Battle Mage Secrets - How Good Are Fire Ranged Cards?

The theme for the current "Battle Mage Secret" challenge is Back to Basics ruleset this time! It's not always easy to get the specific ruleset, but if you play hard enough, you definitely can find one!

For Back to Basics ruleset, basically all the abilities are gone. This means Gladius cards are useless too. The more feasible choices would be Ranged and Magic cards because they can attack from the backline.

Anyway, I thought it would be still be interesting to introduce some useful cards and show how their strengths can be maximised especially with a particular ruleset. In this post, the featured cards are the Fire Ranged cards - Ettin Spearman, Lava Launcher and Countess Sinash.

At Level 1, all 3 cards are able to deal 3 Ranged damage which are pretty powerful. Even though among the 3 of them, one is a Legendary card, one is an Epic card, and one is a Common card, they become quite similar when their abilities are taken away for this Back to Basics battle.

As usual, here's the lore for Ettin Spearman for your reading interest:

The Ettin are a tribe of mutated primitives in the Burning Lands. Many of them have two heads, an extra limb or an inexplicable tail, but they are all freakishly strong. They dig holes for fun, and they communicate with a completely indecipherable series of grunts and moans. Burning Lands scholars are not even sure that the Ettin understand each other. The Ettin are very observant however of when they are being made fun of or ridiculed for their idiocy. They are a sensitive people.

As usual, here's the lore for Lava Launcher for your reading interest:

Goblin engineers of the Burning Lands have outdone themselves with the latest model of the Lava Launcher, which unlike its predecessors, actually launches lava. The load chamber holds a fairly large amount of liquid magma, which is somehow balled up and launched toward enemies. Once it leaves the load chamber, the outside of the lava ball hardens instantly, making it land with highly destructive explosive power.

This weapon was developed by Azad goblin engineers under the employ of the Torch and being paid handsomely for their developments. Its creators were named Irv and Sterv Flanklin, a pair of twin brothers who specialize in weaponry and vehicular design. They’re happy to say that of the first 100 Lava Launchers made, more than 40 of them did not catch fire with the driver inside.

As usual, here's the lore for Countess Sinash for your reading interest:

Sinash was born a noble of house Beliathorn. Her mother, the countess, was brought up used to the lifestyle and was bitten by a vampire in her 30s. Her father had not a penny to his name but married into the family through charisma and charm. He was never turned into a vampire but Sinash always suspected something odd about him. A man who started with nothing wound up incredibly wealthy. It’s rare to see a commoner work their way to fit in with the rich but he somehow pulled it off.

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Battle Type & Team Lineup

Position	Card/Level	Mana
Summoner	Daria Dragonscale	4

Having these two rulesets made the selection very tough because this meant I could only use Ranged cards in the backline. The downside of Ranged cards is that they can't attack in the tank position. Having a Dragon summoner would expand my selection to cards from two elements.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
1	Djinn Chwala	8

I didn't have much choice in this one and Djinn Chwala seems to be the most tanky Melee choice for me. On hindsight, maybe Forgotten One would be a good option too.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
2	Almo Cambio	7

I need someone to protect the Ranged cards in the backline so I enlisted the 12 HP Almo Cambio to do a block as a secondary tank, and hopefully this gives the backline enough time to strike.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
3	Zyvax Vuul	8

I picked this because it was a Gold Foil (more points per win) and it was decent enough. Without the abilities, all that was left was 2 Ranged damage, which wasn't too bad either.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
4	Lava Launcher	9

Lava Launcher is one of the stronger cards for high mana Fire lineups and definitely comes in handy to deal damage in this battle.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
5	Ettin Spearman	8

I hardly play Ettin Spearman beacause of his low speed (i.e. easy to miss). In fact, this might be his debut. The reason is I didn't have much choices left with the restricted ruleset and its Ranged damage is pretty impressive at 3.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
6	Countess Sinash	8

Without her ability, Countess Sinash becomes very squishy and I just slotted her all the way at the back. Hopefully this gives her plenty of time to deal damage.

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• Pre Battle: Unsurprisingly, both teams put out Ranged lineups because there was really not much choice for this ruleset. Mine was a full Level 1 lineup so I was a little disadvantaged, then again, it's the strategy that mattered.
  

• Round 1: It was extremely clear from the first round that my Fire Ranged cards had a much higher damage output and the only way my opponent could win was to clock enough misses from my attacks.
  

• Round 2: My damage was coming faster and harder than my opponent and while he was halfway through my 2nd card, I was done with two of his cards. It's 5 cards vs 4 cards now.
  

• Round 3: Almo Cambio was very solid and protected the backline very well. Swipe, swipe, swipe, and my opponent was down to 3 cards.
  

• Round 4: And we were done after just 4 rounds for a 99 mana fight! It turned out to be very comfortable win.
  

If you are interested to watch the battle, you can find it here.

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Post Battle

Did my strategy work? Playing a Dragon summoner allowed me to tap on two elements and extract the best possible lineup given this restricted ruleset. In my opinion, that made the difference. Even though my cards were at Level 1, I had no issues overcoming a team with higher levelled cards.

What's the Battle Mage Secret? Fire Ranged cards are actually very strong, even without Yodin Zaku. Might be worthwhile exploring as a strategy in normal battles too!

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So that's all I have! What are your takeaways from this battle? Feel free to comment below, as I am always keen to learn and improve!

As always, thanks for reading and have a pleasant day ahead!

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