Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge! Broken Arrows!

[Source]

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

About the Ruleset

Broken Arrows

The Broken Arrows ruleset states that "Ranged attack Monsters may not be used in battles". Only Melee, Magic and non-attacking monsters may be used in the battles. The Thorns and Magic Reflect abilities are great in this ruleset as melee and magic monsters are what your opponent and you are limited to.

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Battle Ruleset(s)

Details of my battle with this ruleset is as follows.

Broken Arrows: Ranged attack Monsters may not be used in battles
Explosive Weaponry: All Monsters have the Blast ability
Mana Cap: 28
Available Splinters: Fire, Water, Life and Death
Format: Modern

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Cards & Line Up

The Summoner vs

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

The Line Up

Position 1	Position 2	Position 3	Position 4	Position 5	Position 6

vs

Position 1	Position 2	Position 3	Position 4	Position 5	Position 6

[Card image source]

Position	Name	Description
1	Diemonshark	My main tank with a good amount of health and shields.
2	Tide Biter	This is an important monster as the Explosive Weaponry ruleset is in play here. It's Reflection Shield ability means that it won't take the blast damage.
3	Daigendark Surveyor	It's low mana cost as has a decent amount of health. It's here to slow the opponent down a little and helps if the tank is taken down fast. That'll likely be due to magic attack and the Magic Reflect ability will help if that's the case.
4	Djinn Oshannus	It has the Void and Phase ability, which will hopefully reduce damage taken if the opponent opts for a Magic based deck.
5	Pelacor Bandit	This is placed here to attack the backline, and provide some blast damage to the backline while doing so.
6	Torrent Fiend	It's 0 mana cost and here to absorb any initial damage from backline attacks.

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Strategy

The ruleset here meant that (1) no ranged attack monsters can be used, (2) All monsters will do blast damage.

For the Broken Arrows ruleset, I try to use a mix of melee and magic monsters in case the opponent nerfs my attacks with Silence or Demoralize. The use of a monster with the Reflection Shield ability is also important as it will not take the blast damage and extend the duration that I can take attacks. My attacks are frontline heavy and I was a little worried that the opponent may employ and backline attack. But I went ahead with this strategy anyway

The opponent opted to use Conqueror Jacek as his summoner. While the Scattershot ability is useless (due to the use of only Melee monsters), the additional speed and Piercing ability provided was a potent combination of skills. It was a close fight and my backline was decimated fairly quickly. Luckily for me, it held up long enough for Diemonshark's Trample ability kicked in, and also greatly helped by the fact that Tide Biter survived the whole battle, as it mitigated quite a fair bit of blast damage.

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Thoughts on the Broken Arrows Ruleset

The Broken Arrows ruleset reduces the number of cards that can be used by about a third. The Thorns and Magic Reflect abilities are great for this ruleset, as well as the Silence and Demoralize abilities. Abilities that boost the melee or magic attacks can also be used to provide an advantage.

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Battle

Watch the battle here

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