Hello Splinterlands Community!

Welcome to another Splinterlands Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge. For this challenge, we are going to discuss the armored up ruleset where all monster will have extra +2 armor in their current stats.

For those who are new to my post, I usually post information about Silver and Gold Modern league as I usually play within these league.

🛡️ Ruleset: Armored Up

Card	Description
Aimless	All monster have 2 armor in addition to their normal armor stats.

With the Armored Up ruleset, all monster will have extra armor even to those monsters without any armor at all.

So what does this means? Then there are different approach for this ruleset depending on the other ruleset in the match.

A player may do any of the following strategy depending on the other ruleset and condition of the match and element allowed:

• A full magic monsters lineup which disregard armors unless they are in void armor effect.
• A lineup with the magic reflect with sustained healing
• A lineup having the rust ability to negate the ruleset in order for the melee and range monster to become effective
• A lineup with void and void armor
• A lineup with shatter ability
• A lineup wuth piercing ability

Here are the top abilities that can affect the armor:

• Void Armor - all magic attack is weaken by using the shield to absorb the magic damage.
• Shatter - A single attack regardless of the damage will totally destroy the monster armor. A very effective ability against high armored monster especially with Void Armor ability.
• Piercing - a melee or range attack can pierced through the armor if the damage is higher than the armor dealing the excess damage directly to health compare to a normal attack which can only damage the armor
• Rust - reduce the armor of all enemy monsters, this negates the armored up benefits from the opponent.
• Repair - repair some armor to the most damaged monster

Consideration

With the Armored Up ruleset in-play, here are my consideration in choosing my line-up.

I. Checking the element available in the battle.

There is a high chance that your opponent will choose magic monsters in which a void or a void armor is a good way to counter its lineup. So with regards to the element, I usually check Earth then Life and then Water/Dragon while Death and Fire is my least priority else changing my lineup to non anti magic.

Earth because of the Immortalis which grants void and shatter. I prioritize this over Grandmaster Rathe because Grandmaster Rathe only converts the armor into void armor but can easily broken by Immortalis shatter. Water or Dragon as there are monsters with void and Phase with highspeed such as Djinn Oshannus, Void Dragon and Baakjiira including the riftwatcher dragon summoner Sthispa.

II. Looking for a monster that can deal with magic and can survive magic attack

III. Consideration for the abilities which may affect armors.

🛡️ Cards

Suggested Cards

In my opinion, the line-up depends on the chosen element and the strategy. Here I list and share my usual choices and line-up for the armored up.

Earth Splinter with Immortalis:

Card	Opinion
Mycelic Infantry	I use Mycelic Infantry as the main tank even with a low speed as this card reduce physical attack and with Immortalis void, it can reduce the magic attack as well which is effective against magic. Grund, Pelacor Mercenary and Mycelic Slipspawn can be use in this role/position as well, depending on the condition.
Bramble Pixie	Bramble Pixie is the secondary tank with self heal and reach. This monster is the second layer of defense against magic monsters and contribute a great damage in the frontline.
Goblin Psychic	Goblin Psychic silence affects the opponent monster magic attack and with the help of void from Immortalis, the damage done may even be lessen or nullify.
Regal Peryton	Regal Peryton with the high speed is most probably the first one to attack first, with Immortalis shatter, it will break the armor resulting for an opening for the slow monster to deal a direct health damage such as Mycelic Infantry.

The other monster can be offensive monsters that can deal a high damage such as Runemancer Florre.

In-case Immortalis cannot be use in the battle, my next choice is to use Grandmaster Rathe which converts the armor to Void armor.

Life Splinter with Grandmaster Rathe:

Card	Opinion
Blinding Reflector	Blinding Reflecto can be use in the frontline which provides a reflect damage to the magic units. The reflection damage is even amplified by Rathe. Converting Blinding Reflector armor to void armor is a very good improvement. This can be replace with Pelacor Conjurer for a 2 mana cost but without any attack.
Chaos Knight	Chaos Knight is another great tank which reduce physical damage taken because of the shield ability. With the help of Grandmaster Rathe, its armor becomes void armor and can withstand magic attack.
Adelade Brightwing	Adelade Brightwing provides a support by doing a repair to the void armor. In addition, this card deals magic which can bypass a normal armor and can even ressurect an allied monster once.
Jared Scar	The powerful Jared Scar is one of the MVP when it comes to facing an armored opponents as the heavy damage it can deal will pierce through the armor.

Other cards such as Djinn Renova which deals a 3 magic damage and Time Mage which performs rust are also a good choice in the life splinter.

