This week's Battle Mage Secrets challenge features the Melee Mayhem ruleset! This is one for all you fans of hand to hand combat out there - in Melee Mayhem battles, monsters with melee attacks can attack from any position. Though as it happens, our battle for today has a little bit of everything: shiny gold foil cards, a high stakes brawl battle, and a nail-bitingly close finish!
Before we get into the battle, a few words about the featured ruleset for this week. As I just mentioned, Melee Mayhem allows all melee monsters to attack regardless of their spot in the lineup. As you may expect, this is a huge boon for melee monsters - their biggest drawback is that under normal conditions they can only attack from the front position. In these fights, you can even place them all the way at the back of your team and still benefit from their attacks. Couple that with the fact that melee monsters tend to have more stats for their cost relative to ranged or magic attackers, and you have the perfect recipe for a lineup full of melee monsters.
If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!
Here are the rules for our battle. Of course, we have Melee Mayhem, which will allow melee monsters to attack from any position. We also have Counterspell, which gives every monster Magic Reflect, and Heavy Hitters, which gives every monster Knock Out. To go along with those rules we have 31 mana to work with, and 4 splinters to choose from. One final note - this is a gold foil brawl battle, which means that a Gladiator card is allowed, and that card selection is a bit more limited than usual due to the foil requirement.
Given the ruleset which included not only Melee Mayhem but also Counterspell, it seemed unlikely that my opponent would be bringing much (if any) magic damage into the battle. Kelya Frendul is a great summoner to use in this situation, since her armor buff will help to protect our monsters against physical damage, and her additional speed will gives us an additional dodge (or hit) chance.
I started off my team with Alva the Crusher. Alva is great in battles where you are expecting plenty of physical attacks - she has a decent amount of armor and health, as well as the very useful Shield ability. Hardy Stonefish was up next as a filler monster - it could attack from the second position thanks to Melee Mayhem, and also soak up a hit or two in order to protect some of the monsters further back in my lineup.
Coral Sentry was the heavy hitter on my team. With 3 melee attack as well as Double Strike, that got me a very respectable 6 damage per turn coming out of the third position on my team. Merdaali Guardian was my healer, and my hope was that she would be able to give Alva the Crusher some valuable support over the course of the battle.
I threw in a second support monster towards the back of my team with Swamp Spitter. Swamp Spitter's Repair ability should come in handy against any physical damage from the opposing team, and Swamp Spitter can even pitch in some ranged damage at the same time! I closed out my lineup with Chaos Agent, who was there to serve as a buffer against any Sneak or Opportunity attackers that my opponent may choose to bring into the battle.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am not sure what to think. My opponent has also chosen a team using Kelya which is heavy on melee attackers, though there are a few key differences. I went with a heavy frontal attack led by Coastal Sentry, while they went with an Opportunity attacker in Deep Lurker. And where my defensive package included double recovery monsters, they instead opted for a single Repair coupled with Disintegrator's Demoralize ability.
Thanks to both of us bringing Alva with her Shield ability, as well as plenty of recovery options, this battle starts off rather slowly. My team is slowly winning the battle at the front - my monster's attacks are managing to net a single point of damage each turn. But while they are at it, the enemy Deeplurker is nibbling away at the back of my team. By the start of round 5 my Hardy Stonefish has fallen and Chaos Agent has taken some armor damage, but my team is beginning to make some progress on the enemy Alva.
The battle progresses incredibly slowly. By round 10 my team has finally managed to knock the enemy Alva out of the battle. But it has come at a steep cost - my Merdaali Guardian has fallen as well, and the enemy Deeplurker is poised to finish off my Swamp Spitter, the last remaining recovery monster on my side of the battlefield. On the other hand, with the enemy Alva out of the way, the rest of the opposing team is a significantly easier target, and my Coastal Sentry is still at full health.
It actually ended up coming down to a photo finish. By the beginning of round 17(!?!), both teams were on their last legs. My Coastal Sentry was just barely hanging on with a single point of health left, and the enemy Disintegrator was sticking around with heavy damage. Luckily, my Coastal Sentry's superior speed and Double Strike ability allowed it to close out the victory. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
My strategy for this battle ended up being enough to win the incredibly close fight. My double recovery monsters and Coastal Sentry offense were just barely enough to pull off the victory and earn me and my guild some much needed points in the brawl standings. My opponent and I both selected some very potent teams for this ruleset. What happens when you do that? Well, you get a very entertaining battle!
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:
Hitting the Range - Battling with Target Practice! - A Splinterlands battle analysis, featuring Target Practice!
Splinterlands Economics: Causation - A look at causation, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
Splinterlands Economics: Ceteris Paribus - An introduction to the concept of Ceteris Paribus, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
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All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.