HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻

Welcome to week 23 of the new iteration of the Splinterlands Weekly Challenges (at least, if I haven't miscounted so far, yet. 😜). For any old Hivers/Splinterland players who've just come back and are confused, fret not! Even with the name and format tweaks, right at it's core, battles are still the foundation of these posts.

In this week's edition of Battle Mage Secrets, it seems like we're in episode 2 of LOST! 😜 Just like in last week's challenge in which we had LOST legendaries, we have another LOST ruleset once again! Why are things going missing all of a sudden? Who knows! 😁 Well, thankfully, aside from sharing that LOST word, this ruleset is actually very different and requires you to change your strategy entirely!

No matter! I present to you the ruleset — LOST MAGIC ❌🪄

The game's description of LOST MAGIC is as follows: "Monsters with Magic attack may not be used in battles."

This is a ruleset which completely removes an entire class of units from the game. As the name itself implies, Magic units are the ones who're restricted here. Simply put, as long as a unit has any form of Magic Attack at all, and that includes dual attack type units, it cannot be used in battle.

Needless to say, we can definitely expect an all physical damage contest. Whether it ends up being melee or ranged is another matter. We should prepare our Summoner/Unit choices accordingly. Clearly, anti physical type abilities will come in useful here. If we want to gamble on the opponent favouring melee or ranged, we can even further focus on defending against that too. Armour also becomes an extremely good stat as nothing will be able to pierce through it with Magic out of the scene. 😁

I will take advantage of this ruleset in my battle showcase today to show how 1 of my units in particular becomes a lot stronger than one would expect with LOST LEGENDARIES. Introducing the Summoner, ASTRAL ENTITY.

From the shadows and the ether comes an eldritch entity known only as the Astral Entity. It is a celestial being that drifts through rifts in reality, searching for new planes and realms. There are almost no recordings of the Astral Entity in the athenaeums of the Splinterlands, but if one was to search through forgotten scrolls in the cobwebbed corners of ancient libraries, one would find the briefest mentions of this being. Snippets from across the centuries mention a humanoid shape made of cosmic energy. No one knows where it came from or what it wants, but it has only been recorded doing one thing: observing.

From Splinterlands Lore on ASTRAL ENTITY

---

The Astral Entity is a Legendary card released during the Chaos Legion expansion. It has definitely found it's place in many Death decks given its availability and usefulness. It's effects on the battlefield are -2 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and it grants the DODGE ability to all your units. It is also able to use the RESURRECT ability once on your team. It's summoning cost is, like all other Chaos Legion Legendary Summoners, 6 🧪MANA🧪.

The stat buffs it gives are nothing out of the ordinary, so at first glance, he might look pretty bland. It would seem that in terms of firepower, this summoner does almost nothing to boost your team. However, in a defensive game, all his abilities combined makes this Summoner one of the strongest in the game!

Firstly, he debuffs the opponents with -2 to their ARMOR, which gives melee attacks a small advantage against them. Furthermore, the DODGE and RESURRECT abilities will give your team even more defensive capabilities too!

I would venture to say that with the LOST MAGIC ruleset in play, it is obvious that we should pick an anti physical damage ability whenever possible. Now, we have a summoner which gives your army the perfect anti physical abilities (although resurrect can only be used once) and the battlefield conditions overwhelmingly tilt towards you.

Add one and one together and I hope it's glaringly obvious by now that the Astral Entity is a match made in heaven for this situation. Armour reduction removes some physical defence from your opponent, Dodge gives all units an additional 25% chance to literally evade any physical based attacks, and Resurrect gives an extra "save" for the first unit which dies.

This could make all the difference if the battle comes down to the wire where the slightest advantage is the fine line between victory or defeat! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 This is definitely what I'd consider game changing! 😱😱😱

⚔️🛡️My Battle Showcase🛡️⚔️

Let me present a battle I fought recently in which the ruleset LOST MAGIC was in effect. My opponent used the Untamed edition Summoner Lir Deepswimmer from the WATER splinter as his main pick, while I used the Chaos Legion edition Summoner Astral Entity from the DEATH splinter. 🌊 VS 💀

At first glance, it would seem like I was at a distinct disadvantage.

• My opponent was using a level 2 Legendary Summoner VS my level 1 Legendary.

• His units were likewise significantly higher levelled than mine.

• This gave his entire team a huge increase in raw damage output.

• To exacerbate matters, Lir was the perfect anti melee/ranged Summoner. He give gives all his units +2 Armor, Reflect Ranged damage, and a 25% miss chance via Blind.

I was honestly expecting this to be a really bad matchup for me 😜🤣. This was a team who had an innate advantage in this ruleset. His team had one purpose only and that was to negate everything my team could throw at him. Would I be able to turn the tide of battle against such an opponent then? Victory or defeat would lie in the small details.

I would say that the ruleset LOST MAGIC was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. The advantage it gave my team resulted in me outlasting my opponent in this battle. It definitely provided the edge that I needed to overcome my opponent.

This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆

---

LINK TO MY FIGHT

👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

1st CARD SLOT

The Harklaw is chosen for this slot. He plays the role of the Main tank perfectly with his great stats. His high health stats and the SHIELD ability will also allow him to have much longer staying power on the battlefield. This allows all other units to be kept safe until he is taken down.

---

2nd CARD SLOT

The Arachne Thug occupies this slot. It's main role here to be the REACH DPS for my team. It can also serve as the backup tank should the main tank fall.

