Hello everyone, welcome 👋, this is my second entry for the Splinterlands Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge!

In this challenge, I'll show you one of my battles using some beautiful rented alpha cards while the Keep Your Distance ruleset is active.

This week, the ruleset we have to introduce for this challenge is the Keep Your Distance ruleset, which prohibits any monster that has a melee attack in battle, so only ranged, magic or non-attack monsters are allowed. What I like about this ruleset is that we don't have to worry as much about sneak monsters since they are mostly melee. And keep in mind that monsters with 2 attack types that include melee cannot be played.

Against Magic!

Silence	Enemy magic monsters will lose -1 magic attack, but not less than 1.
Magic Reflect	Any damage made to the monster with magic attacks will return half the magic damage back (rounded up) to the attacker.
Void	The monster takes reduced damage from magic attacks by 50%(rounded up), except attack 1 which deals 0 damage.
Void Armor	Magic attacks hit the monster's armor before its health.
Phase	The monster can dodge magic attacks, with the same chance as if they were melee or ranged attacks.

Against Ranged!

Headwinds	Enemy ranged monsters will lose -1 ranged attack, but not less than 1.
Return Fire	Any damage made to the monster with ranged attacks, will return half the ranged damage back (rounded up) to the attacker.
Shield	The monster will take reduced damage from ranged attacks by 50% (rounded up), except attack 1 which deals 0 damage.

The Magic Reflect and/or Return Fire ability are usually combined with the Amplify ability, increasing the damage of those abilities by +1.

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To counter them you can use monsters with the Reflection Shield, since they do not take damage from those abilities, and will also protect the monster from the Blast ability.

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It is now very common to use monsters with the Weapons Training ability to grant attack to monsters that lack any type of attack, which I really like since there is more creativity when choosing our lineup.

To get rid of enemy monsters that have no attack or are boosted by the Weapons Training ability faster, monsters with the Oppress ability are great as they deal double damage to those units.

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In addition to the Keep Your Distance ruleset, ranged monsters can attack in the first position. And the damage of Magic Reflect, Return Fire, and Thorns will be increased by 1 due to the Amplify ruleset.

	Since the mana for this battle is low, I need to spend it wisely, so I choose Selenia Sky as my summoner since she only costs 3 mana. I will also be able to use dragon element cards and all my ranged monsters will have +1 ranged attack which will be very useful.
	In first position, my trusty Furious Chicken, very good since it doesn't cost mana, but unfortunately in this battle it will be defeated with a single enemy attack since I didn't put any protection on it.
	In second position, Kra'ar Xoc, who I think is a wise snake and like my chicken it cannot attack, but every time an enemy is defeated it will gain 1 max health thanks to its Scavenger ability.
	In third position, Gold Dragon, which can fly, has a 25% chance to evade melee and ranged attacks from non-flying monsters. It will also restore one-third of its max health each round, and its attacks will deal half damage (rounded up) to units adjacent to the target unit.
	In fourth position, Crustacean King, this friendly crab will restore one-third of max health to the friendly ally in first position each round. This crab's attack will be boosted by the effect of Selenia.
	And in fifth position, Halfling Alchemist, one of the few units that has the Halving ability, which allows each time this monster hits a target, the target's attack is cut in half (rounded down). This ability cannot be stacked.

Round 1:
Enemy Highland Archer defeats my ☠️Furious Chicken.

Round 2:
Enemy Highland Archer defeats ☠️Kra'ar Xoc.

Round 3:
Enemy☠️Death elemental is destroyed by Gold Dragon's Blast ability.
Enemy☠️Lord Arianthus is destroyed by Halfling Alchemist.

Round 4:
Gold Dragon destroys Enemy☠️Undead Archer.
Crustacean King ends the battle by destroying ☠️Highland Archer.

Watch on Splinterlands

I almost lost this battle because my Gold Dragon was quickly affected by the Poison, but thanks to its self-healing and the king crab's healing, it was able to survive. Selenia as my summoner, who increased the damage of my ranged monsters by 1 was crucial in this battle, since if not for that, the enemy Lord Arianthus would have received 0 damage from my ranged units.