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 this ruleset, all range monsters can attack in the first position. With this, one of the biggest weakness of range monsters have been removed.

In this ruleset, the first thing that comes to my mind is, "Oh man, I'm definitely facing a Zyriel team". I play in Modern Bronze Ranked, and I think the Zyriel teams are currently the top tier. Just imagining a Pelacor Conjurer or a Riftwing in the front position and evading all my attacks makes me nauseous. Zyriel stacking HP and moving to the front is not a fun thought.

I made this meme from https://imgflip.com/memegenerator

Of course, all hope is not lost. There can be up to 3 rulesets in a battle, and hopefully the other two aren't beneficial to range, or maybe even discourages them. Ilthain can be a popular option during this ruleset, but it usually isn't enough.

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 Modern tournament battle, and it was a Gold battle with Unprotected, Aimless, and Close Range Rulesets. A 44 mana battle is on the high amount, and all elements are available. I can think of a lot of different strategies so I will try to counter as much as I can.

For Fire, Skargore with Sneak/Opportunity melee monsters can be an option. The Aimless scattershot attacks can hopefully trigger their Enrage, and they can concentrate on the backline. Tarsa can be a weaker option.

For Water, Possibilus with Opportunity is definitely a good option. The Reach and Opportunity can focus their target, the +2 HP can help the team survive the Aimless attacks, and the Unprotected makes Trample easier to have multiple kills.

For Earth, I think a Quora team is their best bet. Obsidian is ok, but with Unprotected, magic's advantage is less. Immortalis lacks the damage, and Fernheart is redundant.

For Life, Sloan is an offensive option, while Ilthain is the defensive option. Drybone Barbarian is very strong because it can't be easily focused in the front. Unfortunately, a lot of their backline monsters have a bit of low HP.

For Death, Windeku is the expected front monster, and they can have a good mix of monsters to target the backline.

For Dragon, the lack of armor hurts a lot of their monsters, but they can deal a lot of damage. Lily's Triage can help mitigate some of the Aimless damage, while the Camouflage can make the opponent focus their damage to your desired target.

The Lineup

For me, among the lineups I mentioned above, I'd rather go with a Quora team. Grund can't be easily focused in the first position, and I have two Martyr monsters surrounding Quora. I'm hoping the martyr monsters die early so they can buff Quora. Quora has the chance of getting a lucky kill while still in the backline, and hopefully by the time it gets to the front a lot of the monsters are low and it can get easy kills. Goblin Psychic can heal the Front monster and keep it healthy, while Hunter Jarx is my Sneak tank. This team can be good against the different teams I mentioned above. The Opportunity teams will target my Martyr monsters, I have a lot of monsters at the back to give Quora time to stack up, and Grund has good attack and HP to buy Quora time.

The Battle

Link to the Battle

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The Matchup

My opponent decided to go with a Possibilus team. I think they might have forgotten about the Unprotected ruleset since they used Noa and Swamp Spitter whose Rust and Repair abilities are useless. Diemonshark is a bit easier to kill because it lacks armor, but it can still pack a punch. The biggest threat is the Coastal Sentry though, since it has double strike and will be dealing a lot of damage.

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End of Round 1

My Grund evaded some attacks because of the Blind, but it still died earlier than I expected. The good thing is that their Diemonshark died as well. The current state of the battle is a bit tricky though. My Quora hasn't gotten a lot of stacks yet, and is actually vulnerable right now. If their Coastal Sentry attacks before their Deeplurker and hits both attacks, the Deeplurker will target it instead of the backline. So I'm hoping for a few misses from their side.

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End of Round 2

The dangerous scenario actually happened. Coastal Sentry attacked first and hit both attacks. Luckily Deeplurker missed its attack. Igor even attack Quora, but also missed. I think this was the critical round, and I was able to survive by the skin of my teeth. I think they will lack damage once Quora kills Coastal Sentry.

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End of Round 3

My Quora killed the Coastal Sentry and Deeplurker killed my remaining martyr monster, and trampled the Goblin Psychic. Hunter Jarx then hit Deeplurker and set up a double kill for Quora next turn. This battle is over.

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End of the Battle

I will have to say that I was happy to have won that battle. It got really tense in the second round, and I was really lucky that they missed. The Possibilus team is actually my second choice. The only problem was a lot of my monsters are a bit low level. With how close the battle was, I decided to check it out in the battlevision:

I am actually surprised that I had an 86 percent chance to win that. I thought it was closer to 50/50 with how the battle went. It would appear that the sequence in my battle was shaping up to be the 14 percent where I lost, but the Deeplurker miss changed that. Now I feel good that I actually made the right choice.

The Result

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Conclusion

In tournaments where there are additional limitations on top of the Rulesets and banned elements, I try to make it a point to look at the possible teams and imagine them fighting against one another. I will then choose the team which I think is best. For this specific battle, my opponent used a team composition that I was ready for. Based on the simulation I had the better team, and I came out with the win. It also helped that they forgot about the Unprotected ruleset and used two monsters whose ability was useless. I'll take those kinds of wins any day.