Hello Hivians and Hivers,

Welcome to my weekly Splinterlands BATTLE MAGE SECRETS challenge. As people like to say here, another week another splinterlands post, this week we have a new theme and it is Up To Eleven Ruleset.

Up to eleven is a ruleset which gives all unit on the battlefield an Amplify ability. So everyone will have amplify and they will make damage from Thorns, Return Fire, and Magic Reflect gain another damage. There are many approaches we can take during this ruleset, for example using Melee units who have reflection shield ability, this makes them immune to thorns ability.

However in general I believe the most basic understanding in this ruleset is to avoid getting extra damage from those amplify abilities. We must predict what kind of counter damage our opponent will use, then we avoid dealing with that kind of attacks.

Ok let's check out battle now...

THE BATTLE

I pick this battle because this is an interesting one. First it is a battle from a Tier 3 Brawl, frays Wild Gold League. so all cards could join in and I only had chaos legion only deck because it's a Scholarship Account provided by @bulldog1205 for Juice Guild.

Second my opponent did not come hall-assed. Look, they brought Hello Byzantine Kitty and Quora Towershead in their line up. They even had that Sandworm *7, with 3 speed and 6 melee sneak damage. That's not a joke.

However this was not a perfect battle, because their Goblin Psychic is at level 1, maybe a starter cards. In gold league, this was a big mistake, because without Silence and Affliction, that unit strength was not even at 50% of what he should possess.

So overall his lack of level in Goblin Psychic and Legionnaire Alvar might give my team a chance to compete equally.

The rulesets were interesting, I belived this would lead people to focus on magics. Why no melee? because the water element was not available and it's very small chance they would come using Dragon Jumper.

If we predicted everyone would go with magic, Owster Rotwell would be a perfect summoner here. However I did not have him, so I came with Life Element because I could mix Magic with Melee. Fire was a good choice too however fire tend to be weak against opponent who went gang ho all out magic attacks.

So this was how the battle went:

• The battle started with both of us buffing up our team and debuffing our opponents. They used Byzantine kitty who gave +2 speed and tank heal, and I used Grandmaster Rathe with his defensive buffs.
• My opponent came with 8 melee damage and 7 magic damage. Combined all, they became 15 damage per round.
• My team had 7 melee damage and 8 magic damage. Same as my opponent, my team had 15 damage per round.
• Everything looked equal here, however I spotted some advantages my team had and I believed these would make a big gap as the battle progressed...

• Round 2 started with 5 vs 6 condition, my Runi managed to steal a kill in the first round. They lost their Goblin Psychic and this made their healing ability gone and attack power dropped.

• Round 3 started with 2 vs 6 condition, wait what's going on here? how things moved so fast? Ok, here what happened in round 2:

• Never underestimate any units who have recharge ability, especially when they have big hit damage. We could see here, Uriel The Purifier killed Quora in one blow, and everything felt apart on their side. This was the crucial point which decided how the battle end instantly,

• later in round 3, my Runi killed their Sandworm and I could say good game to my opponent.

CLOSURE AND DISCUSSION

It's a pity how their side despite having Quora Towershead and Byzantine Kitty, still lost that badly. It's a clean sweep which none of my team get killed. So as usuall, here are some points we can take from this battle

Grandmaster Rathe Is Strong

I believe he is strong, even I know that might be subjective because I am a fan of Life Element. I am kind of understand why most people do not like him, because he is a defensive summoner. None of his buff or ability are adding or supporting our firepower. However from defensive point of view, he defends his team from anything, Magic, Melee and Range.

In this ruleset which I was not sure whether my opponent would come with magic or melee, having him as summoner was a safe bet. It won't go great however it can not be wrong.

What My Opponent Did Wrong

From beginning I have already spotted two big mistake that my opponent had, which are:

1. Sluggish team made Byzantine Kitty useless. They had Byzantine Kitty who buffed 2 speed, so the team at any cost, should not lose the speed war. They have to be faster than their opponent who were my team. The fact was different, my team was overall still faster. They set a bunch of 1 speed units Queen Mycelia, Goblin Psychic and Djinn Biljka and this ruined their own meta.
2. They had the goblin psychic at level 1. For a support card, it's not about their Attribute or unit stats, but its their skill that matters. You could have level 1 Quora or Level 4 Quora, although the higher level brings strong presence, it won't be as significant with Level 7 Goblin vs Lvl 7 Goblin, which one has Silence and the other doesn't. Their goblin did not have affliction and silence, this one unit lack of level had changed everything.

Well there were some minor issues in the battle such as both of us relied on Void Armor but did not bring any repair ability users. however as I said before, they were minor issues. The main issues are those two point above.

ok that's for today, Have fun with Up to Eleven ruleset. And please and don't forget to leave your comment or feedback below. thank you.

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Thank you for visiting my BATTLE MAGE SECRETS Weekly Challenge, don't forget to leave your comments and feedback below. There are credits in this post for these people:

• @splinterlands : for holding BATTLE MAGE SECRETS challenge events
• carrieallen : for ultimate markdown tutorial
• thepeakstudio : for wonderful divider art