For water and dragon splinter, these are the choices that may withstand magic damage:

Card	Opinion
Baakjira	Baakjira is a very strong frontline defender due to its high health, self healing and void ability which provides great defense against magic attack.
Djinn Oshannus	A high speed monster that is very great against magic unit which may reduce magic damage taken because of the void ability or avoid the magic attack due to the phase ability.
Void Dragon	Void Dragon is the same with Djinn Oshannus effect in terms of dealing against magic monster.

In-case that the magic monsters are not available, the Fire splinter which do have the Conqueror Jacek to provide piercing ability to all monsters which is great against armors and those with high melee and range attack.

• Lava Launcher
• Countess Sinash
• Ash Mirage
• Grum Flameblade
• Mordeus

Disadvantage Cards

Basically, the disadvantage cards for the armored up are the melee and range monster without piercing ability as these monsters needs to deal with the armor first before defeating the enemy monsters.

🛡️ Battle Strategy

Battle

Rules of Combat

Modifications: Armored Up, Equalizer, Weak Magic
Mana Cap: 48
Playable Splinters: Fire, Water, Life and Death

Team Composition

As I have mentioned, first thing I consider is the availability of the element. In this battle, earth is not available which means there is no Immortalis and Grandmaster Rathe is safe to use. Conqueror Jacek may be a good option as well but given that there is an equalizer ruleset, it is better to have a focus fire in a single enemy than a scattershot to a random enemy.

• Summoner: Grandmaster Rathe has been chosen but actually a better choice may be General Sloan as there is an active weak magic ruleset which gives armors function like void armor. I realize lately that weak magic is in place and Grandmaster Rathe only contribution is the extra armor.
• 1st Position: Chaos Knight is a good frontline defender which have a pretty high armor due to armored up. This armor serves as defense against physical and magical attack because of weak magic ruleset, if no weak magic ruleset Rathe will convert this armor to void armor having the same effect with weak magic ruleset.
• 2nd Position: Corsair Bosun provides extra damage to the frontline because of the reach ability. Also in-case of blast damage, Corsair Bosun can neglect this blast effect because of the reflection shield.
• 3rd Position: Djinn Renova provides extra health to all its allies, it also provides a 3 magic damage to the enemies but however it is affected by the weak magic ruleset. If no weak magic ruleset is in place, it will ignore the armor of the opponents.
• 4th Position: Adelade Brightwing serves as the support to Chaos Knight by doing armor repair for the damage taken by Chaos Knight. She also provide extra health to Chaos Knight.
• 5th Position: Venari Crystalsmith serves as another support to Chaos Knight by performing heal for the damage taken by Chaos Knight.
• 6th Position: Prismologist provides a big damage to the frontline with a blast effect on the adjacent.

Battle Analysis

Looking at the opponent's lineup, here are the insight on the battle:

1. The opponent use Waka as the summoner which can inflict poison to the target, this poison may help to deal extra damage in each round.
2. Magi Necrosi is the only monster that do not deal damage in the frontline but instead performing snipe towards Djinn Renova, however the attack is being sustained by Djinn Renova's triage.
3. The opponent realize that weak magic is in place therefore using a high attacking melee and range monster is okay to use to easily destroy the armors.
4. In terms of frontline, both monsters have the shield ability which reduce the physical attacks, however Harklaw advantage is the demoralize which further reduce Corsair Bosun and Chaos Knight damage.
5. The repair, tank heal and ressurect from Adelade and Crystalsmith plays an important factors in the battle for Chaos Knight to sustain the damage taken.

Round 1 to Round 2

• The armor of both frontline serves as a great defense in the attack from the backline as the total attack from the backline just caused the armor to break. The shield ability also provides a pretty good benefits to reduce the incoming physical attack.
• With the help of repair ability, a damage from The Gordolon is directly towards the repaired armor.

Round 2 to 3

• Harklaw has been defeated, Gordolon is heavily damage while Chaos Knight is standing in the frontline. The difference is that the magic attack damage was not reduced and the repair and tank heal keeps Chaos Knight to survive defending the frontline.

Round 3 to 5

• The Gordolon and Djinn Muirat has been defeated and Chaos Knight has been ressurected once. The armor serves as a great protection upon ressurection and has been healed back by Venari Crystalsmith.

Round 5 to 6

• Magi Necrosi and Dhampir Stalked has been defeated while Chaos Knight was able to hold the frontline using its armor to absorb attack both physical and magical.
• The battle concludes in round 6.

BATTLE LINK

🛡️ Closing Remarks

Armored Up is really a good ruleset, most of the players may use magic units while others will anticipate to use monsters that are strongly against magic. In case of magic units not available in the match, a melee or range monsters will be use with the piercing ability.

Immortalis, Grandmaster Rathe and Conqueror Jacek are great summoners that can be use in this ruleset.

Which strategy do you use for the Armored Up ruleset?

Thank you for reading! See you in the next Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge!

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