Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge - Keep Your Distance 1 - Modern Champion Ranked

Hello everyone! This is my first entry for this week's Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge with the Keep Your Distance rule set!

Keep Your Distance is a rule set that doesn't allow monsters with Melee attacks. It's a restrictive rule set. That's my least favorite type as they can create very uninteresting games combined with other restrictive rule sets. However, this isn't as restrictive as others, so it's certainly not the worst. You can play magic and ranged monsters. As for strategies, since there's one less type of attack, you can focus on defenses against the 2 types of attacks. Void and Shield still have the same value because getting rid of melee doesn't narrow this down but Silence and Headwinds or Return Fire and Magic Reflect can work together in creating very good defenses or counteroffensives. One strategy that works well in this is Grimbardun Smith plus Lily Shieldpaw. Nowadays it's risky to go with this combo because Venka destroys it. However, if melee monsters are not allowed, you can be sure you won't be facing any Venkas.

This game also has the Healed Out and the Armored Up rule sets. The top player opted for Lorkus, with Djinn Muirat in front. Next, they placed the Weapons Training combination of Grimbardun Smith, Skok Duskblight, and Will-o-Wisp. The final 2 monsters were Sorriel the Bale and Djinn Inferni. The bottom player went with Akane. They also have the same Weapons Training combination but no monsters in front of them. Their Skok is only level 3, which is a big disadvantage because it has 1 less attack stat. Their last 3 monsters were Kain Hace, Lira the Dark, and Chaos Dragon. The top player gave the Life Leech and Affliction to their last 2 monsters. I'm not sure that is the best option because there's Lira and Chaos Dragon. Chaos Dragon might kill Inferni before it has the chance to attack. The bottom player gave the Ambush to their last 2 monsters as well. With that, Even Lira has the chance to kill Inferni if she hits both attacks from Ambush phase and round 1.

In the Ambush phase, Lira miss her attack just from the 15% chance because of the Blind. Chaos Dragon hit Sorriel, which put both their back monsters at 1 HP. In round 1, Lira hit the armor of Sorriel. If she had hit the first attack she still wouldn't get the kill because her target changed. However, Chaos Dragon hits Sorriel again, which kills those 2. Sorriel gets Resurrected. The top team's counterattack was very strong, leaving Grimbardun Smith at just 2 HP, while Muirat still had 5 HP and 2 Armor. In round 2, Chaos Dragon finished Sorriel but the Top player took out Grimbardun Smith twice and Skok. In the next one, Muirat finally died but so did the bottom player's Will-o-Wisp. Round 4 saw Kain Hace and Lira dying. Next, Chaos Dragon was able to take out Skok but it was too late as it died to Grimbardun Smith. It was a somewhat close game but it didn't need to be. If the top player had given the Life Leech to Grimbardun and Will-o-Wisp or Muirat, it would have been easier.

What do you all think about Keep Your Distance? Do you have any interesting games or strategies for it? Let me know in the comments! Thank you for reading!!