Welcome everyone 👋, I'm back again with a new post for the Splinterlands Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge!

What is Splinterlands?

Splinterlands is an online collectible card game using blockchain technology. Every card in the game is owned as a non-fungible token (NFT) and is traded using similar features to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. If you’ve ever played collectible trading card games like Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh!, you’ll find a similar experience, but through a web browser and blockchain wallet.

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.

Now let's analyze a high-ranking battle in the Champions League wild format:
Xawi VS Orrkis!

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Keep Your Distance: Monsters with melee attack may not be used in battles.	Equalizer: All monsters start with the same health, based on the highest health on either team.	Born Again: All monsters have the Rebirth ability (each monster will self-resurrect once).

The first player, Xawi, chooses Byzantine Kitty (dragon summoner), one of the strongest and most used summoners. Kitty will give all its units +2 speed and the True Strike ability, meaning its units won't miss any attacks they make, guaranteeing even lower speed units an accurate attack. Additionally, Kitty will use its healing ability to restore one-third of the max health of the allied monster in the first position at the start of each round.

In the frontline position, Chaos Agent who, although it has no attacks, has a 25% chance to evade melee or ranged attacks, and can also dodge magic attacks. Additionally, if an enemy misses their attack on this unit, the attacker will take 2 melee damage.

In the second position, Spirit Hoarder, which will restore one-third of the max health of the backline unit each round. And when this card attacks, it removes all positive status effects on the enemy target. In addition, it will Blind enemies, causing them 15% more likely to miss their attacks.

In the third position, Doctor Blight, a great card that for only 4 mana has 5 abilities. Its attacks have a 50% chance to apply Affliction (cannot be healed) and/or Poison (at the start of each round, it will lose -2 health) to enemies. Aside from that, this card cannot be attacked while on the backline by direct attacks, and gains +1 max health each time a unit is defeated. Additionally, while alive, reduces the health of all enemy monsters by -1.

In the fourth position, Khmer Princess, who will restore one-third of the max health of the frontline and backline unit that has received the most damage each round.

In the fifth position, Grenadier, the first ranged unit in the lineup. Their attacks deal double damage when attacking an enemy who has no attacks or weapons training. And if its a flying monster, snares it, removing its ability to fly. In addition, their attacks deal half damage (rounded up) to units adjacent to the enemy.

In the last position, Naga Assassin, who is the fastest in the lineup. Like its frontline ally, it has the Backfire ability, which deals 2 melee damage to any enemy that misses its attack on this unit. This naga has the Swiftness ability, increasing the speed of allied units by +1.

The second player, Orrkis, also uses Byzantine Kitty as his summoner.

Place Chaos Agent and Grenadier in the same position as his opponent. And he also uses Naga Assassin an Doctor Blight as his opponent, but in different positions.
In the second Position is Elven Mystic, who is very good against magic, reducing the magic attacks of all enemies by 1.
And in the fourth position choose Defender of Truth, which will grant +2 armor to its allies.

Note: All monsters can self-resurrect once.

Round 1:
Defender of Truth and Elven Mystic (Orrkis) destroys ☠️Chaos Agent (Xawi).
☠️Chaos Agent (Orrkis) is defeated first by Grenadier and then by Doctor Blight (Xawi).
Doctor Blight (Orrkis) destroys ☠️Spirit Hoarder (Xawi).

Round 2:
Defender of Truth (Orrkis) destroys the resurrected ☠️Spirit Hoarder (Xawi).
☠️Elven Mystic (Orrkis) is defeated first by Grenadier and then by Doctor Blight (Xawi).

Round 3:
☠️Naga Assassin (Orrkis) is defeated by Grenadier.
Grenadier and Doctor Blight (Orrkis) destroys ☠️Doctor Blight (Xawi).

Round 4:
Grenadier and Doctor Blight (Orrkis) destroys ☠️Khmer Princess (Xawi).
The resurrected ☠️Naga Assassin (Orrkis) is defeated by Grenadier (Xawi).

Round 5:
Grenadier and Doctor Blight (Orrkis) destroys ☠️Grenadier (Xawi).

Round 6:
Grenadier and Doctor Blight (Orrkis) ends the battle by destroying☠️Naga Assassin (Xawi).

Watch on Splinterlands

Since the unit with the highest health was Doctor Blight, the Equalizer ruleset made all monsters start at 4 health.

This battle was very similar as both players used almost the same monsters in their lineup, some of them in the same position. But the difference was 2 monsters on each side, which changed the course of the battle.
Elven Mystic's silence ability and the 3 magic damage that Defender of Truth had on Orrkis' team this time worked better than the two magic healing units that only had 1 damage each on Xawi's team. Orrkis won the battle with 3 monsters alive.

MVP

Doctor Blight 0.png

Doctor Blight with a 5 kill streak

There is a movie with the same name as the ruleset: Keep Your Distance, which is about a talk show host (David) and a drug saleswoman (Melody) who get caught up in several scandals, including their own.