Good Morning Hivers,

Another week, another Splinterlands post... welcome to my second weekly Splinterlands BATTLE MAGE SECRETS. On Today Battle Mage Secrets post, We have GOING THE DISTANCE ruleset as our main theme here.

GOING THE DISTANCE Ruleset limits your cards selection which makes you only able to pick ranged attacks cards. No Melee and No range, everything is about range attackers wars. So what should we do during this ruleset.

1. KELVAN FERNHEART

Although he carried a great axe made from bone and antlers, Kelvhan had never swung it in anger, using it mainly to fell sick trees so their diseases didn’t spread to others.

In my opinion, Fernheart stands as the most effective summoners to be picked during this ruleset. He gives all his monsters a close range ability and this established his effectiveness as the best summoner in the GOING THE DISTANCE ruleset.

Another prove to strengthen this argument is his price. Right now every summoners price are dropping, exception is on Fernheart. He is not the best one, you might not see him frequently, but if you find your opponent uses him during this ruleset and you are not... you can expect to lose that battle.

2. CLOSE RANGE, BACK FIRE AND RETURN FIRE

Another approach you can take is to fill up your line up with range monsters who have Close Range ability or Return Fire ability. This way, your units can attack when they are in front or in main tank position, and they can retaliate incoming range attacks.

Having a backfire ability users is very beneficial too, however utilizing them is different issue. You will need to buff up your overall speed, and of course it will be very effective when you are having a slothy opponent team.

3. LIR IS GOOD BUT NOT GREAT

Fueled by a desperate desire to survive, Lir's magic suddenly surged to new heights as he called on the creatures of the sea to aid him.

Lir Deepswimmer is a great choice, however why do I say it's a good but not great? because Lir Deepswimmer requires 7 Mana and often the available mana cap is not supporting this.

Another reason is that LIR is an expensive Legendary Summoner. This is not a card you bring into battlefied just to have fun. You bring him to get many wins, not just once or twice. So I do not see any point to be excited telling some super strong cards that can be a solution for people... they are already well known to be very strong. Different case with Fernheart, who only being great during certain ruleset.

Ok let's see our battle

THE BATTLE

~Click The Image Above To See the Full Battle~

This was a Modern Gold league rank battle, of course with Going the Distance ruleset. let see overall ruleset we had there

There were 3 other things I needed to put my attention on, before setting up my team:

1. 20 mana cap... I must be extra careful not to waste my mana on big unefficient monsters...
2. Holy Protection ruleset... everyone will have a divine shield ruleset. Having many small monsters were better than one big strong one.
3. Target Practice ruleset... this meant that second cards position would be aimed most... and I felt I had a solution for this. VENARI MARKSRAT

So here was my line up:

Position	Card	Ability	Plan and Strategy
Summoner		-1 range, -1 speed	This was the best option I could come up for my plan. I had no Fernheart on my selection list, so Quix the Devious was the best one. Double debuff -1 range and - 1 speed definitely would make me a head of any other regular rare summoners
Main Tank		Close Range, Stun	The strongest close range ability users in all selection, well debatable with the existence of Wave Brood from Water Element. In general, Lava Launcher speed and stun ability could get my team onto high momentum, kill opponent first and stun stronger target... however RNG played great part here
Second		Martyr	Selected to be dead first. I needed him to die a.s.a.p to make my meta worked!! That's what a Martyr lives for
Third		Backfire	My main meta would work if Naga Assassin performed well. Once Venari Marksrat died, everyone would attack Naga Assassin, and that's why I hoped she would dodge many of them and deliver backfire damage.
Fourth		none	A filler card. I put her in because her mana requirement was very small. However I did not think she was weak at all, quite formidable for a 2 mana card.

Let see how this battle would go

ROUND 1

• The battle started with both of us Buffing up our team and debuffing our opponents.
• My opponent came with 4 range damage per round.
• My team had 6 range damage per round.
• I had more monsters so it's natural that my team had better fire power.

ROUND 2

• No body died in the first round. Of course Divine Shield ability had been protecting all the cards in the battle fied.

ROUND 3

• I lost my Venari Marksrat, and now my Lava Launcher and Naga Assassin got buffed up.
• My Naga Assassin dodged their Lava Launcher attack... retaliating by delivering 2 damage back.

ROUND 4

• Things looked bad at their side. Al their monsters were wounded and all of mine were very healthy at their max health point.

ROUND 5

• This was the last round, good game

CLOSURE AND DISCUSSION

Everything looked equal on both side, however the end was an easy win for me. What were my key winnings point anyway?

1. DIVINE SHIELD ON SMALL MANA CAP

This battle can be considered a small mana cap, with only 20 mana limitation. My opponent came with Lava Launcher and Molten Ash Golem, both of them were not bad, infact a good choice... However Holy Protection ruleset was ruining them.

The one who had more monsters in this ruleset was getting more advantages from this ruleset, which means that more divine shield abilities on their team. The team would take more 0 damage in making them more sturdier.

2. SPEED SUPERIORITY

When Venari Marksrat died, the martyr buff he gave made my Lava Launcher and Naga Assassin stronger, but the main strength was the speed superiority. My team hit first, dodged, and killed first than theirs.

On the last move... you could see that all my backline cards having their max Health Point. It meant their Lava Launcher, who should be a fast archer, did not even get any chance to hit them.

Overall I could say my strategy worked well, a lot better than their so so tactic.

Ok that's all for today post. Have fun with your GOING THE DISTANCE battles!!

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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 weekly social media challenge events
• carrieallen : for ultimate markdown tutorial
• bulldog1205 : for the scholarship account : blackkrrsantan
• thepeakstudio : for wonderful divider art