BATTLE MAGE SECRET Weekly Challenge! BACK TO BASICS

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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. There are still a few days left to enter this challenge.

RULESET: BACK TO BASICS

With Back to Basics ruleset, all monsters lose their abilities. But summoner effects are still active.

After battling for very long time, and buying extra energy cause I was having fun I got the Back to Basics ruleset paired up with another ruleset called Wands Out. Let's talk more about it but first take a look at my lineup.

My Lineup

This is my lineup for the battle

Position	Summoner/Monsters
Summoner	Owster Rotwell
Position 1	Cthulhu
Position 2	Magi of Chaos
Position 3	Magi Necrosi
Position 4	Tortisian Chief
Position 5	Darkest Mage
Position 6	Life Sapper

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This was a 36-mana battle and I feel comfortable in this range. Let me remind you that the battle had the following ruleset.

• Wands Out - Only monsters with Magic attacks may be used in battles.

• Back to Basics - Monsters lose all abilities.

All the splinters were active except Fire and Dragon and I went with the Death splinter.

This battle was became very restrictive with Wands out ruleset and since we both knew that only magic attakers will be used I used the Owster Rotwell as my summoner which grants the Magic reflect abilities to all my monsters.

Back to Basics ruleset meant the normal flow of the battle will not be restricted and my monsters at the back would be much safer during this battle. All I had to do was stuff beefier monsters at the front and hope it will take much longer to die.

With that in mind, I used the Cthulhu as my tank. It had ample amount of health (12 hp) and comes with strong magic attack (3 magic attack) but just 1 speed which would have not mattered in this case where only mages were allowed. So, this was a great tank for me.

Magi of Chaos came in the second position, It dealt 2 magic damages and came with 6 health points which was the best I could get. I was banking on Magic reflect ability given by my summoner.

In the next position, I placed the Magi Necrosi, yet another mage, of course. It dealt 2 magic attacks as well but had only 5 health. I knew that my opponent probably going to use Obsidian to deal heavy magic damage and I trusted my magic reflect strategy.

Tortisian Chief came in the next position. It had the similiar stats as Magi of Chaos but costs only 5 mana. So, this was a great addition to my unit.

In the fifth position, I used the Darkest Mage, only costing 2 mana it is one of the cheapest mages in the game. It comes with only 3 health and that's why I placed it at the back of my lineup. Didn't want it to die quickly and I was not afraid of abilities like Sneak, Opportunity etc due to the Back to Basics ruleset.

Last but not least was the Life Sapper although its useful Life Leech ability was inactive during this battle it still had 1 magic attack and I was running out of mana by this time. It was the lowest health monster from my lineup so I had to put it at the end.

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

My Strategy

It was a restrictive battle with only mages allowed during the battle. I banked on the magic reflect ability provided by my summoner, Owster Rotwell.

Also, due to Back to Basics ruleset, I knew that it was much safer at the back of my lineup so I used weaker cards at the back and high health cards at the front of the lineup. Cthulhu played a great role as a tank in this battle with a massive amount of health.

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

Round 1

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As I guessed, my opponent used Obsidian to increase magic attack strength of their units and I was prepared against it and used Owster Rotwell which gave all my monsters the magic reflect ability.

Every monster attacked my tank Cthulhu while my monsters took on Mycelic Slipspawn. Their tank having a little less health and due to damage from magic reflect ability died before mine.

By the end of this round my tank had to go as well. They had a strong magic attack but the magic reflect made my opponent's units much weaker while all my monsters at the back were protected.

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Round 2

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Round 2 was a nightmare for my opponent and saw the demise of 3 more mages. The heavy magic damage backfired during this battle and by the end of round 2 only 2 mages were left with very little health while I had 3 untouched mages on the battlefiled.

The magic reflect ability came in very handly and with more powerful attack they get more damage back.

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Round 3

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My opponent's defeat was inevitable now. At first, the Queen Mycelic got defeated and quickly followed the Goblin Psychic granting me an easy win at the end of this battle. With Back to Basics ruleset, the attack pattern becomes much more predictable and simple.

Conclusion

Back to Basics is an interesting ruleset. It makes the game much simpler and straight forward. The normal flow of the attacks take place which gets much easier to predict. But still a few summoners can disrupt that normal flow and make it harder. I recommend using heavy and beefy units at the start of the battle and as you go far from the front of the lineup use your low health monsters. I had fun playing with this ruleset. Let me know what are your thoughts about the 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 referal link.

Note:

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

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