magic, you can use Void Armor ability to protect against magic. Protect ability can give you two additional armor while the Repair ability will help you regain your damaged armor.

Nerfs

Flying
Having the blind ability allows you to get +25% chance of evading from range and melee attacks.

Dodge
Having the dodge ability allows you to get +25% Dodge chance of evading from range and melee attacks.

Blind
Having the blind ability allows you to get +15% chance of evading from range and melee attacks.

Headwinds/Demoralize/Silence
You can still survive longer if you can reduce the damage from the opponent's attack. Abilities like Demoralize, Headwinds, or Silence reduces the melee, ranged, and magic damage respectively will help you achieve this strategy this will be an ideal way to hurt their damage output.

Summoners breakdown

Summoners buffs	Reasons
Summoners that give speed	Dealing damage first can often be the difference between winning or losing.
Kelya	Having speed as mentioned above is great but the added armor here has many benefits.
Lux	Same reasons as Kelya with the added bones of some more health as well.
Brighton Bloom	Giving everyone flying could help if your opponent brings ranged.
Grandmaster Rathe	Giving everyone void armor can be particularly difficult to get through regardless of the damage type.
Immortalis	Giving everyone shatter can be painful for opponents who have gone with armor plays.

Summoners nerfs	Reasons
None	Can't really think of summoner with a disadvantage.

If you can think of any please let me know.

Without further delay lets dig into a battle to see some of our recommendations in action.

Battle

Top player went with Lilly and the bottom player went with Quix for anti range and less speed.
Both of them combos with water. Top opting for more range and bottom going for a magic play.
Even with the damage reduction of ranged. The magic team is not able to get through either of the tanks for the top team. The Anti magic play with void worked out very well. Combined with a little sustain goes a long way.

Damour the merrier
See you all out in the Splinterverse.

Images provided by Splinterlands in game and via Weekly Battle Mage Challenge post.

My socials

"Together we Thrive Kapamilya"

TeamPH	Splinterlands	Twitter	Youtube	Twitch