My BATTLE MAGE SECRET Weekly Challenge! Rise of the Commons

---

Hello there, this is my entry to the new "Battle Mage Secret Weekly Challenge!". If you want to participate or know more about the challenge, click here. This week we have to formulate a strategy with the Rise of the Commons ruleset.

RULESET: Rise of the Commons

With the Rise of the Commons ruleset, only Common and Rayre units may be used in battles.

The 'Rise of the Commons' ruleset is easy to understand but can be tough to formulate strategies with as all the epics and legendary units become inactive during this ruleset and the weight comes down to just commons and rares. And what happens when it gets paired with some other interesting rulesets like 'Melee Mayhem' and 'Born Again'? Let's find out!

Let's see how this ruleset affects my lineup and how I strategies for the following battle.

My Lineup

This is my lineup for the battle

Position	Summoner/Monsters
Summoner	Lorna Shine
Position 1	Venari Marksrat
Position 2	Captain Katie
Position 3	Dryborne Barbarian
Position 4	Sand Worm
Position 5	Time Meddler
Position 6	ShieldBearer

This was just a whooping 59 mana battle and it had the following rulesets:

• Rise of the Commons - Only common and rare monsters may be used in battles.

• Melee Mayhem - Melee attack monsters can attack from any position.

• Born Again - All monsters have the rebirth ability.

All except Death and Dragon elements were active during this battle. I went with the life element and used Lorna Shine as it gives the 'Divine Shield' ability to all the friendly units. The rebirth ability goes well with the divine shield and when a monster dies and is reborn it gets the divine shield ability back. So, I wanted to take advantage of this and hence the summoner.

---

---

I used the Venari Marskrat in the first position as it has the 'martyr' ability and every time it dies it will increase the stats of the next unit by 1. Due to the 'born again' ruleset, it is going to be dying twice so that will increase the next unit's stats again.

One of the most important parts of my lineup was Captain Katie. She is a gladiator unit and can take advantage of 'martyr' ability and her own 'bloodlust' ability to increase its stats. This can be so powerful in your lineups. It cost 7 mana and dealt 3 magic attack damage with decent health.

Next in my lineup was Dryborne Barbarian, a heavy melee attacker costing 9 mana and dealing whooping 5 melee attack damage to its target. It also has the 'enrage' ability so it can be a deadly beast in your lineups. It also comes with a good amount of health.

Sand Worm was placed in the fourth position in my lineup. It dealt heavy melee attack damage too and cost 9 mana. However, it strikes at the back of the enemy lineup due to its 'sneak' ability and sometimes weaker monsters are placed at the back of the lineup so it can take advantage of that easily.

In the fifth position, I placed the Time Meddler. It was a mage dealing 2 magic attack damage but comes with a good amount of health and armour. Its 'doge' ability can help evade more attacks from melee or ranged attackers. I used it almost at the end of my lineup just to counter those 'sneaky' units that I was expecting my opponent to use in this battle.

Last but not least was Shieldbearer, a powerful defensive unit with a good amount of health and armour. Its 'taunt' ability makes it a good unit if you want to control the flow of attacks at the start of the battle. I could use it at the end of the lineup because of the 'melee mayhem' ruleset.

Now that my lineup is set let's talk about my strategy for this game.

My Strategy

My strategy during this battle was to focus on using powerful attackers while taking advantage of some of the rulesets that I was offered. I used two heavy melee attackers in the middle of the lineup which I might not have used if it didn't have the 'melee mayhem' ruleset.

I took the advantage of 'Born Again' ruleset by using the 'Lorna Shine' as my summoner which gave the 'Divine Shield' ability to all my units. And this ability reapplies when a unit takes rebirth so it was a very important part of my strategy during this battle.

Also, the use of a unit with 'martyr' ability was a big part of the strategy and I exploited the rulesets beautifully. Also, having units with a 'sneak' ability can be very useful as some players don't focus much on the end of the lineup and you can find some weaker units there.

This strategy, as you will see, worked in my favour and gave me an easy win in the end.

I will share my battle here, which I have uploaded to YouTube. Battle Link

My opponent went with heavy melee attackers to take advantage of the 'melee mayhem' ruleset as well. But I still had better attacking skills while they gave all their units extra armour which is a good strategy, especially when you are expecting a lot of melee attackers.

We both had a unit with a 'taunt' ability and both teams focused on eliminating that unit. My units successfully killed their Myclelic Slipspawn but it got reborn again which got killed quite quickly this time.

My opponent managed to finally get rid of my Shieldbarrier in round 2. But now I was in a better position.

---

The 'Reborn again' stretched the battle for a few more rounds but my attacking strength and 'Divine Shield' were too much for them to handle.

The bloodlust ability helped their gladiator unit get more powerful after my first unit was eliminated. Captain Kane was dealing 7 magic attack damage at some point and it was too powerful to handle now.

---

Their Gladiator unit was not having a great day as it never managed to kill any unit until the very last when it was too little too late.

Captain Kane ended the battle having a whooping 9 attack damage. This shows that it has gone worse for my opponent and I registered an easy win at the end.

Conclusion

Rise of the Commons ruleset is not the most interesting ruleset as you have to look at what is available for the active elements and form a lineup with those only. Sometimes it can be very challenging, especially in lower mana cap battles.

There are always trade-offs and one must make the decision depending on how the conditions are and what are the available options that go well with the mana cap. Sometimes having a low mana cap is very difficult and you might have to ditch the general advice and come up with unique plans and look at other rulesets and see what fits your team best.

Going back to the fundamentals is not a bad approach too, having strong tanks at the back supported by some form of heal and adding units that give buffs to all the units will always be a good strategy no matter what the ruleset is.

Let me know what's your strategy with this ruleset.

Splinterlands is a popular NFT-based play2earn game. If you have not joined the game yet, then you are missing a lot of fun. You can join by using my referral link.

Note:

• Text dividers are from freeztag.
• The banner is from @splinterlands

| SPLINTERLANDS.COM | SPLINTERSHARDS (SPS) | BLOG | DISCORD | TELEGRAM |