Hello my fellow Splinterlands players,

Another week, another new Splinterlands BATTLE MAGE SECRETS challenge. This week we have Unprotected ruleset as our main theme so this will be an amazing week with a destructive ruleset effect.

Unprotected is a ruleset which removes all armor from all units in the battlefield. Not only removing armor, it forbids all units to get/gain armors. So no more armors and thats why it is called unprotected. Units which have void armors will suffer the most.

Defensive wise, you can ignore on trying to take advantage from armor. Offesive wise, Melee and Range become a bit more dangerous, because there aren't any armor to reduce the damage.

So what will we do during this ruleset? it's simple, focus on the other one first Let's see what I mean by that...

THE BATTLE

Ok these were the rulesets, we could see the battle was actually a melee only one. So my focus was simple now

1. Focus on speed, I must hit first and kill first. I chose to go with water.
2. Set some buff or debuff. I chose to employ Flying Squid because It had Blind Ability, I believed that would help me dodge some attacks.

This was a modern format Gold League battle and I was playing my an account BLACKKRRSANTAN from @bulldog1205 the streamer. If you have some time, please visit his blog or his youtube or twitch. He makes wonderful contents and sometime holds some awesome Giveaways.

So this was how the battle went:

• The battle started with both of us buffing up our team and debuffing our opponents. Both of us believed in speed, so this was a water vs water battle.
• My opponent came with 16 Melee damage per round.
• My team had 15 melee damageper round.
• It seemed both of us had similar firepower, so this should be a close one. Neither of us used full 54 mana cap.

• Round 1 was a win for me. I started round 2 with 1 more unit than them, killing their chain golem in the first round. However things started to progress differently this time. They retaliated by hitting us very hard

• Round 3 started everything back to square one, with a 4 vs 4 condition. Their disintegrator played great part in the first 3 rounds, its a lucky for me to be able kill it in this round

• Round 4 started with a condition 3 vs 3. My team looked worse than them, with less firepower and less health point. I could only rely my team speed to do me some magic.

• Round 5 started with my team had the upperhand again. Their Arkemis The Bear missed the last punch and this was a major decisive point.

• I thought this was the last round, but I was mistaken. I forgot his Kulu Mastermind was at level 3. Now wonders its so hard to kill him.

• This was the last round, good game.

CLOSURE AND DISCUSSION

It's a evenly strength battle and I was very happy my strategy worked and got me a win. There were reason why I would say my strategy worked well:

1. My opponent came with higher mana team.
2. Their units's level were higher
3. They had 2 units with shield abilities, this should be a major decisive advantages but still they lost against my team.

Well here were some points we could take from this battle.

1. SPEED MATTERS MOST

Both of us went with speed, this has proved that speed are favorable. With unprotected ruleset, you can bet any hit might be the killing blow, because there is no armor to guard the health point. So who hit first might be the winner, because they will kill first and not getting killed later.

look at the beginning of the round 4. I should have lost this battle, but with faster team, I managed to turn the table upside down. This is one of the reason why faster team sometime could win eventhough that means you need some RNG on yourside. Still its better than having 0 chance at all.

2. TOO MANY IDLE KILLS YOU

Arkemis is a strong units, and so is Disintegrator during the Melee only ruleset (upclose and personal). However if you set them behind, they will be idle. Sometime we have an idle unit behind because we need their buff or debuff skill, or perhaps a back up tank or meat wall. However having more than 1 idle units can back fire you badly.

If my opponent did not bring that arkemis the bear, changed it with some cards who could attack from behind such as uraeus, pelacor bandit, or seaweed... I might have lost this battle. Having 2 idle units means 33% of your team are free rider, do nothing and this make you lose some momentum, giving your opponent chance to breath and chasing you back.

ok that's for today, Have fun with Unprotected 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