Hello there.

Today I'll share my battle under the Close Range ruleset. But first, I will share some of my thoughts regarding it. With the Close Range ruleset, all monsters with Range attack type can still attack in the first position. This includes monsters with multiple attack types like the Drybone Raider.

In this ruleset, I am wary of Life teams because they have a lot of strong Range monsters. I also don't want to be baited into using Range monsters when Life is available, since Ilthain is a popular summoner to use when the rulesets benefit the Range attacks.

Of course, the ones above are just guidelines. Since we can have up to 3 rulesets in a battle, these can change quickly. If Magic or Melee is available, I'll probably include a Taunt monster in the back to at least spread the damage.

I believe that being flexible in battle is the ideal strategy. Check the opponent's history, check what they are most likely to use, and counter it. But always pick teams that can also counter different strategies.

Without further ado, let's get into the battle.

The Ruleset

This was a Silver 2 battle, with Super Sneak and Close Range Rulesets. A 23 mana battle is a little on the lower amount. I can think of a lot of different strategies for each summoner so I will try to counter as much as I can.

The expected team for Fire is a Melee team with possibly a Tusk the Wide in the first position. Exploding Rats, and other Melee with Tarsa can be devastating. For Life, Range is very big possibility, but they also have a few good Melee with Shield that they can use. For Death, they can put the Cursed Windeku at the back and go for a Melee team.

The Lineup

Card	Ability	Comments
	Increases the Armor of ally monsters by 1 and has Conscript	Gladiator cards are really strong so I want to use them. I also want to give armor to my monsters to protect against physical attacks.
	-	I am expecting a lot of Melee Sneak, but I also want to protect against attacks from the front.
	-	My secondary front line. I want my Gladiator card to at least stack a few bloodlust before going into the front.
	Bloodlust	My main damage dealer. I'm hoping it gets a lot of stacks while in the backline. The 6 Speed should make it so it doesn't miss its attacks.
	Tank Heal	In case my opponent goes Ranged as well, I want to heal my Ajax, and keep it alive for a long time. With high speed, it shouldn't be blown up that easily, and should evade some attacks.
	Flying, Shatter	My main tank against the Melee Sneak. I'm hoping the high speed, together with the Flying ability will make it evade a lot of attacks. The Shatter is also good in dealing with high armor monsters.

From my initial analysis, there seems to be a high possibility that I will be facing a Melee Sneak team. Looking at my opponent's history, they also favor Fire Melee. But I just fought a few opponents that brought out different teams than their history suggests. To be safe, I went with an unorthodox team of Range monsters, relying on the War Pegasus to evade the attacks and tank a few hits.

The Battle

Link to the Battle

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The Matchup

And would you look at that. My opponent had a history of Earth, 3 Fire, and Water. Fire was available, but they decided to go with a Death lineup. They went with the Cursed Windeku strat I mentioned above, and they even doubled down against Melee with the Disintegrator.

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End of Round 1

My War Pegasus Shatter was wasted, because Ajax was too fast. It also failed to evade any attack which makes me a little bit anxious. The good thing is we should be able to kill the Disintegrator next round, and the Silent Sha-Vi should go to the front.

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End of Round 2

My Ajax attacking first and not getting the killing blow on the Disintegrator is a bit disappointing. But at least my War Pegasus evaded the Carrion Shade's attack. Looking at the state of the battle, I think I am now heavily favored to win.

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End of Round 3

My Ajax did not get the killing blow again, and still has 0 Bloodlust stacks. But luckily it seems it wasn't necessary for me to win. My War Pegasus really wanted to redeem itself since it evaded the Cursed Windeku's attack. At this point, I am sure to win. My War Pegasus shouldn't miss on the Carrion Shade since it also has Flying. The Cursed Windeku only deals 2 damage, while my Venari Crystalsmith will heal my Ajax for 2. I don't have any Melee monsters left, so the Thorns is useless against my team.

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End of Round 4

My Ajax doesn't really want to get any Bloodlust stacks. He missed his attack on the Carrion Shade because of the Flying ability. The War Pegasus killed it in the end. It is now only a formality at this point. We will just go through the motions, but with a few more attacks, my team will kill the Cursed Windeku.

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End of the Battle

The battle ended with my Gladiator card not getting any Bloodlust stacks. The real MVP for my team was the War Pegasus. When I checked the battle in Splintertools, I was 100 percent sure to win most of the time, going to 99 a few times. I was able to fully counter my opponent since I rendered their Demoralize and Thorns useless. I didn't even need the healing from the Venari Crystalsmith.

The Result

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Conclusion

This is why I try to prepare for battles by looking at different angles. If I just looked at my opponent's history, I would have used a similar team to theirs to counter Melee Sneak. But since I wanted my teams to always be flexible I ended up countering their team exactly by using an unorthodox team. For this battle, I think I made full use of the Close Range ruleset, and it ended up being the deciding factor.