BATTLE MAGE SECRETS Weekly Challenge! RULESET: Up Close and Personal
After debuting for the first time 37 weeks ago and after learning last week that sometimes all Monsters feel at an armor disadvantage while on the battlefield, the Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge is back and this time only Monsters who have a Melee Attack main participate in the battles across the battlefields of Praetoria. Yeah, I know you've already read the title but even if you haven't, you have positively figured out that the Challenge this week is to display a battle involving the Up Close and Personal ruleset.
Let us see what this ruleset does before we get into the nitty-gritty of the line-up and the battle itself.
The Up Close and Personal ruleset is pretty straight-forward - only Monsters with Melee attack may be used in battles.
Now that we've got a good idea of what the Up Close and Personal ruleset practically does, let's see now how it can be effectively utilized.
I normally describe a couple of options here if it ruleset allows for some variation but this one in particular is pretty clear, so here's in short:
In the first row I have displayed some fun Melee Monsters I like playing apart from the usual suspects which, of course, have the following abilities - Reach, Opportunity, Sneak, Shield, Thorns, Demoralize. The ones with Retaliate could be surprisingly effective at wrecking the enemy attackers if they are lucky with their Retaliation procs. But actually the more interesting part are the double attack Monsters. If you have the Melee only ruleset and the other types of attacks are not strictly forbidden by another ruleset, then you can play any double attack Monsters which have Melee as one of their attacks. That could be really helpful depending on the overall line-up and the composition of the enemy forces.
The second row consists of Summoners I most often use when Up Close and Personal is one of the active rulesets. Recently I have really enjoyed using Astral Entity as well as Pissibilus. When you win with these two it's normally always a fun to watch battle.
Now that we have a decent understanding of the featured Ruleset and its potential advantages and disadvantages, let us have a look at the battle I have chosen to showcase.
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- The line-up of the Battle and the Ruleset:
The rulesets for this battle are Up Close & Personal (only Monsters with Melee attack may be used in battles), Unprotected (Monsters do not have any armor and do not get armor from Abilities or Summoner Buffs) and Heavy Hitters (all Monsters do double damage when attacking an enemy that is stunned). The mana budget is 38 which is an average amount of mana so it does not give me the ability to play whatever Monsters I want, and some planning will have to go into building the team. The available Splinters are Fire, Earth, Life and Death. Since it's a Melee Monsters only ruleset, I am thinking of going with my favorite combo in such a scenario with the Death Splinter and the Astral Entity as a summoner.
I've decided to start with my go-to tank when I use the Astral Entity as a summoner - the Pelacor Deceiver. It is a great pair for Astral because of its abilities - Flying (has an increased chance of evading Melee or Ranged attacks from Monsters who do not have the Flying ability), Backfire (if an enemy misses this monster with an attack, the attacker takes 2 damage) and Retaliate (wwhen hit with a Melee attack, Monsters with Retaliate have a chance of attacking their attacker). It is highly evasive when you also add the Dodge (has an increased chance of evading Melee or Ranged attacks) ability from Astral into the mix and it can singlehandedly decimate the whole enemy team if the RNG is on my side.
Following immediately after is my very own Runi. Runi has True Strike as an ability so it is incapable of missing in general but I actually have picked it for its general utility with Opportunity (Monsters with the Opportunity ability may attack from any position and will target the enemy Monster with the lowest health) and Rebirth (When this Monster dies it will self-resurrect with 1 Health once per battle). I have brought it in to help kill off enemy targets left at low health by the rest of my team as it will be the last to act with its base Speed of 1.
3rd in my line-up is the Silven Sha-Vi. It is definitely a must-include Monster in every Death line-up unless the ruleset does not allow the Sneak (targets the last Monster on the enemy Team instead of the first Monster) ability to work. I obviously have to play it in a Melee only battle. In addition to Sneak, it also has Cripple (each time an enemy is hit by a Monster with Cripple it loses one max health) and Piercing (if Melee or Ranged attack damage is in excess of the target's Armor, the remainder will damage the target's Health). They are both great abilities to have for sure.
4th in the line-up is one of my favorite Sneak Monsters - Uraeus. For its mana cost of 3 mana it definitely packs a pretty good punch with its 3 Melee Attack. What makes it even better is that it also has the Poison (Attacks have a chance to apply poison, which does automatic damage to the target at the beginning of each round after the poison is applied) ability. Poison is actually pretty good for battles against Monsters with larger health pools as it needs more rounds to do work but it will get it done eventually.
5th in the line-up is the Disintegrator. It is at max level so it has a total of 4 pretty cool abilities: Demoralize (Reduces the Melee attack of all enemy Monsters), Trample (When a Monster with Trample hits and kills its target, it will perform another attack on the next Monster on the enemy Team), Knock Out, Retaliate. I've got it in this position just to keep Demoraliza up on the enemy team and protect against enemy Sneak Monsters if they happen to go through my 6th Monster.
The 6th spot for this battle takes a Monster which I usually use as a Main Tank - the Cursed Windeku. It has a perfect stat balance for the 6 mana it costs, pair that with the Thorns (when hit with a Melee attack, does damage back to the attacker) ability it has right from the start and the Heal (restores a portion of the Monster's health each round) ability it gains at level 5, and you have a truly potent tanking Monster, especially when facing low-mana, low-health melee opponents. In this case I have put it in the last spot to protect against potential Sneak play by my enemy as it is highly likely for that to happen in a Melee only ruleset.
It is time for a quick round by round analysis:
- The Summoner I am going with for the battle is Astral Entity (as I have already mentioned). I feel it is a great choice for the rulesets we have this battle specifically for the Dodge ability it provides to all friendly Monsters as well as the 1 Resurrect it has available. On the other hand my enemy has decided to go with a level 4 Yodin Zaku. Yodin is a very formidable opponent in any situation but I think he is a bit underwhelming in a Melee only situation. Let's see how this goes.
- After 1 round of exchanging blows my Monsters have had a pretty decent RNG as far as dodging enemy attacks goes, on the other hand the enemy Tank Monster is not that far off from dying.
- Round 3 - I have not lost a single Monster so far - perfect dodging team! On the other hand my enemy has lost 2 Monsters so far and the situation is not looking great for them for sure.
- Round 4 - I finally lost my Uraeus but it got resurrected just as fast by the Astral Entity so it's all good on my side. The enemy team, however, is not looking great at all at this point.
- Round 5 - all that is left for me is to finish off the enemy last remaining Monster. It has been a good day at the battlefield for my team.
Well this was definitely a fast but fun battle, and an entertaining way to showcase the Up Close and Personal ruleset. See you next week with another exciting post related to the brand new Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge!
Over and Out,
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Thanks for sharing! - @mango-juice
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