Hi everyone, Welcome to my BATTLE MAGE SECRETS post. BATTLE MAGE SECRETS itself is a replacement for SHARE YOUR BATTLE CHALLENGE, where if SHARE YOUR BATTLE CHALLENGE takes 1 monster as its weekly theme while BATTLE MAGE SECRETS takes 1 Ruleset as its theme. And the theme for this week is...

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

"Only Monsters with Melee Attack may be used in battles."

UP CLOSE & PERSONAL is a Ruleset where only Melee monsters can be used in the battle. But not only Melee monsters, monsters that have 2 attack types (Dual-Attack type monsters) can also be used as long as it has Melee attack as one of their attack types. However, the use of Dual-Attack type monsters also depends on whether there are other rulesets besides UP CLOSE & PERSONAL.

^{(kiri) BROKEN ARROWS ; (kanan) LOST MAGIC}

If there is a BROKEN ARROWS ruleset, then Dual-Attack type monsters that have Melee & Ranged as attack types cannot be used. And if the other ruleset is LOST MAGIC, then Dual-Attack type monsters that have Melee & Magic as attack types cannot be used.

RULESET & FORMATION

In addition to UP CLOSE & PERSONAL, the Ruleset in this battle is...

UNPROTECTED

UNPROTECTED is a ruleset where all monsters' ARMOR is removed. Abilities such as PROTECT, SHATTER, REPAIR, and VOID ARMOR are also useless due to the absence of ARMOR. Because of this, Melee and Ranged monsters (especially those with high ATTACK POWER) have the advantage of being able to hurt the opposing monster directly (without being hindered by ARMOR).

To overcome this Ruleset, we need to use monsters with high ATTACK POWER (as well as Health Points). Another way is to use SHIELD or VOID abilities to reduce the damage received by monsters due to attacks from monsters with high ATTACK POWER.

or

My Line-Up

Cards	Ability	Reason
	- Give a reduction of 1 Attack Power to All Enemies Melee Monsters	Since we are in the UP CLOSE & PERSONAL Ruleset, it is certain that both sides are using Melee monsters. Therefore, I use Camila Sungazer which can reduce 1 ATTACK POWER of all Melee monsters of the opponent. Since Camila Sungazer is a Summoner of Dragon SPLINTER, I can use monsters of DRAGON SPLINTER and monsters of 1 other element.
	SHIELD + VOID	Since ARMOR is not allowed in the UNPROTECTED Ruleset, in order to defend against the opponent's monster attack, I chose TANK which has an Ability that can reduce the impact of the opponent's monster attack. The Chain Golem has 2 abilities that are useful for reducing the impact of the attack (SHIELD and VOID) *why use a monster that has VOID even though it is in UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL? *Because in case the opponent has a Dual-Attack type monster that has Melee and Magic as its attack type (such as Agor Longtail).
	REACH	With a high amount of Health points, Flying Squid is actually used as a replacement TANK if Chain Golem is defeated by the opponent's monster. But in addition to that, Flying Squid has a REACH ability so that he can participate in attacking the opponent's TANK even though he is in the second position
	SNEAK + MARTYR	The main purpose of using and placing Vruz in this position is to draw attention from monsters with OPPORTUNITY abilities. Because of the absence of ARMOR, monsters with the OPPORTUNITY ability can easily defeat their targets in one attack (because they target monsters with the lowest Health points). Vruz is the monster with the first lowest Health and I want to utilize the MARTYR ability he has so that the 2 monsters next to him receive additional stats points when Vruz is defeated by monsters with the OPPORTUNITY ability.
	OPPORTUNITY + WEAPON TRAINING + SHIELD	Kulu Mastermind is the only OPPORTUNITY monster that I brought to the battle this time. Aside from the OPPORTUNITY ability, I chose Kulu Mastermind because it has a SHIELD ability at level 2 that will be useful for blocking attacks from the opponent's Melee monsters if the monster in the position before him is defeated.
	SNEAK + DOUBLE STRIKE	Besides Vruz, Dhampir Infiltrator also has low Health points. But as long as Vruz and/or the last-position monsters have not been defeated, then Dhampir Infiltrator is not in danger. I use Dhampir Infiltrator because his DOUBLE STRIKE ability is useful enough to defeat last-position monsters quickly to make up for his low Attack power.
	SNEAK + FLYING	I put Pelacor Bandit in the last position because it has the FLYING ability. FLYING itself is an ability that can increase the chance to dodge attacks from monsters that don't have the same ability (FLYING).

BATTLE START !!!

The opposing party uses Tarsa as its summoner. Tarsa gives an additional 1 attack power and 1 health point. But because I used Camila Sungazer which gives a reduction of 1 Attack power, the opponent's Melee monster only received an additional 1 Health point.

My opponent also brought Disintregator which has the DEMORALIZE ability, so the Attack power of all my melee monsters was reduced by 1 point.

In the first round, Serpentine Spy briefly attacked Vruz, before he was finally defeated by attacks from my 3 SNEAK monsters (Vruz, Pelacor Bandit, and Dhampir Infiltrator). The second attack of Dhampir Infiltrator hit Disintegrator because Kulu Mastermind had previously defeated Flame Monkey which was the first monster with the lowest Health points from the opponent.

The opponent also brought 1 SHIELD monster (Living Lava) and a REACH monster (Radiated Brute) so we exchanged attacks. The opponent has the upper hand because the Attack power of all my monsters (including Chain Golem and Flying Squid*) gets reduced by 1 point. Living Lava only took 2 points of damage while Chain Golem took 4 points of damage.

In the second round, my 3 SNEAK monsters (Vruz, Pelacor Bandit, and Almost Infiltrator) targeted Disintegrator as their next target. Meanwhile, at the front, Chain Golem and Flying Squid got help from Kulu Mastermind while attacking Living Lava, leaving him with only 2 Health points.

However, Chain Golem was defeated by the attacks from Living Lava and Radiated Brute* and his Health points were not enough to withstand their attacks.

In the third round, Kulu Mastermind managed to defeat Living Lava while my 2 SNEAK monsters (Vruz and Pelacor Bandit) managed to defeat Disintegrator so that the Attack power of all my Melee monsters returned to normal.

That allowed Flying Squid and Hard Infiltrator to attack their respective targets with higher damage.

In the last round, Kulu Mastermind defeated Legionnaire Alvar who didn't contribute anything to the battle from the start. Meanwhile, Radiated Brute was defeated by Flying Squid and one of my SNEAK monsters.

To see the entire battle, you can watch it at >> FULL BATTLE LINK
And this is the challenge link >> CHALLENGE LINK

Review of this battle

The battle this time was a little unexpected because the opponent instead used FIRE SPLINTER. I had predicted that the opponent would use WATER SPLINTER which has many melee monsters with OPPORTUNITY such as Deeplurker and Kulu Mastermind*. I had even prepared Vruz to be defeated in this battle. But until the battle ended, Vruz still survived with 1 HEALTH POINT left.

Serpentine Spy could have also defeated Vruz if the Summoner I used wasn't Camila Sungazer. But because I used her as a Summoner, Serpentine Spy was only given the chance to attack once before being defeated.

That was the post BATTLE MAGE SECRETS for this time. Thank you for visiting and taking the time to read. See you in the next post....

_{Thanks to:}

• @splinterlands
• @thepeakstudio for Dividers