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Introduction

I'm here to share my Battle Mage Secrets blog post for the Battle Mage Secrets Challenge. The theme featured this week is Close Range. In this ruleset, ranged creatures can attack in the first position. I will be sharing some strategies that are good to use in this ruleset as well as feature one of my battles under this ruleset.

Strategy For Close Range

In close range ruleset, it adds a bit more interesting lineups which you may not see normally. Usually people won't play too many ranged creatures unless it's keep your distance, going the distance or back to basics as well as this one I'm covering today. Close range ruleset will make it safer to play ranged creatures; it helps cover the huge weakness of not being able to attack in the first position. Some strong cards in this ruleset are Cornealous, Supply Runner, and Naga Assassin. These cards normally wouldn't be able to do anything if they were at the first spot but now they can keep doing damage which is really nice. Usually people like to play to the ruleset and add more ranged creatures so with this in mind, I find Quix to be a good choice as the summoner in this ruleset. I also think water, fire and life elements have good ranged creatures to play in this ruleset.

The Battle

I played this battle on my account, shawnnft. The battle link can be found here. This battle is in diamond modern ranked. The ruleset for this battle was Close Range, Lost Magic and Tis but Scratches. It was a 47 mana cap battle with fire and water element banned.

Discussing My Lineup

Summoner, Quix - I chose Quix due to it being closed range I had a feeling the opponent would try to enjoy the ruleset and play more ranged creatures. In addition to that, there was lost magic which meant the battle would be melee and ranged only. There was a huge chance they would play ranged creatures to do extra damage. The only other alternative would be to play sneak or opportunity but I think there aren't many of these that are good for the mana cap and elements available for this battle.

First Position, Arkemis The Bear - I chose Arkemis The Bear to be my beast frontline tank. This is probably one of the strongest frontline tanks in the game and used a lot in mid-high mana cap battles. It gives awesome utility of giving armor to whole team as well as forcefield for reducing 5 damage and higher to 1 damage. I also like how it's super fast which gives a speed advantage to help dodge as well as attack first which is further multiplied with enrage. Arkemis is also able to halve the attack of the enemy it hits; this is also another amazing ability that I feel is super broken.

Second Position, Carnage Titan - I chose Carnage Titan in this spot to be a reach DPS. It's ideal to have a reach monster here since magic is banned. I needed a secondary tank and melee creature and this was a super solid choice. It also came with shield which halves melee and ranged damage which was pretty much guaranteed since there was lost magic ruleset.

Third Position, Celestial Harpy - The purpose of this card was to be an extra melee damage card. It's a pretty solid 2 mana card that can kill of low health targets and never miss due to the true aim ability. It's also nice that it has flying so it can have luck with a 25% chance to dodge some attacks from melee or ranged attacks.

Fourth Position, Venari Crystalsmith - The purpose of this card was to do ranged damage as well as heal my frontline. It also has a nice dispel to remove any buffs from the enemy team.

Fifth Position, Supply Runner - The main purpose for Supply Runner was to buff the team as well as doing ranged damage. Supply Runner can buff the team by 1 health with strengthen and 1 speed with swiftness. It's a card with super good utility and I like to use it in close range ruleset because of that utility it gives to the team.

Final Position, Prismologist - Prismologist was my main DPS. It does a big whopping 4 damage with blast which is pretty solid. This card was my finisher since it can actually attack in the first spot with close range. I also put it in the back because it has armor as well as forcefield to stop sneak monsters from killing it.

Analysis of The Battle

I think I had a pretty solid lineup. The opponent probably thought I was going to try to play some sneak and opportunity since they had an ever-hungry-skull in the back. It was actually a fairly smart play since there's no magic to one hit KO the hungry skull. Luckily for me, this was a bad prediction on their part which basically made them have 1 monster that couldn't attack until it was the last alive. I only had one opportunity monster so it wasn't that big of a deal. I think this is the main reason why I was able to completely dominate this battle. In the end, I just had more damage and more slid tanks which led me to victory. Quix played a huge role in reducing most of the enemies damage since the opponent played three ranged creatures.

Do I Like Close Range Ruleset?

Yes, I love close range ruleset. It allows us to add more range cards into the battle without the risk of it not being able to attack when it reaches the first position. It's definitely fun to play once in a while to have that nice change up.

Anyways that's all for me this week. Hope to see you again for next week's Battle Mage Secrets!

Thank You

If you made it here, thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. I appreciate the support and I hope you learned something new!

If you are interested in trying Splinterlands please use this link here. If you did use my referal link, let me know in the comment section, I will do my best to help whether that be delegating you cards, sending you cards and teaching you how to play. Once again, thank you so much.

Credits

Photo Banner thumbnail made using Canva
Other photo are screenshots from Splinterland in game