This week's edition of Battle Mage Secrets has us looking into the Armored Up Ruleset.

The Armored Up Ruleset gives +2 Armor to All monsters on top of their own armor stat.

Ruleset Synergies include:

• Lost Magic
• Melee Mayhem
• Up Close and Personal
• Weak Magic

Ability Counters include:

• Shatter
• Magic Damage
• Pierce

A variety of combinations can be generated and it's up to us to look at what sort of line ups to use to maximize the chances of winning. For this week's challenge, I'll be providing 2 different matches highlighting different counters for this ruleset. While most would want to double up this buff, I like to go the opposite and counter it instead.

Match 1 Round 1

Remember when I said that Shatter was a direct counter to Armored Up? Well ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Exhibit A.

Our opponent here wanted to take advantage of the extra armor by using Rathe which is a very good idea. Unfortunately, Immortalis is a direct counter in this regard. A 3 magic lineup followed by a 3 ranged lineup with void armor is usually a strong winning combo but the shatter in this match is a game changer.

Round 2

Round 2 has us both getting rid of our taunt tanks. Slight edge to Rathe in this round because the 3 ranged combo with the heal/double strike/shatter combo is very potent. Too bad affliction is a thing and countered their heal for the tank. The Djinn Renova and Time Mage are done in pretty quickly afterwards, too.

Round 3

Come round 3, it's essentially a wrap at this point since ranged won't be able to hit. Granted this match was a lot closer than it seems due to the magic reflect. It's just a bad match up in general for Rather vs. Immortalis.

GG! Battle link here.

Match 2 Round 1

The other direct counter to Armored Up is the Pierce Ability. Being able to hit hard and not have to worry about any excess attack being tanked by armor is a big advantage. For this match, the opponent opted to go with the other counter for Armored Up which is magic damage. Since it ignores armor, base health will be key. I opted to go with exploding rats at the front for initial tank damage as well as redemption for extra reduction of armor later on. It'll start softening up everyone on the opposing team so the rest can hit harder.

Round 2

As expected, the opponent has made quick work of our exploding rats but the rest of our lineup has made significant damage on their backline. Grum has also been key as the actual main tank after the initial DPS dealt by our rats. Since Grum has void armor, it's able to tank a lot of what the enemy backline has to offer.

Round 3

At the start of round 3, our double sneak line up has managed to deal significant damage while the ranged ones with scattershot have made pretty much the whole backline hang on by a thread. We essentially have this game on lock as only their main front line tank will be left and we'd have 4 more backline monsters on our side to go through.

GG! Battle link here.

There you have it, folks! Armored Up Counters 101! Remember, Splinterlands is such a dynamic game and strategies are endless. You can opt to supplement and synergize with rulesets and summoner/monsters, or you can do a complete 180 and go for a direct counter instead. There are so many options that it's an amazing battle of wits and strategy.

That's it for now and see you next week!

Images provided by Splinterlands in game and via Weekly Battle Mage Challenge post.

For those interested in playing the game, you can use my referral here.

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