---

3rd CARD SLOT

The Scavo Hireling fills this slot and it's main role is to REPAIR the armour of any of my units. This will further increase their staying power on the battlefield.

---

4th CARD SLOT

The Silent Shavi fills this slot. It's role is to pick off any exposed backline units with it's SNEAK ability.

---

5th CARD SLOT

The Uraeus occupies this slot. It is also another SNEAK unit whose role is to target the opponent's backline.

---

6th CARD SLOT

The Crypt Beetle occupies the last slot. It's main role is to defend the backline with it's SHIELD ability.

I hope you're starting to see the pattern here in my team setup. 😉

⚔️🛡️Battle Action Report🛡️⚔️

As you can see, both of us fielded very similar units in our matchup. Both of us went heavy melee with a REPAIR unit to support the team. 😱

🌊WATER🌊 VS 💀DEATH💀

---

My opponent used the Diemonshark as his tank in the 1st slot which was a VERY good choice. With his great defensive stats and the high ARMOR ability, this is a unit which will protect it's entire team until it falls.

The Tide Biter occupied his 2nd slot. This is another useful unit and with it's REACH ability and good damage, it packs quite a punch. It would likely also be the backup tank after his main tank falls.

His 3rd slot was occupied by the Deeplurker, which is the assassin of his team, picking off the weakest units with it's OPPORTUNITY ability.

This was followed by yet another assassin via it's SNEAK ability, the Pelacor Bandit, in his 4th slot.

His last 2 slots were filled with his REPAIR support unit, and sacrificial backline unit, Swamp Spitter and Torrent Fiend.

All in all, I would say that the opponent picked a really strong team.

---

My choice of the Main Tank was the Harklaw who is perfect for this task. He has really high HEALTH stats in order to take extra hits to ensure that all the other units are protected. Not only that, it also has the SHIELD ability. This allows it to last longer on the battlefield.

The Arachne Thug comes next in the 2nd slot. While it isn't a particular tanky unit as a backup tank candidate, it is hard hitting and has the REACH ability to take out the opponent's backline.

The Scavo Hireling occupies the 3rd slot and it is mainly there support the team with it's REPAIR ability. Armour restoration is invaluable when it comes to a match with no Magic Attack units.

The 4th and 5th slots were occupied by my SNEAK units, Silent Shavi and Uraeus. Their role is to take out any vulnerable backline units.

The Crypt Beetle occupied the last slot as a low cost anti melee/sneak defence.

---

The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was a medium mana game with 34 mana as the limit. The rulesets were LOST MAGIC & ARMORED UP.

• The first round saw both our sides launch a flurry of attacks. Both teams took a damage trading blows, but everyone came out of it pretty unscathed.

• Round 2 saw my team draw first blood when I killed off his Torrent Fiend. However, this was nothing to crow about as that was obviously a "free 0 mana sacrificial unit".

• Round 3 saw the opponent respond by killing my Scavo Hireling. Fortunately, my Astral Entity Summoner brought it back to life.

• With all his tanks gone, it was open season on the remaining fragile DPS units left on the field.

• Round 4 saw me taking revenge by killing off his REPAIR unit, the Swamp Spitter.

• There were plenty of dodges and it was only until Round 6 when something significant happened. I finally managed to take out his Main Tank!

• This was the breakthrough needed as all his units were now open and vulnerable to my entire army.

• It was all over for the opponent now as I eventually mopped up his entire army. 💀💀💀

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the LOST MAGIC ruleset to give me a slight advantage. Individually, on their own, my units would face a huge disadvantage against an enemy which was higher levelled than me. However, thanks to the amazing number of DODGES, which I have to admit was pretty lucky, I was able to turn the tide of battle! The opponent simply could not handle all that at all.

Well as you can see here in this GIF of my battle, the results were pretty good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

This was truly an eye opener! 😁🏆

Slowly, but surely, I wore down the opponent's team and the match ended up with me inflicting a crushing defeat. My team selection proved to be the edge I needed to eventually overpower my opponent. 💪🏻

🔮🔮🔮Hindsight is 20/20🔮🔮🔮

Would I have done anything differently? 🤔 This might have seemed like a disadvantage at the start but I ended up winning handily. IF I had to use the same cards again, there would be no better lineup than what I had already used for the match. Any other combination MIGHT have resulted in a loss for me. I'm really satisfied with the results against such a worthy opponent. 🏆🥇

💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

---

I definitely can appreciate the ruleset LOST MAGIC and how it changes the dynamics of usual gameplay. This is one of those rulesets which can be turned into a huge advantage if surrounded with the proper team. The role it brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

---

To any new players who wish to explore the world of Splinterlands, do feel free to sign up with my REFERRAL LINK 😊.

---

I am also a member of the SPLINTERLANDS PIZZA guild and the PIZZA community.

PIZZA is an active gaming and creative arts crypto community on the HIVE blockchain. Popular games on HIVE like SPLINTERLANDS, RISING STAR, EXODE, HASHKINGS, WOO, BANG!DEFENSE have their own PIZZA communities here.

Don't miss out more events that are always being organised. Join the PIZZA DISCORD. Even if you aren't interested in the 💰🍕🎁GIVEAWAYS & AIRDROPS💰🍕🎁, there is a vibrant and friendly community there awaiting you.

CLICK THIS LINK TO JOIN PIZZA DISCORD!!!